Five Villages-One Town
Most towns, whether in New England or elsewhere, are founded,
named, grow, expand, age and ripen into maturity and retain the original names
throughout. Montague, however, was
different - unique. Confusing to the uninitiated are the five villages
which are the single town of Montague. The village names of Montague City,
Montague Center, Turners Falls, Millers Falls and Lake Pleasant are readily
explained. But why the town should have been named Montague in the first place
can only be conjectured.
The town itself and the village, site of the first settlement in the
town, was named after Capt. William Montague, an English sea captain. Capt.
Montague was commander of the ship "Mermaid" at the first capture of
Louisburg in 1745, seven years prior to the incorporation and naming of the
town and 27 years after the first settlers arrived in Montague. The Montague
for whom the town was named made his fame during the French & Indian Wars.
There seems to be no reason why the town was named for him, unless it might be
the fact that his father, Richard Montague, was one of 59 settlers of the town
of Hadley, from which Sunderland, and later, Montague, sprang. Edward
Richard Montague, the Viscount of Hinchenbroke and lord lieutenant of the County
of Huntingdon, England, was a grandson of Edward, the third earl of Sandwich.
He was a descendant of Norman Drago de-Monteacuto, a nobleman during the era
of William the Conqueror. One of Capt. Montague's brothers, Peter, was in
the famous Falls Fight in 1676, as was Richard's son-in-law, Martha's husband,
who was killed. Peter represented Hadley in the General Court four terms.
Another of William's brothers, John, was engaged in the battle to drive the
Pocumtuck Indians from Deerfield in 1704. Thus it can be seen the Montagues
were a hardy pioneer family and known widely through the area. Perhaps it was
to honor the family and for no other reason that the town of Montague derived
its name.
Montague City, the second of the villages to be settled, was named after
the mother town. "City" was added by a band of Germans who settled in
that location when a system of canals was proposed by the proprietors of the
Upper Locks & Canals. The residents were so certain the canal would mean a
tremendously steady economy they believed their small settlement would in a
short time develop into a city. That, as history records, never came to pass.
Millers Falls, known as Grout's Corner for a number of years, gained its
present name when the Millers Falls Company settled there in 1868. The original
name, Grout's Corner, was derived from first settler Benjamin Grout, who built
a home there about 1850.
Turners Falls, largest of the villages today, was settled first in 1867,
with the river and attendant system of canals and locks the prize attraction.
It was not, however, until a few men realized the value of water power
harnessed to turn machines - that the place was settled. Rev. E. Hitchcock is
said to have given the village its name, after Capt. William Turner, leader of
the colonists who destroyed hundreds of Pocumtuck Indians at the site of the
rapids, now the location of the Western Massachusetts Electric Company dam on
the Connecticut River. Over the years the apostrophe, which was intended to
make the name Turner's Falls, was dropped and the village has been known as
Turners Falls since.
Last of the villages to be settled was Lake Pleasant. About 1870, it
was not designed as a settlement but as a resort area. First attention was
drawn to the lake area when George W. Potter of Greenfield acquired land near
the present railroad station and established a crude picnic area. Potter's
picnic grounds were located in a quiet grove of shade trees and the first
formal gathering was for an old folks group from Greenfield. Within the
next four years the settlement of "Pleasant Lake" became a place for
political and temperance conventions, as well as for holiday outings. The site
gained considerable importance after Potter sold to the railroad in 1872. The
railroad constructed a dancing pavilion and railroad station. For purposes of
advertising, the railroad reversed the name of the spot from Pleasant Lake to
Lake Pleasant.
And so came about the settlement of five villages within the town, each
settled for a definite purpose and each separate from all other villages - and
yet, each a part of a whole.
By Brad Councilman - Town of Montague Selectman as it appeared in the
January 1998 edition of The
Lake Hitchcock Times. |
