MOUNT WASHINGTON NEWS:
Mount Everett (2,602’), Town of Mount Washington, MA. Mount Everett State Reservation rates extremely high on the list of the world's “Last Great Places”. Photograph by Judy Isacoff
Town of Mount Washington’s ring of summits — two State Forest Reserves high on list of ‘Last Great Places’ | May 28, 2024 | by Judy Isacoff | The Berkshire Edge
The center of the Town of Mount Washington, Mass. is at the base of Mount Everett (2,602 feet), the highest summit of nine that ring the village on the Taconic Plateau, a sub-range of the Appalachian Mountains that run from Newfoundland to Alabama. A non-commercial settlement, the third least populous in the state, a town hall and church mark its center. The Town of Mount Washington is carved out of the most intact forest ecosystem in southern New England.
Mount Everett summit with foreground ridge, November 29, 2018. Photograph © Judy Isacoff.
Thinking like a mountain, the Town of Mount Washington launches Landscape and Forest Stewardship initiative | February 3, 2024 | by Judy Isacoff | The Berkshire Edge
The Town of Mount Washington, on the South Taconic Plateau, is nestled within magnificent forest preserves. Mount Washington State Forest, Mount Everett State Reservation, and Bash Bish Falls State Park are irreplaceable parts of the most intact forest ecosystem in southern New England. “The forests of the Berkshire and Taconic Highlands of Western Massachusetts link the Green Mountains of Vermont to the Hudson Highlands of New York, creating a connected corridor of habitat for [plants and] wide-ranging species such as black bear, moose and bobcat … Forest cores like these often overlap with critical wetlands surrounding streams and rivers, all of which are some of the most resilient to climate change.” Go to The Nature Conservancy’s Berkshire Wildlife Linkage of the Appalachians website to learn more.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
~ March 21, 2026: Our long-time Mt. Washington residents and raconteurs, Bobbie Hallig and Wally Crowell, will share their memories in the first of our oral history viewings for this year.
Mount Washington Town Hall, 2 Plantain Road, 4:00pm – 5:30pm; refreshments will be served.
~ April 11, 2026: Writer, professor and researcher, Julie Dobrow, whose work focuses on biography and history, as well as teaching at Tufts University, will discuss her recently published book, Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage (NYU Press). Drawing from extensive primary research, Dobrow tells the story of Elaine Goodale, a white woman from Mount Washington, and Charles Alexander Eastman, a Santee Dakota who went to Dartmouth College and the Boston University School of Medicine, against the dramatic backdrop of Wounded Knee.
Mount Washington Town Hall, 2 Plantain Road, 3:00pm – 5:00pm; refreshments will be served.
~ May 16, 2026: Author and retired Special Education teacher, Dan Haas, who has lived in Copake, NY since 1988, will discuss his recently published book, South Taconic Tales, which traces the Taconic history from 450 million years ago to the 20th century. Haas will welcome discussion on any aspects of the fascinating history of the mountains bounded by New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut – sculpted by several ice ages, claimed by forests and then by humans 12,000 years ago, transformed by the iron industry, and in the 19th and 20th centuries home to summer boarding houses and hiking trails.
Hosted in partnership with the Council on Aging, Mount Washington Town Hall, 2 Plantain Road, 3:00pm – 5:00pm; refreshments will be served.
~ July 4, 2026: A celebration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, hosted in partnership with the Town of Mount Washington and the Mount Washington Historical Commission, with special activities for the Town children; additional details will be forthcoming soon.
PAST EVENTS:
~ The history of Mount Washington’s summer boarding houses, hosted at Pennyroyal Arms
~ Annual Cemetery Walking Tours (Cross Road, City Hall aka Alander, and Ann Lee aka Old Burial Grounds)
~ A “class” in our 1868 single-room school house sharing its history and displaying some of the remaining original school books
~ Oral history viewings (recollections of life on the mountain and family stories recorded by a growing list of our Mount Washington residents)
~ The history of the Mohican’s trail through Mount Washington, shared by a local historian
~ New member welcome events