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Tory Glen on October Mountain
This was the farm of a determined loyalist, Gideon Smith, an early settler of Stockbridge, when Captain Biddle led out the Lenox Minute-men after Lexington. He was a special thorn in the side of the patriots, who had many Tories to deal with, and lay concealed in his own house for weeks. It is said he required his children to pass before a certain crevice every day, that he might see that they were safe and well. Discovered in harboring a British prisoner-of-war, he fled to Tory Glen, a wild gorge on October Mountain. Indian friends protected him from the vigi lance committee, and brought food to his rocky cavern, over which dashed Roaring Brook. An enchanting road to Tory Glen winds through New Lenox of rich farm lands past the Gothic St. Helena Chapel, set in this lovely spot at the foot of Washington Mountain by the Hon. John E. Parsons in memory of his daughter. One lingers beneath the grateful shade of roadside elms to drink in the glorious outline of the Saddle of noble Greylock, across checkered fields of waving grain. Berkshire is famous for its rural festivals; the Ice-Glen Procession at Stockbridge and the Tub Parade at Lenox may claim first place in point of seniority over our American rural pageants, says Mrs. Burton Harrison. The Gymkhana of 1904, arranged by the Berkshire Hunt and held on the green arena of " Tanglewood " (the Tappan-Richard E. Dixey estate), was an international play-day at Lenox. Among those participating in the brilliant games on horseback were Sir Mortimer Durand, members of his suite, and Baron von dem Bussche. The gay Tub Parade has been displaced by the run of the Berkshire Hunt, and the horse-show at " Highlawn Farm." When the first frost sets the blood racing, and the fox-hounds and pink coats are out, snatches of an old hunting ballad on the Greenwood dance in the brain, as sung at West Riding in Yorkshire:
' Let's go to the greenwood,' said Richard a Robin ..." The refrain runs thus in Derbyshire:
"' Let 's go a-hunting,' says Robin to Bobbin,
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