Follow the road along the Hoosic River and the railroad tracks, and you’ll come to a foot bridge where the Appalachian Trail crosses the river, and nearby an almost art deco brick building still bears the name of the Blackinton Mill.
A hundred years ago, this was the center of a village within North Adams, and the mill was churning out woolens and uniforms for the union army. According to Historic North Adams, many of the families who worked and wove here were originally Welsh.
For centuries before and after that, this has been a well-traveled river valley. The Hoosic runs north, from the ridges east of us through this corner of Massachusetts, into Vermont and finally through the Taconics to the watershed of the broad river to the west, the Mahicannituck which gives the Mohican people their name. Today they live in many parts of the country, many of them in Wisconsin, and the tidal river to the west is often called the Hudson.
