Connecticut Miscellany by Faude Wilson H.;

Author:Faude, Wilson H.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE CURIOUS MONUMENT ON AVON MOUNTAIN

Talcott Mountain is the name given to the thirteen-mile ridge of trap rock that makes up the Metacomet Ridge, which extends from Long Island Sound near New Haven through the Connecticut River Valley and on to the Vermont border. The section crossed by Albany Avenue, U.S. 44, west of West Hartford is locally known as Avon Mountain. When one is driving west on Albany Avenue and crosses the summit of the ridge, then begins the descent into Avon, on the western edge there is suddenly a curious monument. Comprising six tapered Quincy polished gray granite blocks, its base is seventy-six feet across the face, thirty-one feet deep and stands over twelve feet high. Above the center is a three-foot bronze medallion with a portrait head of a man in bas-relief. It is encircled with the inscription: “Pioneer of Highways—James Henry MacDonald.” Hundreds drive by the monument daily. Who was MacDonald, and why was the monument placed there?

James MacDonald was born in New Haven in 1851. In 1895, he was appointed to the state’s original highway commission. In 1897, he became Connecticut’s first one-man commission, a post he held until 1913. The New Haven Journal-Courier reported in 1933 that he was “one of the first national prophets of the present automobile era. His services began when the gas-buggy was only a dare-devil’s plaything, when Henry Ford was tinkering with bicycles, when the carriage-driver used to climb out and turn away his steed’s head as one of the snorting, fuming, clanking monsters exploded past.”

MacDonald established the original trunk roads that ran through every town in the state. He advocated before town meetings that good roads were essential to the growth and prosperity of the state. Commissioner John A. Macdonald remembered that James H. MacDonald was “a pioneer of highways in this and many other states. I recall as a boy seeing him drive his Pope-Hartford car through my town, officially known as ‘The Pioneer’ but more affectionately as ‘Betsy,’ and after having been driven over 100,000 miles, finally burned up in the vicinity of Barkhamsted.”

In 1931, the state established a James H. MacDonald Memorial Commission to erect a suitable tablet “in commemoration of the engineering achievements of James H. MacDonald, former state highway commissioner, as a pioneer in the development of highways.” The five-acre site on Avon Mountain was purchased from Joseph W. Alsop. It was selected as MacDonald considered the development of that stretch of road to be one of his “most important achievements.” According to the Hartford Courant, he saw the section as an “open door” over Avon Mountain to northwestern Connecticut, the Berkshires and New York State. Before it was improved by Commissioner MacDonald, the road had a 25 percent grade in sections that could be surmounted only with the greatest difficulty. He personally reviewed the terrain and chose the places where the most grade changes could be achieved for the lowest cost. He had the highway blasted out of solid rock to a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.