North Adams Notes 6-13-2001

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On the low wooded mountain that bounds much of North Adams on its north side sits a historic cemetery which I had seen on boyhood hikes but long since forgotten. Forgotten until I received an invitation to attend a memorial service Sunday, June 10. The Ahab-Ruth Hill Memorial Association conducts the memorial service every year. This year it included reading poems written by ancestors, the raising of the American flag, the singing of “Amazing Grace” and remembering the recently deceased. The cemetery is located in what the city would call the North Veazie Street Extension but what the locals and most association members call Old Military Road, said association president Larry Jones. “It’s a family cemetery. It actually goes all the way back to Ahab Hill, [who] back in the 1700s, came here from Rhode Island with his wife, and they had a big farm up here,” Jones said. “Ahab passed away and was buried in the pasture, and then when his wife died she designated in her will that a quarter-acre be set aside as a family burial plot, and so they’re buried here.” At that time the landscape was different, with a lot of family homes that are now gone. But in 1920 the family got together and created an association to oversee and take care of the cemetery. The association’s been meeting ever since, he said. The association had fallen behind a bit after several decades, and in 1984 family members met and elected officers again. “So we’ve met continuously every single year since 1984, and we’ve restored quite a bit of the cemetery, with the headstones and replacing flagpoles,” Jones said. “We’ve restored most of the stones up here that were broken and been able to put them back together. A lot were cleaned. “We’ve been able to go through and identify with these little wooden markers most of the people that are buried here that we could find records of,” Jones said. The layout of the cemetery they found in 1984 was mostly written on a brown paper bag, he added. Some relatives have elected to be buried at the cemetery in recent years, Jones said. “We come up every year. We do a memorial service up here, and then we usually have a family picnic,” he said. Ahab Hill, who died in 1835 at age 63, came from Providence, R.I. and Ruth, who died in 1857 at age 83, came from Lancashire, England. “Ahab, his mother was an Indian. When he married Ruth, her family disowned her because of that,” Jones said. “They came up here and ... out of all the children they had, they had eight daughters that survived.” “Eight daughters survived, and each one had children,” he said. “There’s a few we don’t know anything about,” said Ruth Pytko, association treasurer. “We don’t know what happened to them.” She noted that Ahab and Ruth Hill came to the area in 1800. The name Ruth has been passed onto to girls in the family through the years. “Most every generation had a Ruth,” she said. Jones grew up in North Adams on West Shaft Road. His great-great-grandfather lived on Myers Avenue and his son lived on Myers Avenue, which is just a little bit down the mountain from the cemetery. The family used to gather in that area after the memorial services to have a picnic, Jones said. “About five years ago we started going to the Clarksburg field. We never knew how many people were coming, and sometime we’d get lucky and ... over a hundred people would show up,” Jones said, noting that some people go to the picnic but not the memorial service. Sometimes people come from as far away as Florida and Virginia. This year’s attendees included a newcomer, a young man. “He started doing his family history, and actually went to the Berkshire Athenaeum, we had a book there registered,” Jones said. “He started going through it, and that’s how he found his family ties up here.” The association raises money internally for upkeep of the cemetery, with voluntary dues of $5 per year and an auction at the picnic, just to raise enough to pay the taxes and mow the lawn. Jones’s aunt, Priscilla Daniels, 85, of North Adams, is the eldest person in the association. Her mother and father and other relatives are buried in the cemetery. “We’re mostly all related, one way or another,” she said. She calculated that since Ahab Hill there have been six generations. She grew up in one of the houses that once stood in the area. “I spent a lot of days up around here,” she said with a laugh. “Yeah, I spent many years up around here, way up in the woods.” Ruth Pytko, who lives in North Adams, is treasurer of the association. She lived in Adams as a child; after her mother’s marriage her mother didn’t often visit the cemetery. “So I really didn’t get involved with this until 1984. I didn’t even know that some of these people were related to me until then,” he said. “I’m kind of a newcomer.”
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McCann Recognizes Superintendent Award Recipient

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

Landon LeClair and Superintendent James Brosnan with Landon's parents Eric and Susan LeClair, who is a teacher at McCann. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Superintendent's Award has been presented to Landon LeClair, a senior in McCann Technical School's advanced manufacturing course. 
 
The presentation was made last Thursday by Superintendent Jame Brosnan after Principal Justin Kratz read from teachers' letters extolling LeClair's school work, leadership and dedication. 
 
"He's become somewhat legendary at the Fall State Leadership Conference for trying to be a leader at his dinner table, getting an entire plate of cookies for him and all his friends," read Kratz to chuckles from the School Committee. "Landon was always a dedicated student and a quiet leader who cared about mastering the content."
 
LeClair was also recognized for his participation on the school's golf team and for mentoring younger teammates. 
 
"Landon jumped in tutoring the student so thoroughly that the freshman was able to demonstrate proficiency on an assessment despite the missed class time for golf matches," read Kratz.
 
The principal noted that the school also received feedback from LeClair's co-op employer, who rated him with all fours.
 
"This week, we sent Landon to our other machine shop to help load and run parts in the CNC mill," his employer wrote to the school. LeClair was so competent the supervisor advised the central shop might not get him back. 
 
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