WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A granite installation in Bloedel Park next to the town's new traffic rotary honors the area's first residents and caps an effort that began five years ago.

 

The large granite wall across from the Store at Five Corners is adorned with emblems inspired by the symbols that decorate baskets of the Mohican people. It provides a testament to the presence of the ancestors of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, who, thousands of years ago, lived in the land now known as Berkshire County.

 

The black and red images of a leaf and bear claw are accompanied by an interpretive panel telling part of the story of the native people who fought with the Americans in their Revolutionary War and later were forcibly removed from the area in the late 18th century. 

 

Today, the Mohican people persist with nearly 1,600 enrolled members on or near a reservation in Wisconsin.

 

But the Stockbridge-Munsee Community has never lost its connection to its ancestral home, and, in the last decade, more of the area's contemporary residents have worked to recognize that link.

 

Bette Craig thought the then-planned roundabout would offer an opportunity to highlight that historic link.

 

"It all started in 2021 when MassDOT was having a Zoom meeting to tell the local community about it and get feedback and so forth," Craig said on Thursday. "At the time, I was the president of the South Williamstown Community Association. I was saying things about [the proposed project], and one of the community people listening was Polly Macpherson, who I knew from the League of Women Voters.