Steps to the Summit

In March of 2024 I flew to Boston, picked up my nineteen-year-old son from college, and headed west on Route 2 on our way to New York City for a few days of spring break fun. I laid down one condition in driving from Boston to New York—that was to stop for a day in the Franklin County town of Shelburne Falls. While I had spent many Junes and Julys as a child in the tiny Berkshire village, I hadn’t spent any time at all there during the late winter and early spring. The weather was forecasted to be warm enough for outdoor activities and so I suggested we hike to the Fire Tower—Uncle Roy’s tower—on top of Mt. Massamet. Two thousand steps up from the Mohawk Trail, this stone beacon has stood watch over the valley below for one hundred fifteen years. 

Mt. Massamet, at times called East Mountain or sometimes Bald Mountain, has long served as a magnet to the people of Shelburne Falls and the surrounding areas. Before any towers were built at the top, young people would climb an old pine tree at the summit into which they had driven spike steps in order to enjoy the spectacular five-state view from the top. As far back as 1860, students from Shelburne Falls Academy would venture up on the slopes for recreation. At least two previous towers, both wooden, had been built in the nineteenth century, beckoning visitors to enjoy the tremendous scenery. One had burned down, the other was blown down in a ferocious autumn storm in November, 1898. Townspeople immediately made plans to raise a stronger, more permanent structure at the summit for recreational use. Fundraisers were held in the form of theater performances, including a minstrel show in 1899 that raised more than two hundred fifty dollars towards the ultimate eighteen hundred dollar cost.

While the tower fund had been started immediately following the destruction of the previous structure in 1898, it wouldn’t be until 1907 that actual plans started to take form to get a new tower built. In the spring of 1907, my grandmother Alice Merrill speculated in a letter to brother Philip, “There will probably be a tower built this summer. Mr. William M. Pratt of Greenfield has given $500 toward it and they have something over $1100 toward it now.” With that large donation from the Greenfield, Massachusetts businessman and former Shelburne Falls resident, plans could move forward at last.

There was talk of a steel structure, but the logistics and expense of hauling the supplies to the summit were a concern. In the spring of 1907, the idea of a stone structure was proposed. While it was announced in the local paper in August, 1907 that local stone mason and contractor George G. Merrill had secured the contract and would erect the stone tower for the sum of $1500, the project never started that year, nor the following either. My great uncle Roy Merrill observed in May, 1908 in a letter to brother Philip, “They are talking some here about a stone tower and I think that one will be built soon, probably this summer. It would be kind of a mean place to get materials up to.” There was in fact mention that spring within the Merrill family that G. G. Merrill, “will have the tower on his hands this summer.”  By July, Roy wrote again to Philip, “We don’t hear much about the tower at S. Falls. They have about $1500 or $1600 raised but it will be pretty expensive hauling stuff up there.” The project, however, remained stalled for unknown reasons. By August of 1908, G.G. Merrill, then seventy-two years old, was thrown from his team of horses, breaking his collarbone and suffering bruising to his head and hip; it seemed unlikely that when the tower project moved forward, he would be the one to construct it.

In February of 1909 fundraisers continued. In April, the contract to build a stone tower on Mt. Massamet was again awarded—this time to Roy Merrill, youngest son of G.G. Merrill. This was a major step onward and upward for Roy, who had lost one eye and damaged the other significantly just two and a half years earlier in a dynamite accident. His determination for the Merrill family to build the tower persevered and seemed to fuel his productivity on the project. It was determined that the granite for the project could be quarried at the summit and only the sand and other supplies for the concrete mortar were required to be hauled to the site, with the closest supply of sand five miles away. 

Roy Merrill in 1902

It would take an estimated four to five months to complete. Frank Merrill returned to his family’s native town from Wisconsin to collaborate with his cousin in designing the tower. Roy Merrill took inspiration from the tower at his alma mater, Dartmouth College, when designing the stone structure at Shelburne Falls. In July, construction began and Roy became a seasoned mountain climber.

In starting our hike to the summit on that muddy March day one hundred fifteen years later, I mentioned to my son that the current Fire Tower Trail begins on the east side of the Mohawk Trail at Halligan Avenue, directly behind the Merrill family homestead where Roy lived in 1909. This trailhead is on what was, in 1909, Merrill family land. As we climbed the uneven, rocky terrain infested with granite boulders, I imagined each day Roy making the trek. While he sometimes remained at the summit overnight, Roy most often made the roundtrip hike daily. Roy’s mother Emma remarked in a 1909 letter to sister-in-law Olive Spellman, “It is a very hard piece of work. He is very thin and his back is about broken climbing the old mountain. Hope he will be able to endure as he has wanted the Merrills to build it.” Roy describes first hand the conditions and building process in a letter to brother Philip in August, 1909.

I am busy up in the hill making the tower. We are up now about eight or ten feet, but we will undoubted make better progress this week. I have had Fred Woodward drilling and sons or eight other devils at work. 2 on the wall, 2 tenders, two one horse teamsters and others in quarry and other work. It is quite a task to put it up. The sand especially is pretty heavy stuff to put up the hill. But four horses are putting up about 80 or 90 hundred weight. I have bought a tent, and sleep up there some nights. I have to work pretty hard although I haven’t done much manual work, I wish I could be on the wall more.

By December, the tower had been fully raised to a height of sixty feet, eight feet in diameter inside, with walls three feet thick at the base, tapering to two and a half feet thick at the top. All that remained was the installation of the stairs, originally planned to be three sets of wooden steps connected by three steel-reenforced concrete landings. With money enough instead to pay for fireproof concrete steps connected by the concrete landings, the final touches of construction were completed in the spring of 1910, with the tower officially open and accessible to all by early June.

Just as the stone tower at Dartmouth College replaced a lone pine tree serving as a beacon calling the young Ivy League students to gather around it, the stone tower on top of Mt. Massamet looms tall and proud replacing the original pine tree lookout and beckoning hikers to celebrate its views. At 1690 feet above sea level, the circular structure serves as a testament to its builder and to those who so ardently promoted its construction. At one-hundred fifteen years old, it is as solid as when it was first built, likely to stand for centuries to come.

As my son and I stumbled our way down the steep western slope of the mountain, falling more than once on the slippery gray granite boulders, we came closer to knowing Uncle Roy. While I can in no way take credit for the achievements of my long-gone family, I am most certainly inspired by the projects they accomplished, so many still visible in western Massachusetts. I am driven to make sure their names continue to be known in this town they loved so much. Yes, Roy Stanley Merrill was here and here he remains standing sentinel over Shelburne Falls.