Belcher was Massachusetts born; while
Shirley, though British born, became one of the ablest and most
successful of all the colonial governors of Massachusetts. The building
of Fort Shirley in 1744 and the naming it after the new Governor, as
well as the building a little later of the two forts to the
westward,--Fort Pelham in Rowe and Fort Massachusetts in what is now
North Adams,--all within a couple of miles of the new boundary line,
showed a concern of the colony for its now greatly curtailed northern
limits, as well as a much greater concern for the defence of the
scattered settlements west of the Connecticut river from the French and
Indians, who had several well-trod war-paths to the English settlements
on the Connecticut and the Deerfield.
But, after all, the route by the Hoosac River had been and continued the
main path from Canada to New England for the French and their savage
Indian allies. Whether they came down the Hudson to the mouth of the
Hoosac at Schaghticoke, or struck that river on the flank at Eagle
Bridge, there was a well-beaten trail--the old Mohawk trail--along the
north bank of that river all the way from Schaghticoke to what is now
North Adams; and, in continuation of that river trail, the "old Indian
path" over the Hoosac Mountain, directly over the line of the present
Hoosac Tunnel, led down to the upper reaches of the Deerfield river and
so down to the Connecticut at old Deerfield.
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