Connecticut River Byway
Rural New England Village Journey
| Departure: | Northfield Drive-in Movie Theatre, Massachusetts |
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| Destination: | South Hadley Center, Massachusetts |
| Time to allow: | 1 day |
The Connecticut River Byway route passes through the predominant landscape elements in the Connecticut River Valley: the Connecticut River, rolling hills, farmland, historic buildings, scenic farmsteads and small villages. Hundreds of historic structures and resources can be viewed along the byway, including large concentrations within the following National Register Historic Districts: Northfield Center, Montague Center, Sunderland Center, Hadley Center, North Hadley Center, Hockanum Rural Historic District in Hadley, and the Woodbridge Street Historic District in South Hadley. These village centers are steeped in the traditional agrarian culture of the region and provide a unique experience of rural New England. The unique elements of the byway are best experienced in late summer through fall over the course of two days, but one could drive the byway in about one hour.
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Start: Northfield Drive-in Movie Theatre
The Northfield Drive-in Movie Theatre is the first stop on the Massachusetts section of the byway. It is unique because it is one of only four remaining drive-in movie theaters in Massachusetts and nineteen in New England. The theater straddles the Northfield, Massachusetts and Winchester, New Hampshire town and state lines. The drive-in opened on August 2, 1948 with a showing of On the Town staring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. The original screen was destroyed by a hurricane in 1951 but the rebuilt 80 feet wide by 54 feet high screen is still used today. The Northfield Drive-in Theatre is believed to be the only drive-in theatre that straddles two states (NH and MA). The theater is open weekends from April through October.
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Stop 1: Northfield Center Historic District
Directions from previous place: Head south on Route 63 for approximately 2 miles until you enter Northfield Center (Northfield Center Historic District).
Distance from Previous Site: 2 miles / 3.2 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 4 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 1 hour 30 minutes Situated between steeply sloped uplands to the east and the Connecticut River to the west, the town of Northfield started to develop into a prosperous town with an agriculture and river-trade economy after permanent settlement occurred in 1714. The center for commercial activity and residential development began and remained along Main Street, the present-day Northfield Center. This area from Moody Street down to the intersection of Route 10 and Route 63 is an established National Register Historic District that retains the character of a 19th-century village. The Northfield Center Historic District includes 13 18th-century and 68 19th-century buildings. The Northfield Center Cemetery, also on the National Register of Historic Places, is located within the historic district on Parker Avenue. The cemetery has gravestones from the town’s early history dating back to the 1700s.
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Stop 2: Northfield Mountain Recreation and Environmental Center
Directions from previous place: From Northfield Center Historic District, take Route 63 south for approximately 1 mile. The Northfield Mountain Recreation and Environmental Center will be on the left. Make a left at the Center’s entrance.
Distance from Previous Site: 1 miles / 1.6 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 1 minute Suggested Time at This Site: 2 hours Northeastern Utilities owns and operates a narrated boat cruise that brings visitors past the stunning French King Gorge and historic Barton Cove along a beautiful stretch of the Connecticut River. During the tour, the interpreter acquaints visitors with the geological and natural history of this section of the Connecticut River corridor. The company operates three interpretive cruises per day on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from late June through mid-October. The boat departs from the Riverview picnic area, which is across the street from the Recreation and Environmental Center.
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Stop 3: Great Falls Discovery Center
Directions from previous place: From the Northfield Mountain Recreation and Environmental Center head south on Route 63 toward Millers Falls for approximately 6.8 miles. Turn right into Route 2 / 2A (Mohawk Trail) and take this west for approximately 4 miles toward Turners Falls / Greenfield. Take at left at Avenue A in Turners Falls and take Avenue A over the Connecticut River Bridge into downtown Turners Falls. The Great Falls Discovery Center is on your right, immediately after you cross the bridge.
Distance from Previous Site: 11.5 miles / 18.4 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 17 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 2 hours The Great Falls Discovery Center teaches visitors about the Connecticut River Watershed’s rich natural, cultural and industrial history. During spring migration season, visitors can also view fish migrating up the Connecticut River at the Turners Falls Fish Ladder, which is located on the same complex. The trip to the Great Falls Discovery Center along the historic Route 2 (Mohawk Trail) will bring visitors past Barton’s Cove, French King Gorge, over the historic French King Bridge, and eventually into downtown Turners Falls, which is a National Register Historic District.
The Great Falls Discovery Center is also part of a park-like complex that is linked to: a railtrail that runs from Turners Falls to Deerfield, a walking tour through downtown Turners Falls, and the watchable wildlife areas of Barton’s cove and along the canal.
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Stop 4: Montague Center Historic District
Directions from previous place: From the Great Falls Discovery Center, proceed from Avenue A and onto 1st Street, heading east. This street soon becomes Broadview Heights, then Unity Street and finally Turners Falls Road. Continue on Turners Falls Road for approximately 5.5 miles until you reach Montague Center. At this point Tuners Falls Road becomes Main Street.
Distance from Previous Site: 5.5 miles / 8.8 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 15 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 1 hour 30 minutes Montague Center did not develop into a commercial district like Turners Falls of Millers Falls, but remained a picturesque village with rich historic resources that date from the 18th and 19th century. Montague Center is a National Register Historic District with many different residential architectural styles and community buildings such as the Congregational Church, Town Hall, Grange, Masonic Hall, and Main Street School. The Montague Mill, approximately 0.2 miles northwest from Montague Center, is a popular local hangout. It is a former 19th-century stone grist mill that contains a small café, a used book store, artist galleries, antique shops, and a gourmet restaurant which overlooks the Sawmill River and the remnants of the former dam.
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Stop 5: Sunderland Center Historic District
Directions from previous place: From Montague Center, take Main Street southward for approximately 1 mile (two minutes) up to where Main Street intersects the byway at Old Leverett Road, at which point the traveler would proceed straight onto Route 47 toward Sunderland Center.
Distance from Previous Site: 5.5 miles / 8.8 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 12 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 1 hour Sunderland Center Historic District offers the experience of a traditional New England village with 180 historic properties along with outstanding views of the Connecticut River Valley. The district includes numerous examples of residential architectural styles as well as principal institutional buildings which range from a Federal style bank to a Federal Revival style school. The immense Buttonball Tree, a several hundred-year-old giant sycamore of national significance, stands on the western side of Route 47, near the intersection with Route 116. Sunderland Center also includes several places to eat and drink.
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Stop 6: Mount Sugarloaf State Reservation
Directions from previous place: Turn right onto Route 116 at the intersection of the Byway and Route 116 and head west approximately one mile. Turn right onto Sugarloaf Road and immediately turn right into the entrance to the park.
Distance from Previous Site: 1 miles / 1.6 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 1 minute Suggested Time at This Site: 2 hours 30 minutes Mt. Sugarloaf State Reservation offers a commanding view of the Connecticut River, the Pioneer Valley, the historic and picturesque Sunderland Center, and the Pelham and Berkshire Hills. From its summit can be seen some of the best scenic views of the broad agricultural landscape of the Connecticut River Valley and of the 18th and 19th-century settlement patterns of the picturesque Sunderland Center.
The reservation offers picnicking, scenic viewing, and hiking. An auto road winds to the summit, making South Sugarloaf Mountain accessible by private automobiles. Available on the summit is a pavilion for scenic viewing and picnicking.
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Stop 7: Historic Deerfield
Directions from previous place: Take Route 116 west for approximately one mile. At the intersection with Route 5/10, turn right onto Route 5/10 and take that north for approximately 5.2 miles. Turn left at Memorial Street to enter Historic Deerfield.
Distance from Previous Site: 6.5 miles / 10.4 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 10 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 4 hours Historic Deerfield is a nationally recognized open-air museum dedicated to the heritage and preservation of Deerfield, Massachusetts in its original 18th-century village setting. Tour Historic Deerfield’s 11 house museums that stretch along an original, mile-long street. Museums and programs provide visitors with an understanding and appreciation of New England’s historic villages and countryside.
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Stop 8: Sunderland & Hadley Farm Stands
Directions from previous place: From Historic Deerfield, take a right onto Route 5/10 from Memorial Street and take Route 5/10 south for approximately 5.2 miles. At the intersection with Route 116, turn left onto Route 116 and follow this for 1.8 miles into Sunderland Center. At the intersection of Route 116 and Route 47 take a right and proceed on the byway. Farmstands will begin appearing about 2 miles south of Sunderland Center.
Distance from Previous Site: 9 miles / 14.4 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 15 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 30 minutes Some of the best remaining farmland is located along the byway corridor. The resulting farmscapes continue to be the essence of the corridor’s continuing rural character. While farming is an economically challenging vocation, there are several farm families and landowners that derive all or part of their livelihoods from local agricultural resources. Fifteen-plus farmstands, including the North Hadley Sugar Shack, can be found along the Byway between Sunderland Center and South Hadley offering travelers a variety of fresh local food products.
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Stop 9: Porter Phelps-Huntington House Museum
Directions from previous place: From Sunderland Center and farming area, take Route 47 south for approximately 6 miles. The museum will be on your right at 130 River Road in Hadley.
Distance from Previous Site: 6 miles / 9.6 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 11 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 1 hour 30 minutes Built in 1752, the Porter Phelps-Huntington Museum is a Georgian period house with a long history of ownership by well-to-do farmers and land owners of the Connecticut River Valley. This historic house portrays the activities of a wealthy and productive 18th-century household and its evolution into a 19th-century rural retreat. Account books, diaries and other records created by the generations provide a rare insight into their farming and domestic practices. With this extraordinary collection, the house is maintained as a museum to interpret its owners’ role in the valley’s agricultural and social life. The house is unusual in that it contains the possessions of six generations of the Porter-Phelps family.
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Stop 10: Hadley Center
Directions from previous place: Take Route 47 south for approximately 2 miles until you reach Hadley Center.
Distance from Previous Site: 2 miles / 3.2 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 4 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 2 hours Hadley Center is a National Register Historic District that contains more than 800 properties, including fine examples of Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival styles, the town’s intact common dating from 1659, the Greek Revival town hall, church, and school buildings that constitute the institutional center of the town. There are extensive fields, tobacco barns and other outbuildings. The district encompasses Route 9 including Cooley Dickinson Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Connecticut River to Northampton. The town common is remarkably long, stretching almost a mile in length across both side of Route 9. It is surrounded by old homes deeply set back from the road and tree-lined streets. Archaeologists have discovered indications of the early palisade erected around the common to protect the settlement during King Philip’s War. Besides viewing the town common and numerous historic structures, visitors can also view the Connecticut River from the dike walk path at the northern end of West Street (a Depression era Works Progress Administration project) or rent bicycles from the bike shop on Railroad Street and tour the Norwottuck Rail Trail. The Norwottuck Rail Trail is a 10-mile-long pedestrian and bicycle path that connects Northampton, Hadley, Amherst and Belchertown along the right-of-way of an abandoned rail line. An outstanding feature of the Trail is the bridge that takes travelers over the Connecticut River and into Northampton.
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Stop 11: Hadley Farm Museum
Directions from previous place: The Hadley Farm Museum is located in Hadley Center. On the southeast side of the intersection of Route 47 and Route 9, next to the town hall.
Travel Time from Previous Site: 1 minute Suggested Time at This Site: 1 hour Located in a restored 1782 barn in Hadley at the junction of Routes 47 and 9, the Hadley Farm Museum houses a collection of agricultural and domestic implements and memorabilia that provide insight into the lives of those who settled in Hadley and its environs more than 300 years ago. The interior of the barn itself is a fine example of early American barn architecture with huge hand-hewn beams, wooden pegs and rough-sawed boards and planks.
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Stop 12: Skinner State Park
Directions from previous place: From Hadley Center, head south on Route 47 for approximately 4.2 miles. The park entrance is on your left at Mountain Road.
Distance from Previous Site: 4.2 miles / 6.7 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 7 minutes Suggested Time at This Site: 2 hours Skinner State Park is a 390-acre park that provides access to the summit of Mt. Holyoke via hiking trails year-round as well as by an auto road from April through November. The summit offers one of the most famed and spectacular in the entire Connecticut River Valley. Approximately 850 feet above the valley, this 360-degree viewshed extends north into Franklin County and Mt Sugarloaf, Mt. Toby and beyond to New Hampshire, south to South Hadley, Chicopee, west over Northampton, and east across the Holyoke Range. It is particularly renowned for its bird’s-eye perspective on the Connecticut River and the oxbow, famously painted by the American Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole. The view from the summit allows a traveler at any season to appreciate the region’s geology, agricultural advantages and historical importance of the river. Summit House, formerly a 19th-century resort, offers educational, interpretive material to visitors, including accounts from early writers of the 18th and 19th centuries who marveled at what the spot revealed of the valley.
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End: South Hadley Center
Directions from previous place: From Skinner State Park, take Route 47 south for approximately 3.5 miles until you reach South Hadley Center.
Distance from Previous Site: 3.5 miles / 5.6 km Travel Time from Previous Site: 5 minutes The byway concludes at the South Hadley Center Village Commons, just across the street from Mount Holyoke College.
This area provides opportunities for shopping, lodging, and scenic strolls around the college. The college itself features a fine collection of buildings in the Collegiate Gothic architectural style.
The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum features Asian art, 19th and 20th-century European and American paintings and sculpture, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art, medieval sculpture, early Italian Renaissance paintings, and contains extensive collections of prints, drawings, and photographs.
The Woodbridge Street National Historic District is adjacent to the common, going north on both sides of Route 116. Its central features are Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival houses with one eclectic Colonial Revival-style house. Included within the historic district is the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum, which features the American and European furniture collection of Joseph Skinner, a prominent Holyoke silk manufacturer. Skinner collected widely, and the museum is a 20th-century cabinet of curiosity. The museum is housed in an 1846 Presbyterian Church that was dismantled and moved to this location by Skinner in the early 1930s from Prescott, Massachusetts, a town that no longer exists as it sits below the Quabbin Reservoir.
