Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species Vaccinium oxycoccos, while in North America, cranberry may refer to Vaccinium macrocarpon. Vaccinium oxycoccos is cultivated in central and northern Europe, while Vaccinium macrocarpon is cultivated throughout the northern United States, Canada and Chile. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right. Cranberries can be found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
Berkshire County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,026. Its largest city and traditional county seat is Pittsfield. The county was founded in 1761. The Berkshire Hills are centered on Berkshire County. Residents are known as Berkshirites. It exists today only as a historical geographic region, and has no county government, with the exception of the retirement board for former county workers, and certain offices such as the sheriff and registry of deeds.
Cheshire is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,258 at the 2020 census.
North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its population was 12,961 as of the 2020 census. Best known as the home of the largest contemporary art museum in the United States, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams has in recent years become a center for tourism, culture and recreation.
Stoddard is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,374 at the 2020 census, up from 1,232 at the 2010 census.
Knutsford is a market town in Cheshire, England; it is located 14 miles (23 km) south-west of Manchester, 9 miles (14 km) north-west of Macclesfield and 12+1⁄2 miles (20 km) south-east of Warrington. The population at the 2011 Census was 13,191.
Adams is a town in northern Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 8,166 at the 2020 census.
Johns Manville is an American company based in Denver, Colorado, that manufactures insulation, roofing materials and engineered products. For much of the 20th century, the then-titled Johns-Manville Corporation was the global leader in the manufacture of asbestos-containing products, including asbestos pipe insulation, asbestos shingles, asbestos roofing materials and asbestos cement pipe.
Theale is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. It is 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Reading and 10 miles (16 km) east of Thatcham. The compact parish is bounded to the south and south-east by the Kennet & Avon Canal, to the north by a golf course, to the east by the M4 motorway and to the west by the A340 road.
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing arts in the United States.
Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode Island to its south, New Hampshire and Vermont to its north, and New York to its west. Massachusetts is the sixth-smallest state by land area. With over seven million residents as of 2020, it is the most populous state in New England, the 16th-most-populous in the country, and the third-most densely populated, after New Jersey and Rhode Island.
The Berkshire Eagle is an American daily newspaper published in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and covering all of Berkshire County, as well as four New York communities near Pittsfield. It is considered a newspaper of record for Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
The North Adams Transcript, prior to being merged into The Berkshire Eagle in 2014, was an American daily newspaper published Mondays through Saturdays in North Adams, Massachusetts. It was one of four Massachusetts newspapers owned by MediaNews Group of Colorado. Under the ownership of MediaNews Group and later Digital First Media, it was part of the New England Newspapers group. The group also included the Berkshire Eagle and Advocate Weekly, as well as three Vermont newspapers — the Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer and Manchester Journal. The Advocate Weekly was shut down in January 2014.
Natural Bridge State Park is a Massachusetts state park located in the city of North Adams in the northwestern part of the state. Named for its natural bridge of white marble, unique in North America, the park also offers woodland walks with views of a dam made of white marble, and a picturesque old marble quarry.
The Farmington Canal Heritage Trail is an 82-mile (132 km) multi-use rail trail located in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
H. (Henry) Neill Wilson was an architect with his father James Keys Wilson in Cincinnati, Ohio; on his own in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and for most of his career in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The buildings he designed include the Rookwood Pottery building in Ohio and several massive summer cottages in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Deming Jarves (1790–1869) was a 19th-century American glass manufacturer in Massachusetts. He has been called the "father of the American glass industry". Jarves joined the glass industry in 1809 when he, with a group of investors, gained control of the window glass company Boston Crown Glass. During the War of 1812, American glass manufacturers lost access to high–quality sand and red lead, which was an essential ingredient for high–quality glass. After the war, British manufacturers began dumping low–priced glass in the United States. This caused many American glass manufacturers, including Boston Crown Glass, to go out of business. In 1818 Jarves and an investor group found the New England Glass Company, where Jarves researched ways to produce red lead using domestic sources. By 1819 he was producing red lead, which enabled the production of better quality glass.
Farmington Canal State Park Trail is a Connecticut state park forming a portion of the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail in the towns of Cheshire and Hamden. The developed section of the trail within state park boundaries runs over 17.0 miles (27.4 km) from Lazy Lane in Southington to Todd Street in Hamden and includes the historic Farmington Canal's restored Lock 12, located south of Brooksvale Road in Cheshire. The paved, multiple-use trail is used for hiking, biking, jogging, in-line skating and cross-country skiing.
Early glassmaking in the United States began in Colonial America in 1608 at the Colony of Virginia near Jamestown, believed to be the first industrial facility in what would later become the United States. For centuries, glassmaking procedures, techniques, and recipes were kept secret, with countries actively preventing glassmaking knowledge from spreading beyond their borders. German workers with glassmaking knowledge, described as Dutchmen, along with Polish glass workers, were brought to Colonial America to begin operations. Although glass was made at Jamestown, production was soon suspended because of strife in the colony. A second attempt at Jamestown also failed.
18th century glassmaking in the United States began before the country existed. During the previous century, several attempts were made to produce glass, but none were long-lived. By 1700, it is thought that little or no glass was being produced in the British colonies that would eventually become the United States. The first American glass factory operated with long–term success was started by Caspar Wistar in 1745—although two glass works in New Amsterdam that operated in the previous century deserve honorable mention. Wistar's glass works was located in the English colony known as the Province of New Jersey. In the southeastern portion of the Province of Pennsylvania, Henry Stiegel was the first American producer of high–quality glassware known as crystal. Stiegel's first glass works began in 1763, and his better quality glassmaking began in 1769. In the United States, the first use of coal as a fuel for glassmaking furnaces is believed to have started in 1794 at a short-lived factory on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. In 1797 Pittsburgh's O'Hara and Craig glass works was also powered by coal, and it contributed to the eventual establishment of Pittsburgh as a leading glassmaking center in the 19th century.
