Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Through the Heart of the Old Bay State Springfield to Boston, 95 Miles Described in reverse direction in Chapter XIII Before the first white settlers came to New England, an Indian trail through the wilderness ran between the intervales of the Connecticut River and the shores of Massachusetts Bay. This Indian trail was succeeded by the Bay Path of the colonists, which in turn gave place to the Great Post Road over which mails were carried first by post riders and then by the stages which transported passengers between Springfield and Boston for more than half a century. Upon the advent of the railway this road for the first time in its history lost its character as a through route, but this has now been fully restored to it by the automobile and the construction of the State Highway which follows not absolutely but in a general way, the course of the old path. Over this road have traveled many of the men whose names stand out in the history of the nation. Washington passed over it at least twice, and three or four of his successors in the office of President have followed in his footsteps in this respect. Springfield to Boston, 95 Miles Described in reverse direction on pages 256-264 0. Springfield. Leaving the corner of Main and State streets, the route ascends the grade on State street, passing on the left, the statue of Deacon Chapin. an early .settler, whom Saint-Gaudens has taken to typify "The Puritan." Directly beyond is the Library and Art Museum. On the right is the Church of the Unity and High School. Again on the left is the Cathedral and the United States Arsenal, the home of the Springfield rifle, and where most of the small arms used by the North in the Civil War were manufactured. Immediately beyond, on the left, is Benton Park on whi...