The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-26
OUR OWN MT. TOM IS HIGHEST OF ALL
 OF THE SAME NAME.
Descriptive Article .byt Field Secretary of State Park
 Commission.


 The Saturday Chronicle, published
 weekly at New Haven, gave the camp
 of the Waterbury Boy Scouts at Mt.
 Tom, Conn.,, an elaborate write-up in
 the issue of August 19 the illustrations
 accompanying the article including several fine pictures. of the scouts in camp and one a reproduction of a map of Mt. Tom. and vicinity. drawn by ono of the campers, Scout Earl Tracy. .,..- -i
 The article published by the satur- day Chronicle was prepared by Albert M. Turner, field secretary of the Con- necticut Stake Park Commission, and reads in part as follows:
 There are at least three Mt. Toms in Connecticut, and one more widely known in Massachusetts, but we can only call one of these our own. For tunately, it is the loftiest of the four, | and if, as some people believe, hill cannot be mountain unless it reaches the altitude of a thousand feet, it is safely in the mountain class, as the following list wilNshow:
 Mt. Tom-East Haddam, 312 feet Mt. Tom-New Milford, HOO feet
 
 Mt. Tom-Washington and Nor
 ris, 1925 feet The Massachusetts peak is only ap- parently the higher because it rises abruptly from the deep valley of the Connecticut river, while the great pool of clear spring water at the foot of our own Mt. Tom it itself near-y 900 feet 1 above sea level.
 It is, then, mount by reason of it's altitude. It has been Tom for at least 200 years, and it became really our own by deed of gift in 1911, when Mrs. Gus tavia Senff conveyed 17O acres, includ- ing. the summit, to the state of Con- necticut for a public park, in memory I of her husband, the late Charles H. Senff of New York, whose known wishes were thus carried out. In 1915 l the State Park Commission added by purchase tract of 20 acres adjoining the Senf tract and including some 300 feet of frontage on Mt. Tom pond, the big spring at the northern foot of the mountain. tG tg N.i # In 1888 Prof. H. S. Munroe of Colum- bias College and a resident of Litchfield designed a wooden tower to clear the tree line, the summit being wooded, and with the financial aid of other res idents the tower was built and is still in use, though carrying the marks of many hard winters and sharp jack knives. The tooth of time bites deep in this land of the free, and leaves strangely familiar marks. The assem- bly, of 1915 appropriated s1,5O0 for a new tower, but through an unfortu- nate error in the wording of the act the funds are not yet available. The view from, the summit is a fine One, and on a clear day the peaks of the Taconics in southern Massachu- sets are plainly visible, a distance of about 30 miles. For many years vis- itors have sought this view, and an ex- cellent trail leads up from the north side, the climb Being about mile, and very easy, though the trail is suitable only for pedestrians. In the days be- fore the tower was built registry was made on the handiest tree, and until Ia few years ago the name of John C. Calhoun adorned a certain tree, now blown down. Calhoun graduated from Yale in 1894, and spent IS months in the law school at Litchfield, then the only one of it's kind in the country. There is no reason to believe that his fame was materially augmented by cutting his name on this tree, and for the sake of example it is perhaps as well that the wind erased, the record. The interesting fact is that for over a hundred years people have climbed the mountain and registered as best they could.
 Mt. Tom is a conspicuous landmark because it sharply divides the noun tainbus and deeply eroded region of the Housatonic valley from the more n 9 q fn hn thick coating of glacial drift, plowed up in those mighty rides which the geologists are pleased to call drum linS, smoothly covers most of the framework beneath. The early settlers knew little of glacial action or drum lins, but they had a good eye for grass land and took measures accordingly, as the easterly outlook from the sum- init plainly attests. On the mountain, however, and through the country to the west, the bones stick out hopeless ly, and suggested mining rather than farming, as the old town records still show. Prospect Mountain, a few miles north, was for some reason more pop ular even for this purpose, and so it happens that we have Mt. Tom with scarcely a scratch to mark our 200 years of occupancy. It is true, if not entirely safe, to say it is real wild'' The 20-acre purchase of 1915 had been used by camping parties for sev- eral years, and it was added to the original ~'rt to ensure such privileges in the future. The Waterbury Council of Boy Scouts of America, through its efficient executive, c. F. Northrup, was quick to note the advantages of the site. and has maintained there tfinely-equipped camp for five weeks this season, beginning July 1, and ac- commodating 30 boys at a time, with a number of adult scoutmasters. Some .55O of the 800 scouts of the council have been in the camp, with no ac- cidents and only a single case of ill., ness, brought on by too many choc- 0t would be of interest to know how many, but the deponent saith not.)
 T1,e boys have devoted a half-hour each day to the service of the state by cutting and thinning brush from sev- eral acres about the camp, improving the spring, etc., and have also brought in a telephone line from the main road to the camp site. Ten boys with a hand cart brought in daily supplies of provisions from. Bantam, three and one-half miles away, and bad boys were condemned to cutting trees for firewood, while good boys were having fun.
 Some idea of the life at camp may be gained from the following order of .la 5.xr T,,Iu fxDico1 ona.