The North Adams Note Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne

08:21AM / Wednesday, July 30, 2025Print Story | Email Story

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Join Molly Rideout for a free presentation discussing Hawthorne's time in North Adams, and what her archival research uncovered about the men and women he met while visiting.

The talk will be held in 3rd floor community room on Aug. 6 at 6 pm. Books will be available for signing and purchase.

According to a press release:

In 1838 a not-yet-famous Nathaniel Hawthorne left his home in Salem for a 6-week trip to North Adams. He told his future wife's family that he would be traveling under an assumed name, and wouldn't write any letters home. To this day, no one knows what prompted his journey.

Hawthorne captured his journey in a journal, recording vivid scenes of a North Adams still building to its full industrialization, and the characters that inhabited town. Hawthorne reports on funerals, weddings, a circus, a traveling dentist performing a tooth extraction in the street, a hook-armed former-lawyer who now could only make a living rendering soap, and so much more.

Originally published in 1868 as part of his larger American Note-Books, North Adams' own Bear & Bee Bookshop has now published Hawthorne's North Adams journals as a standalone book titled "The North Adams Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne," with an introduction and extensive local history footnotes by author Molly Rideout.

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First Responders Respond to Two Recent Accidents in North Adams

Staff Reports10:31AM / Tuesday, October 13, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — First responders in North Adams were called to two separate vehicle crashes in recent days, resulting in four hospitalizations.

According to North Adams 911, on Saturday, Oct. 10, around 2:30 p.m., there was a head-on collision between a car and a pickup truck on Curran Highway in front of Duke's Lumber.

Both vehicles were traveling northbound when one vehicle departed from its travel lane, clipping the rear of the other and causing it to roll over.

Four people were transported to the emergency department (ED), and both vehicles were towed from the scene.

The North Adams Fire Department, North Adams Police Department, and Northern Berkshire EMS were on the scene. A State Police officer was also on the scene.

On Tuesday, Oct. 13, around 6:25 a.m., there was a two-car motor vehicle accident between a pickup truck and an SUV on West Main Street.

North Adams 911 reported that the SUV was traveling west and the pickup was traveling east when the SUV left its travel lane and struck the rear of the truck, spinning it 180 degrees to face the opposite direction.

No one was transported to the hospital. Firefighters shielded the SUV window to make sure a dog in the passenger seat could not jump out and run away.

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