Poet's Seat Tower
Encyclopedia
Greenfield, Massachusetts
Greenfield is a city in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,456 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Franklin County. Greenfield is home to Greenfield Community College, the Pioneer Valley Symphony Orchestra, and the Franklin County Fair...
. It was so named to honor a long tradition of poets being drawn to the spot, in particular, the local poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
Frederick Goddard Tuckerman
Frederick Goddard Tuckerman was an American poet, remembered mostly for his sonnet series. Apart from the 1860 publication of his book Poems, which included approximately two-fifths of his lifetime sonnet output and other poetic works in a variety of forms, the remainder of his poetry was...
. By 1850, the location was referred to as "Poet's Seat" by Tuckerman in a surviving herbarium
Herbarium
In botany, a herbarium – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in...
entry for November 10th of that year.
An earlier wooden tower was erected at the site on June 3, 1879. This first structure was built, along with a public drinking fountain and a road accessing the site, under the auspices of the The Greenfield Rural Club.