There has always been a sort of unique duality in the theory and practice of vice in so-called Puritan Massachusetts. Let’s have that suff...

October Mountain is a place of no little fascination to me. It has frequently made its way into the pages of These Mysterious Hills in a va...

It’s a misconception that all the best ghostly folklore and gory history surrounds famed homesteads and Gilded Age mansions… even in the Ber...

In a previous column installment, I discussed the curious Hebrew phylactery found in Pittsfield in 1815, and its role as a possible influenc...

Originally in the North Adams Transcript, Nov. 3, 2009, as: "The Old Coot Continues to Captivate" by Joe Durwin He wanders the ...

By Joe Durwin Originally in The Advocate Weekly, Nov. 11, 2005 When my father added spelunking to his laundry list of hobbies a few years ag...

When I lived in Arizona, where dozens of little mining ghost towns dot the foothills just off the major highways, I was awash in the lore of...

Joe Durwin Advocate Weekly Oct. 20, 2005 By virtue of timing, this area was, for the most part, free of the witchcraft hysteria that once sw...

This is a story about a prophet; a Mohammed who went to the Mountain, and delivered down a dire warning about the future. It’s also a story...

Right on the side of Route 116 as it winds through the town of Savoy , there is a tiny cemetery rising up around a tomb built into t...

By Joe Durwin Photos by Autumn Doyle Advocate Weekly Thursday, September 24 Arguably the most prominent historic landmark in Stockbrid...

THESE MYSTERIOUS HILLS Wonders and Mysteries of the Natural World By Joe Durwin This week marks the final installment of These Mysterious Hi...

Back in 2005, I wrote about Greenwood, known more commonly as “the Old Britton Place,” one of Pittsfield’s most haunted houses of the 19th c...