Hail to the Sunrise
Charlemont, Franklin County, Massachusetts
Marker Inscription
Hail to the Sunrise - In Memory of the Mohawk Indian
The Story
Along the Mohawk Trail — the old Route 2 that follows an ancient Native footpath through the Berkshire hills linking the Connecticut and Hudson valleys — a bronze figure stands with arms lifted toward the dawn. Erected in 1932 by the Improved Order of Red Men, the statue honors the Native peoples associated with the trail and the surrounding mountains of western Massachusetts. Its title, 'Hail to the Sunrise,' echoes the upward-reaching pose of the figure greeting the morning sun. The monument has marked this stretch of the Deerfield River valley for generations of travelers.
Why it matters
The monument reflects how early-twentieth-century Americans chose to memorialize the Indigenous peoples whose ancient trails became the region's roads, making it a window into both Native heritage and the way that heritage was later commemorated.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Long before there were roads through the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, there were footpaths. The high ground above the Deerfield River valley carried travelers between the Connecticut Valley to the east and the Hudson Valley to the west, and Native peoples walked these routes for generations. The land itself — steep, forested, threaded with rushing water — shaped how people moved through it.
By the early twentieth century, that ancient corridor had been paved into a modern highway and christened the Mohawk Trail, one of New England's first scenic motor routes. Automobiles brought a new kind of traveler: families out for a Sunday drive, tourists chasing autumn color and mountain views.
It was in that era, in 1932, that this bronze figure was raised beside the road. The choice to place a Native memorial here was a product of its time — a moment when Americans were beginning to build monuments to the Indigenous past even as that past was often romanticized rather than fully understood.
People & events
The statue was erected by the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization that took its name and imagery from a stylized notion of Native America. The figure they commissioned stands with arms raised toward the east, greeting the morning sun — the gesture that gives the monument its name, 'Hail to the Sunrise.'
The marker speaks in memory of the Native peoples associated with this land and this trail. It does not tell an individual story so much as gesture toward a whole heritage — the communities whose knowledge of the terrain first opened these mountain passages.
It's worth being honest about what this monument is and isn't. It is a genuine act of remembrance, and it has stood watch over this valley for the better part of a century. It is also a window into how the people who raised it chose to picture the Indigenous past — reverent, but filtered through the sensibilities of the 1930s.
Its place in the American story
The story of America is, in part, the story of its roads — and again and again, those roads began as Native paths. The routes that Indigenous peoples wore into the continent over centuries became the wagon roads, turnpikes, and eventually the highways that knit the nation together. This spot makes that inheritance visible.
The monument also belongs to a broader chapter in American memory. In the early twentieth century, communities across the country raised statues and plaques to the Native peoples whose lands had become states and counties. These memorials tell a double story: one of the peoples honored, and one of the later Americans doing the honoring, and how they understood the history they had inherited.
Standing here, you're at a place where the deep past and the recent past overlap — an ancient travel corridor marked by a modern monument, each one a chapter in how this country came to be.
If you visit
Look first at the figure's pose — the lifted arms, the upward gaze. The whole statue is built around that single gesture of greeting the dawn, and it reads differently in early morning light than it does at midday.
Take in the setting, too. You're in the hills above the Deerfield River, on the old Mohawk Trail route, and the surrounding landscape of forested ridges is part of the story. This is country that funneled travelers along a few natural passages, and you can feel why a path would follow this line.
It fits naturally into a road trip along Route 2 through the Berkshires — a place to pull over, stretch your legs, and think about who walked this ground long before the pavement. Give yourself a few quiet minutes; the monument rewards a slower look more than a quick photo.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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