Mark Roessler Photo

A bust of Edward Hitchcock, as seen in the new Amherst College Natural History Museum

As the area's first and most eminent geologist, Professor Edward Hitchcock felt it his duty to name features in the landscape, and throughout the Pioneer Valley he has left his mark. Some places he named while composing scientific reports of the area's mineral formations; others he named in what became a sort of annual graduation ceremony with Amherst College's budding geologists. They would climb to a summit they sought to name (or, in some cases, rename), and Hitchcock would sprinkle the ground with tiny rock fragments from mountain tops across the world, sent to him by former students and missionaries. He would declare the newly named peak inducted into a fellowship of other named mountains.

Some of Hitchcock's names of geological features:

Turners Falls
Shelburne Falls
Mount Norwottock
Mount Nonotuck
Titan's Piazza
Mount Castor
Mount Pollux

After an unsuccessful attempt by the Senior Class of 1849 to change Mount Toby's name to Mettawompe, Hitchcock abandoned hope for renaming Mounts Tom and Sugarloaf, which he thought were insufficient in majesty.