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The Central Valley

When one tries to conjure up an image of New England in the mind's eye, the view most likely is of rolling hills and mountains, rocky streams, abandoned mills, and stone walls. Most of New England does in fact look like this. But spliced into the middle of New England's famous rolling countryside is a region with very different landscapes: the Central Valley.* Here, the land is generally level, often flat, and only occasionally interrupted by hills and ridges. In place of small rocky streams, the rivers are large and meandering. Less of the land is forested and more of it is peopled. Instead of little pastures perched precariously on steep hillsides,

*This unusual region goes by many names. Connecticut Valley, perhaps the most common name, calls attention to the river that drains this low-lying region and to the state that contains much of it. At Middletown, however, the Connecticut River leaves the lowlands and heads into the Eastern Uplands; downstream from Middletown the Connecticut River does not correspond to the "Connecticut Valley.' In addition, the valley landscape extends well into Massachusetts. Consequently, many people (including myself) prefer the term Central Valley, because the region does lie roughly in the center of both Massachusetts and Connecticut. Nevertheless, others will quickly point out that the region is not just one big valley. Rather, it is a broad, generally low-lying zone divided in two by a high ridge - the Metacomet Ridge - that runs almost the whole length of the region. These people use the more accurate name Central Lowlands. In Massachusetts one often hears the region referred to as the Pioneer Valley, as this was the first interior section of New England to be settled. Geologists use still other terms, adding Mesozoic Valley, Hartford Basin, and Newark Terrane to the stew of names.

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