Special Features

Compare how this popular landmark was depicted by different artists over two centuries.

Then and Now showing the area below the Turners Falls dam, with water and without.

Fossils in Hitchcock's Appleton cabinet and in today's Beneski Museum of Natural History.

The original building for Deerfield Academy was designed by Asher Benjamin and today houses Memorial Hall Museum.

These paintings are just a few of the hundreds that Orra White Hitchcock created as a result of her life-long fascination with plants.

Connecticut River Valley Landscapes by Orra White Hitchcock

Visualizing fossil footprints has changed as communication and printing technology has advanced.

Drawings done by Orra White Hitchcock for use in Professor Edward Hitchcock's classes on geology and natural history at Amherst College.

Matching the animal with the track they left behind.

Artist Will Sillin depicts some of the dinosaurs that inhabited the Connecticut River Valley during the Triassic and Jurassic eras.

These examples of artwork were made by Orra White's students at Deerfield Academy.

These books show what educators in the 19th century wanted children to understand about their world.

The Oxbow of the Connecticut River near Northampton, Massachusetts has been depicted by artists from the 19th century until the present.

Museum educator Fred Venne takes us back 200 million years, recreating the day this fossil was made in the mud.

Dr. John Brady shows plant fossils in the rock where dinosaur footprints were also preserved.

Dr. John Brady explains how the breakup of the supercontinent created the valley where dinosaurs left their footprints.

We can find dinosaur footprints in the Connecticut River Valley today thanks to glacial scouring.

Dr. Robert Bakker describes how 19th-century creationists viewed prehistoric life.

The surprising reason that some dinosaur footprints have a toe that points back, like a modern bird’s.

To some Christians, the Book of Genesis and the “Book of Nature” found in fossil footprints work together.

Fly-through of a 3D digital model of the Paluxy River, Texas, dinosaur tracksite.

Dr. Robert Bakker shows the reasoning that led Edward Hitchcock to identify the track makers as birds.

Hitchcock separated rock layers into “books” to show how the shape of an impression changes for each layer.

Dr. Robert Bakker introduces Edward Hitchcock’s major work on fossil footprints and other trace fossils.

Late Triassic–Early Jurassic seas teemed with fish whose fossilized remains litter the strata near the dinosaur footprints.

Dr. John Brady takes us on a tour of an outdoor dinosaur footprint site in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Dr. Stephen Gatesy and Dr. Peter Falkingham’s research shows how one dinosaur could make different types of tracks.

Test your fossil-finding skills! Can you identify the fossil footprints in these rocks?

Explore the animals and plants that lived in the Connecticut River Valley during the late triassic.

Orra White and her friends met regularly as "The Young Ladies Literary Society" to debate and answer profound questions. Let's see how you answer these same deep inquiries.

Thomas Cole used his knowledge of geology to create paintings that show what he considered to be proof of the biblical flood.

Erratic stones were of great interest to 19th century artists and geologists alike.