GREENFIELD — It was Dexter Marsh, who in 1835 was laying slabs of stone on Bank Row in Greenfield.
The menial task would have been a rather forgettable if he didn’t suddenly see a set of strange, bird-like footprints in the stone and wonder, “What is that?”
Saturday was the third annual DinoFest, which celebrated the area’s close association with dinosaur discoveries and paleontology. Presented by Piti Theatre Company, the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association and the Second Congregational Church, the festival included a parade, fossil exhibits and dinosaur-themed music at locations in Greenfield and Deerfield.
According to Tim Neumann of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, paleontology wasn’t a discipline and “dinosaur” wasn’t a word when Marsh made his magnitudinous discovery, which is now known as one of the first dinosaur footprints discoveries in the U.S.
Like local geologist Edward Hitchcock, Marsh would go on to influence paleontology, although he did not know it at the time. According to the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Marsh built a room onto his house to keep a “cabinet of curiosities,” thus preserving the strange, bird-like fossils. He didn’t know quite what they were, and kept them among other things like shells and minerals.
Likewise Hitchcock, who became the third president of Amherst College, kept a cabinet with dinosaur fossils, but spent the rest of his life thinking they were birds. With debate among modern scientists about whether or not dinosaurs had feathers, Hitchcock may not have been too far off in thinking the lizard footprints were from birds.
Now, the Connecticut River Valley is known for being dotted with such footprints, including a large reservation in Holyoke with hundreds of footprints still visible from four different dinosaur species.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.