In
1802, a young farm boy by the name of Pliny Moody was plowing a field
on his father's farm in South Hadley, Massachusetts . He unearthed a
stone slab that had strange markings on it that looked a lot like large
bird tracks. He took the slab home
and installed it as the doorstep at the Moody family home. It remained
there until the time he went off to school in about 1810. At that time
it was purchased by Dr. Elihu Dwight of South Hadley, who brought it
home and kept it in his home for about 30 years. It was during these
years that the tracks recieved their nickname, "the tracks of
Noah's raven" . (Noah, when he was on the biblical ark, sent out a
raven that never returned to the ark. It was thought that the raven
finally touched down in South Hadley, Massachusetts and left it's
tracks in the mud. This is what the tracks were thought to be until the
late 1830's.)

Professor Edward
Hitchcock. |
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In the late 1830's the tracks
came to
the attention of professor Edward Hitchcock of Amherst College,
Amherst, Massachusetts . After some study of these and other tracks
found in the valley, he declared the footprints to be the
tracks of ancient birds, not the tracks of Noah’s raven. He held
that belief until his death in 1865. He is the person who began the
study of Ichnology, which is the study of ancient track and trace
fossils. He continued to study the ancient tracks in the area until his
death, traveling around the valley collecting what
was to become later the largest collection of dinosaur tracks in the
world.
In 1841, Sir Richard Owen
suggested the name dinosauria for a number of large skeletons found in
Europe. However, it wasn’t until about the time of the American
Civil War that the concept of the dinosaur became more widespread and
popular. It was in the 1860's that scientists revisited the ancient
“bird tracks” of the Connecticut River Valley and finally
declared them to be the tracks of dinosaurs .
The Beginning Of Nash
Dinosaurland
After his graduation from Amherst
College in 1896, George Harlan Nash help fund several geological
expeditions by Amherst College professors to various places in the
American west. During this time he also began taking his son Carlton
Snell Nash to visit the Pratt Museum of Natural History at Amherst
College. It was there that young Carlton became fascinated by
dinosaurs, dinosaur tracks, and Amherst College’s geological
expeditions around the world . The Nash family also owned a home in the
same neighborhood in which Pliny Moody lived and discovered the first
dinosaur tracks . Young Carlton learned about dinosaurs and their
tracks at a young age and it was these influences that sparked
Carlton’s life long interest in dinosaurs.

Carlton Nash
1932
About The Time He Found The Dinosaur Track Site |
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Carlton Nash graduated from high
school in 1932, in the depths of the great depression. Unable to find a
steady job right away he took several classes in geology at Amherst
College. He learned about dinosaurs and the occurrence of dinosaur
tracks in the Connecticut River Valley. In 1933, he started looking for
dinosaur tracks for himself and in that same year he found the outcrop
that was to later become the basis for Nash Dinosaurland. He pried up a
few layers and found several tracks, but he did not own the land so he
kept the discovery to himself.
In 1939, he was able to purchase
the 1-3/4 acres containing the dinosaur footprint site. If they hadn't
bought the dinosaur tracks site the previous owner was going to
dynamite it for flag stones. In the summers
he would remove dinosaur tracks to sell year around from his home in
South Hadley . In the fall he would cut Christmas trees in Vermont and
Canada for sale on the East Coast of the United States . He also worked
at a desk job at the Holyoke Water Power Company. He
continued all three jobs until 1950. In 1950, without talking to his
wife, he quit his job at the Holyoke Water Power Company. He came home
that day and told his wife that he was going into the dinosaur track
business full-time. He also sold the Christmas tree business to his
brother George Harlan Nash . From this humble and fragile beginning
Nash Dinosaurland began.
Growth of Dinosaurland
Post World War II America ushered
in many changes in the United States. One of the greatest changes was
the increased mobility of Americans by car. Many tourist sites grew up
all across the nation . One that was established during this time was
Nash Dinosaurland . Over the years thousands of people have visited the
site.

Also, Carlton remembered the
pictures and stories of Amherst College’s geological expeditions
to the great geological places of the world. During this time, he began
to travel to many of the great geological sites of the west. He met
people who were some of the old pioneers of the American west . People
who were born in America’s western territories before they became
states.
Over the
years he met a number of great American dinosaur hunters from Dr.Barnum
Brown and R.T. Bird (who both visited his site), Roy Chapman
Andrews, Jim Jensen, and Jack Horner and the owners of the Black Hills
Institute .
He was also written up in
numerous publications including Time, Newsweek, Sport’s
Illustrated, the New Yorker, Yankee, Woman’s Day, Nation’s
Business, Mechanic’s Illustrated, the Wall Street Journal, the
Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times .
He also appeared on various radio
and television programs on ABC, NBC and CBS including Good Morning
America and the Today Show . His first appearance was on the John
Cameron Swayze show in the early 1950’s .
He also sold tracks to a number
of notable people over the years including the the families of the
Maytags, Skinners, Carnegies, Pattons, Dave Garoway, Laurel Hardy, and
John Cameron Swayze.
In 1997, at the age of 82,
Carlton passed away at Nash
Dinosaurland . On that day his son, Kornell Richard Nash, took
over the business and continues the work his father began.
The dinosaur tracks are still
excavated and sold all over the world.
Kornell Nash has changed the name
to the Nash Dinosaur Track Site and
Rock Shop.
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