Housatonic River. The Housatonic River is a river, approximately 149 miles long, in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United States. It flows south to southeast, and drains about 1,950 square miles of southwestern Connecticut into Long Island Sound. Its watershed is just to the west of the watershed of the lower Connecticut River. Birds and fish who live in and around the river contain significant levels of PCBs and present health risks. Indigenous people began using the river area for fishing and hunting at least 6,000 years ago. By 1600, the inhabitants were mostly Mohicans and may have numbered 30,000. The river's name is derived from the Mohican phrase usi-a-di-en-uk, translated as beyond the mountain place or river of the mountain place. It is referred to in the deed by which a group of twelve colonists called The Proprietors captured the land now called Sherman and New Fairfield as Ousetonack. Samuel Orcutt, a 19th-century historian, explained the term's pronunciation as more properly.Howsatunnuck and also noted an early spelling in the form of Oweantinock. Prior to the 18th century, the river was alternatively known as the Pootatuck River. Accounts differ on the origin of this name, with some claiming that Pootatuck is an Algonquian term translating to river of the falls while others relate the term was eponymous, reflecting the name of the tribe that had their principal village along the river in the area of Newtown, Connecticut. Pootatuck River eventually came to refer a lesser tributary in the Housatonic watershed which empties into the Housatonic River at Sandy Hook, Connecticut. The river passes through land that was formerly occupied primarily by native people of Algonquian lineage, typically living in villages of two to three hundred families housed in hide wigwams. These native inhabitants burned the forests along the Housatonic Valley in the autumn to keep the underbrush down, a practice which was customary throughout Connecticut prior to European settlement. One notable native was Chief Squantz of the Schaghticoke tribe, who still hold a portion of the former reservation on the west side of the Housatonic River, in what is now called the town of Kent. English settlement of the northern Housatonic Valley began in 1725 in Sheffield, Massachusetts. By 1734, Mohicans established the Indian Town of Stockbridge, which grew over 15 years but then failed, with land pressures increasing. The river has been a source of power for paper, iron, textiles, and electricity industries. At Great Barrington, a grist mill built by David Ingersoll in 1739 used the river for power. The paper industry grew using the river's power from circa 1800. The river was dammed with the advent of industry. In 1900, there were 30 dams on the river in Pittsfield. Many have been removed, but many remain, such as the Woods Pond dam in Lenox, Columbia Mill dam in Lee, Willow Mill dam in South Lee, Glendale dam in Stockbridge, and Rising Pond dam in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Inspired by the river during his honeymoon, the American classical music composer Charles Ives wrote The Housatonic at Stockbridge as part of his composition Three Places in New England during the 1910s, drawing his text from a poem of the same name by Robert Underwood Johnson. The town of Stockbridge is located in southwestern Massachusetts. The river enters Stockbridge on the east side of town before turning south toward Connecticut. There is an American nuclear weapon test of the same name, although it is not known if the name originated from the river or some other source. The United States Navy named a ship for the Housatonic River. The USS Housatonic has the distinction of being the first ship in history to be sunk by a submarine, the confederate vessel CSS H.L. Hunley. Three wooden covered bridges cross the Housatonic River. Two are in Connecticut: one known as Bull's Bridge, which spans the river between Gaylordsville and Kent, and another at Cornwall, known as the West Cornwall Covered Bridge. Reinforced with present-day materials, both bridges carry normal vehicle traffic, albeit in only one direction at a time. The third bridge, Old Covered Bridge located in Sheffield, Massachusetts, was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1998; it is now open only to foot traffic. Historically, the Housatonic River, and its Naugatuck River tributary, hosted the southernmost Atlantic salmon spawning runs. The Salmon Creek tributary of the Housatonic River may have been named for this salmonid, which can reach up to 30 pounds. From circa 1932 until 1977, the river received PCB pollution discharges from the General Electric plant at Pittsfield, Massachusetts.