Jacob's Ladder Trail - Becket, MA - Names From the Bible on Waymarking.com

Jacob's Ladder is mentioned in Genesis 28:10-12.

"Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway/ladder resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it."

A monument to the building of a paved highway across what is known as the Jacob's Ladder Trail is located on Route 20 in Becket. The Jacob's Ladder Trail is a 33 mile long path through the rolling terrain of the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts. Before the building of the highway the trail was a steep, treacherous, unpaved, often muddy and icy, road especially as it passed over Jacob's Ladder Hill, which gave the trail its name. In 1910, a by-pass of this hill was constructed and travelers has an easier passage between the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York.

To commemorate the opening of the by-pass a cairn was constructed by collecting stones from many towns and automobile clubs from around the northeast. The original dry-laid structure was moved from across the street in 1930. In 1946, it was moved, once again, to its present site and set with mortar. The cairn is called A Monument to the Automobile Age.

On September 25, 2010 an new stone was place commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the opening of the Jacob's Ladder Trail. The stone is inscribed: