Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne met each other for the first time on August 5, 1850. A group of friends hiked to the top of Monument Mountain in The Berkshires and celebrated a new poem by William Cullen Bryant named after the mountain. Each year this infamous meeting is celebrated by taking a hike to the top of the mountain. A champagne toast to the old poet caps the end of the hike that has a 360-degree view of the area. The first part of Bryant's poem was read by Arthur Collins, 81,