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Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area
The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area in the U.S. states of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The heritage area interprets and promotes the historical, cultural and scenic features of the upper Housatonic River valley in the western part of both states. The heritage area focuses on five themes: the area's role as a resort for writers, artists, actors and musicians, the scenic landscape, the area's role in industry, the American Revolutionary War, and the social and religious groups associated with the area. The National Heritage Area comprises the towns of Colebrook, Norfolk, North Canaan, Canaan, Salisbury, Sharon, Cornwall, Warren and Kent in Connecticut, and New Marlborough, Sheffield, Mount Washington, Egremont, Alford, Great Barrington, Monterey, Tyringham, Becket, Washington, Lee, Stockbridge, West Stockbridge, Richmond, Lenox, Hancock, Pittsfield, Lanesborough, Dalton Dalton may refer to: Science * D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Heritage Area
In the United States, a National Heritage Area (NHA) is a site designated by Act of Congress, intended to encourage historic preservation of the area and an appreciation of the history and heritage of the site. There are currently 62 NHAs, some of which use variations of the title, such as National Heritage Corridor. (which serves as an official list of all 55 National Heritage Areas) National Heritage Areas are not National Park Service units or federally owned or managed land. NHAs are administered by state governments or non-profit organizations or other private corporations, referred to as ''local coordinating entities''. The National Park Service provides an advisory role and limited technical, planning and financial assistance. Each area has its own authorizing legislation and a set of unique resources and goals. Areas considered for designation must have specific elements. First, the landscape must be a nationally unique natural, cultural, historic, or scenic resource. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Egremont, Massachusetts
Egremont is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,372 at the 2020 census. Egremont consists of two villages, North Egremont and South Egremont, and their outlying areas, which are mostly lightly settled forests and farmland. History Egremont was first settled in 1722 by Dutch settlers from New York. English settlers arrived a few years later, and the town was officially incorporated by Massachusetts in 1761. It is unclear whether the town is named for the English town or for the first Earl of Egremont, whose title was created shortly after Egremont's settlement. For much of its history, Egremont has been an agricultural town, with only a small milling area around South Egremont. Around New Year's Day, 1776, General Henry Knox passed through the town with cannons from Fort Ticonderoga, which he was bringing to help end the Siege of Boston. Today, the path is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield’s population was 43,927 at the 2020 census. Although its population has declined in recent decades, Pittsfield remains the third-largest municipality in Western Massachusetts, behind only Springfield and Chicopee. In 2017, the Arts Vibrancy Index compiled by the National Center for Arts Research ranked Pittsfield and Berkshire County as the number-one, medium-sized community in the nation for the arts. History The Mohicans, an Algonquian people, inhabited Pittsfield and the surrounding area until the early 1700s, when the population was greatly reduced by war and disease, and many migrated westward or lived quietly on the fringes of society. In 1738, a wealthy Bostonian named Col. Jacob Wendell bought of land known originally as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hancock, Massachusetts
Hancock is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 757 at the 2020 census. History Hancock was first settled in 1762 as the Plantation of Jericho. The town was officially incorporated in 1776, and renamed for John Hancock. Hancock is one of only three towns in Massachusetts whose local telephone service was not provided by the former Bell System (instead it is part of the Taconic Telephone Corporation, every one of whose other exchanges is situated in neighboring New York). The other two such towns are Richmond, also in Berkshire County, and Granby, in Hampshire County. Hancock Shaker Village Around 1780, some families in Hancock converted to the teachings of the Shakers. By 1790, Believers in Hancock and Pittsfield established Hancock Shaker Village. The Shakers were a religious order which believed in pacifism, celibacy and communal living. Worship could take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenox, Massachusetts
Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The town is based in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company (Massachusetts), Shakespeare & Company and Tanglewood Music Center, Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lenox includes the villages of New Lenox and Lenox Dale, Massachusetts, Lenoxdale, and is a tourist destination during the summer. History The area was inhabited by Mahicans, Algonquian languages, Algonquian speakers who largely lived along the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. Hostilities during the French and Indian Wars discouraged settlement by European colonial settlers until 1750, when Jonathan and Sarah Hinsdale from Hartford, Connecticut, established a small inn and general store. The Province of Massachusetts Bay thereupon auctioned large tracts of land for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richmond, Massachusetts
Richmond is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,407 at the 2020 census. History Present day Richmond was first settled by Micah Mudge and Ichabod Wood in 1759. Mudge migrated up to Richmond from Connecticut via the Housatonic River, while Wood came from Rehoboth on the eastern seaboard. It is thought that the two did not make contact until after the first winter, as their initial settlements were separated by about three miles of dense wilderness. By 1762, as settlers continued to migrate to the area, Massachusetts was putting pressure on committees to organize all unmarked land into townships. Under The Act of 1762, the land encompassing present day Richmond, MA and Lenox, MA was purchased from two Indian Sachems named Yokun and Ephraim. Two distinct villages began to form, separated by the six-mile mountain ridge known today as Yokun Ridge—Yokuntown to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Stockbridge, Massachusetts
West Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The town had a population of 1,343 at the time of the 2020 United States Census. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. History West Stockbridge was first settled in 1766 and was officially incorporated in 1774. The town grew out of Stockbridge, formerly known as Indiantown, and was originally called Queensborough. The area was part of the disputed border between Massachusetts and New York, which eventually left the town in its current state. The town grew as five separate villages (West Center, West Stockbridge, Freedleyville, Rockdale and Williamsville), with West Stockbridge growing the largest because of the railroad, which hauled iron ore and marble. The town had an ironworks in Williamsville, founded by Colonel Elijah Williams, and the furnace smokestack is the only part which remains of the works. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Austen Riggs Center (a psychiatric treatment center), and Chesterwood, home and studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French. History Stockbridge was settled by British missionaries in 1734, who established it as a praying town for the Stockbridge Indians, an indigenous Mohican tribe. The township was set aside for the tribe by Massachusetts colonists as a reward for their assistance against the French in the French and Indian Wars. The Rev. John Sergeant, from Newark, New Jersey, was their first missionary. Sergeant was succeeded in this post by Jonathan Edwards, a Christian theologian associated with the First Great Awakening. First chartered as Indian Town in 1737, the village was incorp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee, Massachusetts
Lee is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, metropolitan statistical area. The population was 5,788 at the 2020 census. Lee, which includes the villages of South and East Lee, is part of the Berkshires resort area. History Lee occupies land that was originally territory of Mahican Indians. The first non-native settlement in the area was known as Dodgetown as early as 1760. Dodgetown was named after its founding settler, Asahel Dodge, who immigrated to the area from Cape Cod. Lee was incorporated in 1777 from parts of Great Barrington and Washington. It is named after Revolutionary War General Charles Lee. Lee is a former mill town. In the autumn of 1786 during Shays' Rebellion, about 250 followers of Daniel Shays encountered state troops commanded by General John Paterson near East Lee. The Shaysites paraded a fake cannon crafted from a yarn beam, and the troops fled. Early industries included agriculture, l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington, Massachusetts
Washington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 494 at the 2020 census. History Washington was first settled in 1760 and was officially incorporated in 1777. The town was known by several different names, including Greenoch, Watsontown and Hartville, before being renamed in 1784 for George Washington. The town has always been rural, with few small industries, known more for being along the stage road to Pittsfield and along the rail line later. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and , or 2.10%, is water. Located in central Berkshire County along the Hampshire County line, the town, which is roughly shaped, is bordered by Pittsfield to the northwest, Dalton, Hinsdale and Peru to the north, Middlefield to the east, Becket to the southeast, Lee to the southwest, and Lenox to the west. Washi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Becket, Massachusetts
Becket is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,931 at the 2020 census. History Becket was first settled in 1740, and was officially incorporated in 1765. The original " Beckett" for which the town of Becket was named is an estate or "tithing" that once belonged to the Admiral Lord Barrington (the namesake of "Great Barrington, Massachusetts"). It is located in Shrivenham, formerly in Berkshire, England, about five miles east of the important railroad town of Swindon. Sir Francis Bernard, the Royal Governor of Massachusetts in 1765, was a close friend of Lord Barrington and was himself a native of Berkshire, England. Bernard often went on holiday in the beautiful surroundings of Beckett, and that these pleasant memories influenced him in 1765 to give the name Becket to Township Number Four when he approved its incorporation. In 1811, 16 men from Becket tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyringham, Massachusetts
Tyringham is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 427 at the 2020 census. History Founded as Housatonic Township Number 1, the land which became Tyringham and Monterey was first settled in 1735. Tyringham was established in 1739. The two main villages were set up along two waterways, Hop Brook to the north and the Konkapot River to the south. In 1750, Adonijah Bidwell, a Yale Divinity School graduate from the Hartford region, became the first minister of Township No. 1. When a meetinghouse was founded in the south, it led to a buildup in the north, and by 1762 the town was incorporated. The origins of the town name are somewhat disputed, with some sources claiming it was named for Tyringham, a village in Buckinghamshire, England, and others asserting it was named by Sir Francis Bernard, the former governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, after a woman, Jane Beresford (adopte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
