Prescott was a
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares ...
in
Hampshire County, Massachusetts
Hampshire County is a historical and judicial county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Following the dissolution of the county government in 1999, county affairs were managed by the Hampshire Council of Governments, which itself ce ...
. It was incorporated in 1822 from portions of
Pelham and
New Salem, and was partially built on
Equivalent Lands. It was named in honor of Colonel
William Prescott, who commanded the American forces at the
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...
. It was disincorporated on April 28, 1938, as part of the creation of the
Quabbin Reservoir. It was the least populous of the four unincorporated towns, with barely 300 residents by 1900. Upon dissolution, portions of the town were annexed to the adjacent towns of New Salem and
Petersham. The majority of the former town (the New Salem portion) is still above water, and is known as the Prescott Peninsula. The public is not allowed on the peninsula except for an annual tour given by the Swift River Valley Historical Society, or for hikes conducted by the Society. None of the land is in Hampshire County any longer; the New Salem portion is in
Franklin County; and the Petersham portion is in
Worcester County.
As with the nearby town of
Dana, after the dissolution of incorporation, houses were moved or razed, but cellar holes remained. The Prescott First Congregational Church, located in the village of Prescott Four Corners, was moved to South Hadley and is now the home of the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum.
The former site of Prescott Center was home to the
Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory
The Five College Radio Astronomical Observatory (FCRAO) was a radio astronomy observatory located on a peninsula in the Quabbin Reservoir. It was sited in the town of New Salem, Massachusetts on land that was originally part of Prescott, Massachu ...
from 1969 to 2011.
Scientific work conducted on the 14-meter
radio telescope will be continued on the modern 50-meter
Large Millimeter Telescope in Mexico.

Daniel Shays, leader of the 1787
rebellion which bears his name, was a resident of that part of Pelham which later became the southern part of Prescott. The site of his former home is still above water; but the house was gone by 1927, and in any event the site is inaccessible to the general public. The Conkey Tavern, located roughly to the west of the Shays site, was where the Shays Rebellion was largely planned. Its site is now under water.
The Atkinson Tavern, once the centerpiece of the small village of Atkinson Hollow, stands today, renovated and expanded, in West Springfield, Massachusetts as the Storrowton Tavern, on the grounds owned by the Eastern States Exposition. The
former Town Hall, once located just south of Atkinson Hollow, is inaccessible to the general public, and stands today off of
Route 32
The following highways are numbered 32:
International
* Asian Highway 32
* European route E32
Australia
* Great Western Highway
* Barrier Highway
* East Derwent Highway
* Mitchell Highway
Canada
* Alberta Highway 32
* Manitoba Highway 32
* No ...
in Petersham.
The village of North Prescott, on the border between Prescott and New Salem, remains partially open to public access. Although the site of the North Prescott Methodist Episcopal Church is vacant, the former parsonage—now a private home which is not open to the public—remains on its original site. The church building itself is today home of the Swift River Valley Historical Society in North New Salem, where it was moved in 1985. Prior to this the church stood at its site on the New Salem line until 1949, when it was initially moved to Orange as home of the former Prescott Historical Society. A few other structures remain.
Prescott House, an on-campus living facility at
Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mo ...
in
Amherst Amherst may refer to:
People
* Amherst (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Earl Amherst of Arracan in the East Indies, a title in the British Peerage; formerly ''Baron Amherst''
* Baron Amherst of Hackney of the City of London, ...
, Massachusetts, is named after the former town.
More Quabbin towns
*
Greenwich
Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross.
Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwic ...
*
Enfield
*
Dana
References
* Tougias, Michael. ''Quabbin: A History and Explorer's Guide''. Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts: On Cape Publications, 2002.
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20161017095551/http://menotomymaps.com/quab_1.html. Map showing the towns buried under Quabbin as they looked in 1912 with original house locations and current reservoir water level.
{{Massachusetts
Defunct towns in Massachusetts
Ghost towns in Massachusetts
Populated places in Hampshire County, Massachusetts
1938 disestablishments in Massachusetts
Forcibly depopulated communities in the United States
1822 establishments in Massachusetts
Populated places established in 1822
Populated places disestablished in 1938