The Blackinton Historic District is a historic district in the western part of

North Adams, Massachusetts North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its population was 12,961 as of the 2020 census. Best known as the home of the largest contempor ...

, roughly along Massachusetts Avenue between Ashton and Doanes Lane and Church Hill and the

Boston & Maine Railroad The Boston and Maine Railroad was a U.S. Class I railroad in northern New England. It was chartered in 1835, and became part of what was the Pan Am Railways network in 1983 (most of which was purchased by CSX in 2022). At the end of 1970, B&M ...

. The district, which encompasses North Adams' best preserved mill village, was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1985.

History

The neighborhood where the historic district is located is around the mills of the Blackinton Company, founded on the north bank of the

Hoosic River The Hoosic River, also known as the Hoosac, the Hoosick (primarily in New York) and the Hoosuck (mostly archaic), is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed October 3, 2011 tr ...

in 1821 by Sanford Blackinton, Rufus Wells and J.L White."Sanford Blackinton"
/ref> It was one of the three mill villages, with Greylock and

Braytonville In 1831 the land, owned by Luke Brown, had been purchased for $520 by William E. and Thomas A. Brayton. In 1832 a stone mill 40 x 74 feet, three stories high, with an attic was constructed allowing for larger print cloths, 52 by 52 feet to be manu ...

, that contributed to the westward expansion of North Adams. It would become one of the largest manufacturers of woolen goods in Western Massachusetts, buoyed especially by large orders from the Union Army during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. By the early 1900s the neighborhood was a self-contained community, with its own school, jail, stores, post office, library and fire department, and the people there considered themselves be residents of "Blackinton", not North Adams. The community – which historically had been disputed between North Adams and Williamstown – had a station on the Boston & Maine, as well as bus service to North Adams. The mill closed in 1950.Oehler, Kay; Sheppard, Stephen C.; Benjamin, Blair and Li, Lily
"Shifting Sands in Changing Communities: The Neighborhoods, Social Services, and Cultural Organizations of North Adams, Massachusetts"
North Adams: Center for Creative Community Development, 2006. p.5

Description

The historic district is basically linear in character, extending along Massachusetts Avenue west of downtown North Adams and north of the

. It extends along the north side between Church Hill and Wood Street, and on the south side east from Ashton Avenue, to about midway between Wood and Church Hill. The district includes the surviving brick mill buildings between Massachusetts Avenue and the river, the 1839 Blackinton Company Store, two churches, and the c. 1850 Greek Revival residence of Sanford Blackinton. There are also fine examples of later Victorian architecture, including a Queen Anne/Stick style home built by John P. Blackinton in 1880 across the street from the mill complex.

References

Notes

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts, state=collapsed North Adams, Massachusetts Historic districts in Berkshire County, Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Berkshire County, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts

History

Description

See also

References

External links