The History of Middlefield, Massachusetts

Philip Mack Smith & Edward Church Smith

No small town has ever received a greater gift than that of our compiled town history by the Smith Family. The sons of Edward Payton Smith spent 30 years or more preparing the history in his memory. They were greatly assisted by a town that rabidly supported the effort and at a time when many of the early details were still alive in the common town memory.

Nearly a hundred years later and this 1924 volume is now in the public domain. I present it here in a searchable “by chapter” format to negate the need for huge data downloads. The fully searchable PDF download (77.5 MB) is available from the Internet Archive. Link

Howard Knickerbocker - Middlefield - 2019

The History of Middlefield, Massachusetts

Introduction and Prefaces
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Maps:

Prescott’s Grant      
Prescott’s Grant - Lots
Sections Forming Middlefield
Middlefield Township
Trails
1783
1800
1850
1870
1870 Villages
1897
1924

Chapter 1 - The Middlefield Ridge and the Two Valleys - 1
Chapter 2 - The Mohican Hunting Ground - 7
Chapter 3 - The Migration to the Berkshire Hills - 15
Chapter 4 - The Pioneers and Their Trails - 28
Chapter 5 - The Hill-Towns in the Revolution - 51
Chapter 6 - Organization of the New Community and Church - 62
Chapter 7 - The Period of Isolated Farms - 90
Chapter 8 - Early Farmhouses and their Builders - 114
Chapter 9 - Factory Village, The Center and “The Switch” - 141
Chapter 10 - Mid-Century Middlefield, 1815 to 1870 - 161
Chapter 11 - Building During the Industrial Period - 189
Chapter 12 - The Floods and the Industrial Decline - 205
Chapter 13 - Middlefield in the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century - 226
Chapter 14 - History of the Middlefield Churches - 255
Chapter 15 - Middlefield Personalities and Traditions - 299

Appendix A - History of Prescott’s Grant - 343
Appendix B - Documents Connected with the History of Middlefield - 360
Appendix C - Division of Land in Middlefield - 370
Appendix D - Town Offices and Representatives - 372

Appendix E - War Records - 377
Appendix F - Origin of Settlers - 387

Appendix G - Growth and Decline of Population - 395
Appendix H - Bibliography - 397
Appendix I - The Family Genealogies (abbreviations) - 399

Abbe - Carrier - 401

Carter - Church - 426
Churchill - Everett - 446
Falley - Hamilton - 476
Hawes - Little - 501
Loveland - Metcalf - 527
Millard - Perkins - 554
Phelps - Skinner - 574
Smith - Strong - 599
Swain - Wright - 626

Index of Names - 655