The William Russell Allen house at 359 East St., Pittsfield, as it stands today.

CONNECTIONS: The fickle fate of fortune — and foreclosure

Over 100 years (1749 – 1849), there were six owners who bought and lost the property of 359 East St. in Pittsfield and one who bought it, lost it and got it back.

About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.

There are different grounds for seizure of property and different reasons for the shifting fortunes of man. Tracing a single property back through time is one way to learn the stories. 359 East St. in Pittsfield (the William Russell Allen house today) is a good example. Over 100 years (1749 – 1849), there were six owners who bought and lost the property and one who bought it, lost it and got it back. They were: Elisha Jones, Charles Goodrich, Simon Learned, partners John Root and John Hunt, and Nathan Willis. These are their stories and, by extension, a slice of Pittsfield history.

The first owner of the lot, Elisha Jones, was a Tory. Jones was an absentee owner and not much is known about him. However, because he was awarded land in western Massachusetts in 1749, we can assume he was well-heeled and well-placed politically. Moreover we know the same political connections that got Jones the land cost him his land.

Jones was certainly a King’s man, safe in his position and his ownership. During the Revolutionary War, however, Tory land was confiscated. The traitors traded land for liberty. So in 1775, Jones’ abutter, Charles Goodrich, seized Jones’ land and extended his property line.

Goodrich was an original settler of Pittsfield. He was one of the commissioners appointed to partition Poontoosuck (original name of Pittsfield). It was Charles Goodrich who requested the first town meeting. Goodrich brought the first Congregational minister, the Rev. Thomas Allen, to Pittsfield, and it was Goodrich who sat on the committee “to manage the whole affair of [building] the meeting house.”

Ironically, in June 1776, just a year after he seized Jones’ land, Goodrich was accused of being “inimical to his country” because “he procured himself a commission in the king’s name…as a justice of the peace [thereby] submitting to British authority.” Goodrich was assessed both public and private damages. His property might have been seized to pay the damages and forfeit because he was a Tory, but Goodrich fought back.

Image of Elmwood Court, reprinted from F.W. Beers, "Atlas of Berkshire Count," 1876
Image of Elmwood Court, reprinted from F.W. Beers, “Atlas of Berkshire Count,” 1876

Goodrich claimed his character was “maliciously stabbed,” there was no truth to the accusations, and it was he who deserved damages for slander and libel. In January 1779, the matter was arbitrated at the Eastman Tavern. It was not heard in a court because the courts in Pittsfield were closed during the war; instead actions were heard by committees in various taverns. In the matter of Charles Goodrich, a compromise was struck. Goodrich did better than Jones: he was assessed the cost of the arbitration but retained his property.

In 1788 Charles Goodrich sold the land to Col. Simon Learned (also spelled Larned). Until that year the land was undeveloped; Learned was the first to build on it. Born in 1753, Learned fought in the Revolutionary War and, at the age of 31 settled in Pittsfield. Four years later he bought land and built a house described as “a commodious attractive mansion.”

Learned farmed his land and ran a business from his home. Advertisements in the Pittsfield Sun show that it was a barter business. Learned traded house ashes and pot ashes for cotton as well as for West Indian and European goods. He traded wheat for nails.

Learned was civic-minded and served in elected positions including sheriff. His popularity grew and, in 1806 when the charter was granted for the Berkshire Bank, Learned was named its first president. Learned was anxious to increase his fortune so, in 1809 – with James Colt, Elkanah Watson and Joshua Danforth – he founded the Pittsfield Wool and Cotton Factory. The fates of the bank and the factory were intertwined because the bank funded the factory.

All the Berkshire Bank directors were local men, but the moving force behind the bank was a Bostonian named Andrew Dexter. Three years after the bank opened and the same year the factory opened, there were no fewer than 50 law suits filed against Berkshire Bank. All were actions brought by Berkshire County residents attempting to get their money back, but there was no money in the bank; the total deposits in the bank – $80,000 – had disappeared. The bank failed and that wiped out many Berkshire residents and the Pittsfield Wool and Cotton Factory.

Learned’s troubles were not over. Although Dexter and the $80,000 disappeared at the same time, the court held the local bank directors – Hurlbut, Pepoon, Colt, Danforth and Learned – responsible. They could not repay the money and so their property was seized. Sale of property gave partial remuneration to the account holders, and yet Learned and the other directors were jailed in Lenox. Learned was without land or liberty; however, during the whole of his incarceration, Learned retained the position of Pittsfield sheriff.

Learned retained his elected position because he retained the respect of people of Pittsfield. Regardless of the court finding, Pittsfield never blamed Learned or the other directors. As a community, Pittsfield blamed Bostonian Andrew Dexter. Nonetheless, the court sold Learned’s property to the Bank of Columbia in 1810. In 1816 the Bank of Columbia sold it to John B. Root and John Hunt. Hunt was Learned’s son-in-law. In 1826 Root and Hunt sold Learned’s property to Nathan Willis.

When Learned was set free, he rejoined the military as a captain and fought in the War of 1812. With him on the battlefield was his son Charles. Although his son-in-law bought the house, there is no indication that Learned benefitted when it was sold to Willis. Learned died in Pittsfield in 1817 without his land or his “commodious mansion.” But…….

Nathan Willis, the new owner, came to Pittsfield in 1814 when he was 50 years old. He owned and operated Nathan Willis & Son, a general store, on Bank Row. In 1823, Charles Learned married Lucy Willis, Nathan’s daughter and, in 1849, the couple moved into the house at 359 East St., restoring the “commodious mansion” to Simon Learned’s bloodline.

There is another famous Learned house in Pittsfield: Elmwood Court. Henry Henderson of Baltimore began this “costly and handsome mansion” in 1853. Indeed costly, in 1854, Henderson was probably forced to sell it to Edward J. Learned (1820-1886).

For 78 years it was the homestead of Edward and Caroline Stoddard Learned and their issue. By the end of the century, however, the family fortunes declined. In a new century, another bank foreclosed on another Learned property: Aug. 29, 1932, Berkshire County Savings Bank foreclosed on what remained of the estate called one of the most glorious in Berkshire County.

Shifting fortunes and seizures of property are hard to experience and easy stories to tell.