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.
Sheffield was founded in 1733. Shortly thereafter, the notion of a mission in the westernmost part of Hampshire County was discussed. From 1734, there were negotiations about land ownership and embracing Christianity with the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nation (often shortened to Stockbridge Indians). In March 1736, the General Court in Boston granted six miles square (23,040 acres) on the river north of Sheffield. A charter for “Indian town” was drawn up in 1737. Finally, in 1739, the village was incorporated and named Stockbridge.
In 1739, John Stoddard surveyed the township. The population was six “English” landowners and fewer than 50 members of the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nation. The survey of 1739 laid out 32 meadow lots for the Stockbridge Indians on either side of the Housatonic River. The lots were between two and 10 acres each. The meadow was considered the most desirable land by the Stockbridge Indians.
Initially, John Sergeant, the first minister to Stockbridge, intended to build his house on The Plain to be nearer his “flock.” However, his young wife, Abigail Williams Sergeant, preferred The Hill. She believed The Hill had healthier air.
The six white settlers, called “the English,” were John Sergeant, Timothy Woodbridge, his brother Joseph, Ephraim Williams (Abigail’s father), Ephraim Brown, and Josiah Jones. Each was granted 400 acres — totaling 2,400 acres or 10 percent of the entire 23,040 acres. The Indians retained 90 percent.
Stockbridge was divided between The Hill and The Plain. Stoddard may have called it the meadow but, in Stockbridge, it was always called The Plain. Also on The Plain was the meeting house, a 30 x 40-foot building. In that building, at the first town meeting, on July 11, 1739: Ephraim Williams, moderator; Timothy Woodbridge, town clerk; Capt. John Konkapot and Aaron Umpachene, selectmen; and Josiah Jones Constable.
The Plain, gentle and level, spread out along the Housatonic River and had distant mountain views. The Hill had a startlingly beautiful prospect and formed a curve over the entire plain, surrounding it like sheltering arms. Today they are called Main Street and Prospect Hill Road.
Words such as Mahkeenac and Housatonic survive. Shortened and anglicized, the words mean “People of the ever-moving water” and “The land beyond the mountain” — beautiful words describing a beautiful land. The English also noted the beauty of the land. In an allegory, a husband takes his bride to see the beauty of Stockbridge. Years later, as she lay dying, she tells him she is visualizing Stockbridge because it must look just as the Heaven to which she now goes. Stockbridge author Catharine Sedgwick shortened the whole to a phrase to “Stockbridge is one step from Heaven.”
The houses built by the English reflected their relative wealth. The Ephraim Williams house was built in the Connecticut River Valley style, with the distinctive front door. It was the height of fashion, the epitome of social standing and wealth.
“Old Colonel Ephraim Williams back from the building of Fort Massachusetts [North Adams] boxed himself up in his new home on the Hill. Stately and forbidding the castle was really a fort and commanded the sweep of the valley with the protection of 3-inch plank walls and a well in the basement so that in case of siege those seeking protection would be supplied with water.”
John and Abigail Sergeant’s house mimicked her father’s in style but not in fortification. The community relied upon Ephraim’s house for refuge in case of attack. The Sergeant Mission House was later moved to Main Street (just where Sergeant wanted it). Ironically, it was built uphill for the air and moved downhill to protect it from damaging winds.
Ten years later, Abigail’s family had changed. She was the mother of three, was about to be a widow, and her brother Elijah was off to the College of New Jersey (renamed Princeton in 1756). Elijah was living with Aaron Burr Sr., the president of the college, husband of Stockbridge’s own Esther Edwards Burr, and father of the future vice president.
Ephraim was an ambitious man. He wrote his son: “I am glad to hear of you having got so into favor with the President. Pray don’t do anything to forfeit it but use all possible endeavors to increase it.”
Williams was not a witty man, but he was, at times, very funny. He wrote his son: “I intreet you to mend your speling… it will much Grace your wrighting.”
Communication from Stockbridge to anywhere else was slow and difficult. Ephraim’s letters’ appended delivery instructions describe the problem: “Will the reader please go with this letter from our frontier home [Stockbridge] to the Hudson River through the forest — two days travel to Claverack [New York]. Then see Captain Fonda and ask him to take it along next time he sails and leave it at Buckee’s House of Call [a tavern]. There it will be stuck up over the mantel piece until someone happens to be going over to the Jerseys. Prithee give it to the young Englishman Williams staying with the scholar Burr at the college at Newark.”
That same year, 1749, the land was described by a traveler: “A wilderness of forty miles on the east, a wood of twenty miles on the west, and a great and terrible wilderness on the north which reaches Canada.”
Stockbridge was a beautiful land, but unforgiving. To live in it required strength and craft.
