Dateline Stockbridge: I came to the village 50 years ago. In a half-century I learned its old ways and watched them change. Norman Rockwell images made Stockbridge America’s hometown. The intervening 50 years made Stockbridge a microcosm of America—an echo of old America coping with change.
Sheffield was founded in 1733. Shortly thereafter, the notion of a mission in the westernmost part of Hampshire County was discussed. (Before 1761, Berkshire County was part of Hampshire County).
From 1734, there were negotiations with the Stockbridge-Munsee band of the Mohican Nation about land ownership and embracing Christianity. In March 1736, the General Court in Boston delineated six square miles (23,040 acres) and identified it as “Indian Town.” The land was north of Sheffield along the Housatonic River. A charter was drawn up in 1737. Finally, in 1739, the village was incorporated and named Stockbridge.
That year, John Stoddard surveyed the township. The population was six “English” families and fewer than 50 members of the Stockbridge-Munsee band. Stoddard laid out 32 meadow lots along the river for the Stockbridge-Munsee band. The lots were between two and ten acres each.
The six white families, called “the English,” were John Sergeant, Timothy Woodbridge, his brother Joseph, Ephraim Williams, Ephraim Brown, and Josiah Jones. Each was granted 400 acres totaling 2,400 acres, or 10 percent of the 23,040 acres. The Stocbridge-Munsee retained 90 percent.
Stockbridge was divided between The Hill and The Plain. (Today they are called Prospect Hill Road and Main Street). Generally, the English lived on The Hill; they believed the air was better the higher one lived and good air was the secret to good health.
Generally, the Stockbridge-Munsee band lived on the Plain. They considered the meadow along the river the most desirable land. Mahkeenac and Housatonic, shortened and anglicized, meant “People of the ever-moving water” or “the people of the waters that are never still” and “the land [over or beyond] the mountain.” The words “over or beyond the mountains” meant from Muhheconnituck (the Hudson River), the place whence they came. Beautiful words describing a beautiful land.
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.
To emphasize the beauty, a story was told. On their honeymoon, a man takes his bride to see the beauty of Stockbridge. Years later, as she lay dying, she tells him she is visualizing Stockbridge because Heaven, to which she now goes, must look like that. Stockbridge author Catharine Sedgwick shortened the whole to a phrase, “Stockbridge is one step from Heaven.” Over the years, the phrase was echoed by Jonathan Edwards and Daniel Chester French.
The first settlers built the meeting house, a rough, 30-by-40-foot building. It was completed in November 1739. 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 scroll above a fine 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.”
Also on The Hill, the Reverend John and Abigail Williams Sergeant’s house mimicked her Father’s house in style but was not a fortification. The community relieved upon Ephraim’s house for refuge in case of attack. The Sergeant Mission House was later moved down to Main Street. Ironically, it was built uphill for the air and moved downhill to protect it from damaging winds.
Ten years later, Abigail was the mother of three and would soon be a widow. 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 Jonathan Edward’s daughter, Esther Edwards Burr, and father of the future vice president.
Ephraim, 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.”
Ephraim was a stern and serious man, not a witty man, but he was, at times, unwittingly very funny. He wrote his son, “I intreet [intreat] you to mend your speling [spelling]… it will much Grace your wrighting [writing].”
Communication from Stockbridge to anywhere else was slow and difficult. Ephraim’s letters appended delivery instructions that described 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.”
They came to a beautiful land, but it was also remote and unforgiving. To live in it required strength and craft.
