MOUNT WASHINGTON. As early as 1753 or 4, a few families moved into the town. George Robinson, Joseph Graves, Thomas Wolcott, and John Dibble, were among the first settlers. In 1757, the Indian right to the land, whatever it might have been, after the sale of the two Housatonic townships, was purchased for £15. Soon after this, John Dibble, John King, Nathan Benjamine, Peter Wooden, Benjamin Osborn, Charles Paterson, and others, petitioned the legislature to grant them a township here; and in 1760 the township was actually surveyed, under the direction of the legislature, into 50 lots, though the grant prayed for was not made until 1774. The town was incorporated in 1779. The form of the township is irregular; its length is about six miles, and its average breadth three and a half. It was formerly called Tagonic or Taconic Mountain. Its surface is uneven, and is very elevated, the center being nearly 2,000 feet above the neighboring towns, while a mountain ridge around this center rises nearly 1,000 feet higher. This ridge consists mostly of broken ledges of rocks, and but few trees of much size grow upon it. There is only soil enough intermingled with the rocks to support shrubs from one to four feet high. The whortleberry-bush abounds, and the inhabitants in the vicinity resort to it in the months of August and September, to gather the fruit. This town is 22 miles S. S. W. of Lenox, and 135 W. by S. of Boston. Population, 377. In 1835, it is stated in the "Massachusetts Directory," that this town "has no minister of any denomination, no doctor, no lawyer, no postoffice, and no tavern." Since this period a house of worship has been erected in the central part of the town. Mr. R. adds this to his signature: "I, James Richards, jr., do sign the whole of this paper, except these words put in, particularly by omitting all commercial dealing with them: these words I refuse. J.R." † One of the first principal settlers of Rochester, N. Y. NEW ASHFORD. THIS town began to be settled about 1762, by emigrants from the eastern part of the state, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Among the early settlers were Nathaniel, Abel, and Gideon Kent, Uriah, Peter, and Eli Mallory, William Green, Jacob Lyon, Samuel Gridley, Jonathan Beach, Samuel P. Tyler, Abraham Kirby, William Campbell, Amariah Babbit, Evans Rice, Capt. Martin, and a Mr. Mason. This place was incorporated as a district Feb. 26, 1781, and enjoyed all the privileges of a town, except that it could not elect a representative to the legislature. A small, neat house, for public worship, was erected here in 1828, and dedicated in Jan., 1829. Most of the inhabitants are Methodists, who enjoy circuit preaching about half of the time. This town is about 4 miles square, and is situated principally on the steep and rugged hills which make from Saddle mountain on the east, and the Taconic range on the west, and which here approach each other. In the narrow valley between these hills, along the rise of the western branch of the Housatonic and the eastern branch of Green river, are some small tracts of more feasible land. Valuable quarries of blue and white marble were opened in this town about 1822, which furnish a considerable branch of business. This town is 18 miles N. of Lenox, and 130 W. by N. of Boston. Population, 253. NEW MARLBOROUGH. THIS township was originally called No. 2, and was granted in 1736 to 72 proprietors, mostly belonging to Marlborough and its vicinity, in the county of Middlesex, by "The Great and General Court or Assembly of his Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, held at Boston." The proprietors obtained the township of the Indians and took a deed, which was confirmed by the general court. Among other divisions of land into which the township was surveyed, were house lots consisting of 60 acres each, to the number of 63, besides one for each grantee. The first improvements were made in 1739, by Mr. Benjamin Wheeler, from Marlborough. During the hard winter of 1739-40, he remained the only white inhabitant in the town. The Indians, though in most respects friendly, forbade him the use of the gun, lest he should kill the deer, and thus withheld from him part of the means of his support. His nearest white neighbors were in Sheffield, a distance of 10 miles, some of whom came on snowshoes to see him. In the following summer he visited Marlborough and returned with his family. Among the other first settlers were Noah Church, Jabez Ward, Thomas Tatlow, Elias Keyes, Joseph Blackmer, Jesse Taylor, John Taylor, William Witt, Philip Brookins and Samuel Bryan, from Marlborough or the vicinity, in 1741; Joseph Adams, Moses Cleaveland, Silas Freeman, in 1744; and Charles Adams, Solomon Randsford, Nathan Randsford and Jarvis Pike, in 1745, from Canterbury, Con. Families by the name of Sheldon, Wright and Allen, from Northampton, Mass. and Sheldon, Norton, and Harmon, from Suffield, Con., moved in about 1745, and William Alexander and John Thompson the succeeding year, from Dedham. The first born in town were twins, children of Mr. Brookins. The first church in the town was organized on the 31st of Oct. 1744, with 5 members On the following day, the Rev. Thomas Strong, a native of Northampton and graduate of Yale College, was ordained pastor of this church. His salary was £50. The first meeting-house was erected in 1743. The expense of building it was defrayed by the proprietors of the town. The second meeting-house of this society was built in 1793 In consequence of some disagreement concerning the location of this house, another house was built the same year, and in 1794 the town was divided by the legislature, and a new parish, called the south parish, incorporated. On the 25th of April, 1794, the second or South church was formed, of 21 members, from the first church. The first pastor of this church, Rev. John Stevens, a native of Danbury, Con., and graduate of Yale College, was settled over the society Oct. 22, 1794. This parish has a ministerial fund, obtained by subscription in 1794, amounting to about $3,150. This town was incorporated in 1759, is eight and a half miles in length and 5 in breadth. The surface is generally uneven and hilly, and, like most of the more elevated towns in the county, stony; though at the time of the settlement, the stones were so deeply covered with vegetable mould that the first inhabitants are said to have expressed their fears that they should not find stone enough to answer the purposes of building. Their fears were removed by finding a quarry of white stone, split by nature into blocks of different sizes nearly square, on an elevation called Dry Hill. In the north-west part of the town is Six-mile pond, first so called by some Indians who lived six miles distant from it in Great Barrington, and who resorted to it, for the purpose of fishing. The outlet from this pond is called Konkapot, from the circumstance that an Indian family of that name lived by its side in the borders of Sheffield. A stream called Umpachene rises in the east part of the town, and passing by the center, runs S. W. and empties in the Konkapot. This stream also derives its name from an Indian. In the S. E. part of the township is a pond nearly two miles in circumference, called Hermit pond, which is the source of a stream, which runs S. W. into Canaan. This pond derived its name from the circumstance that a hermit lived for several years on the south-eastern side. The name of this hermit was Timothy Leonard. He came from Fredericksburg, Dutchess county, N. Y., five or six years before the revolutionary war; and though he purchased a farm, he led a solitary life till his death. He died June 13, 1817, from infirmity and old age, being, as was supposed, in his 70th year. Unwilling that any one should remain with him during a single night, he died as he lived, alone and un attended. The cause of his leading a solitary life is supposed to be explained by the fact that he was an inveterate hater of woman. His description of them was, "They say they will, and they won't; "Let none smile at the history of Timothy Leonard, for he is not a solitary instance in which disappointed hope and mortified pride have been suffered to blot out the social affections, and produce uselessness, wretchedness and ruin." In the west part of the town is a cave of some little note. It has several apartments of various dimensions, whose sides and roofs are limestone, on which stalactites are continually forming. About one fourth of a mile S. W. of the south meeting-house is a rock judged to weigh 30 or 40 tons, so equally balanced on another rock, that a man may move it with one finger. This town is 20 miles S. by E. of Lenox, and 130 S. W. by W. of Boston. Population, 1,570. OTIS. THIS town consists of the former town of Loudon and the district of Bethlehem. Loudon was incorporated in 1773. Previously it was called Tyringham Equivalent, because it had been granted to the proprietors of that town to compensate them for some losses which they had sustained. Bethlehem was incorporated in 1789. This was originally called the north eleven thousand acres, in reference to Southfield, which was called the south eleven thousand acres. The settlement of Loudon commenced probably about 1750 or 55. Some of the earliest inhabitants whose names can be ascertained were David Kibbe, Stephen Kibbe, Isaac Kibbe, Dan. Gregory, Larkeom from Enfield, Con., Jeremy Stow, Eldad Bower, E. Pelton, George Troop, Ebenezer Trumbull, Jacob Cook, Timothy Whitney, Jonathan Norton and Samuel Marcy. The vote to build the first school-house was passed in 1774. The town settled but very slowly. Bethlehem began to be settled several years after Loudon. The names of some of the first settlers were Thomas Ward, Daniel Sumner, Phineas Kingsbury, John Plumbe, Adonijah Jones, Ebenezer Jones, Miles Jones, James Brackenridge, John Spear, and Robert Hunter. Most of these, and the subsequent inhabitants who moved into the district, came principally from Con. In June 1809 the district of Bethlehem was united with the town of Loudon, the town still bearing the name of Loudon. At a town meeting held in May 1810 it was proposed to have the name of the town altered at the discretion of P. Larkeom, Esq., then representative at the general court; and in June he obtained for it the name of Otis, in honor of the speaker of the house of representatives, the Hon. H. G. Otis of Boston. It appears from the records of the town that money was voted from year to year to hire preaching. About 1772, before the incorporation of the town, a person came into it by the name of George Troop, who asserted himself to be a candidate for the ministry, whom the inhabitants employed several years; though it appeared finally that he had no license to preach. On a time appointed some of his hearers undertook to ordain him, and he on his part to form them into a church, after which he led them to the choice of deacons. The people at length becoming dissatisfied with him, an ecclesiastical council, convened in 1775, decided that he had no authority to preach or to organize a church, and that his church was not a regular church of Christ. He left the town in 1776 and joined the United States army in the character of chaplain, and his church separated and dissolved. On the 2d of Feb. 1779 a regular church was formed of 7 members. The Bethlehem church was organized Sept. 14, 1795, of 8 members. At a conference of these churches, held June 5th, 1810, it was mutually agreed to become one church. No house of worship was ever built in Loudon, though different attempts were made for the purpose. Before the union of the town and district in 1809,the united society agreed to erect a meeting-house, and procured timber and fixed upon a place to set it. This house was built by subscription, and was dedicated in the autumn of 1813. For a while after, the society had the services of Rev. Aaron Kinne, and some other clergymen. In Nov. 1814, the Rev. Jonathan Lee was invited to preach in the place, and was ordained pastor June 28, 1815. When Shays' insurrection broke out in 1786, a number of people who lived in the north part of the town, and attended meeting at Sandisfield, became alienated from their minister, the Rev. Mr. Storrs, on account of his opposition to the party of Shays. They withdrew from his ministry and professed themselves Baptists, and united with some inhabitants in the western part of Bethlehem in forming a Baptist church. They built a meeting-house, which stands in the south-western corner of this town. In the south-eastern section is a Methodist society, who have a meeting-house, which was erected by subscription in 1816. There is an Episcopal society in the center of the town, which was organized on the 1st of Jan. 1828. The general aspect of this town is uneven and broken. It abounds with granite rock, which renders the tillage difficult and expensive. At the distance of half a mile west of the center is a rock, with an opening or cavity in it, near the surface of the ground, where crystals of quartz and iron pyrites have been found. In the early settlement of Bethlehem, Daniel Sumner, while hunting for deer near by this rock, heard a sudden loud explosion, which much surprised and alarmed him. Curiosity leading him to examine from what source it proceeded, he found an unusual appearance of the rock, which was discolored, where a fissure had been made, from which he concluded that the sound had proceeded from that place. It was probably produced by the combustion of hydrogen gas. This town is 15 miles S. E. of Lenox, and 120 W. by S. of Boston. Population, 1,077. PERU. THIS township included the greater part of Hinsdale until 1804. The whole was purchased at auction, at Boston, June 2, 1762, for £1,460. This was denominated No. 2 of the nine townships which were sold at that time. It went into the hands of Oliver Partridge and Elisha Jones, and, in honor of the former gentleman, was called Partridgefield from its incorporation in 1771 until 1806, when it received its present name. It is about 6 miles long and four and a half broad. Within these limits the settlement commenced about 1764. Between this time and 1768, Henry Badger, from New Jersey, Nathaniel Stowell, from Connecticut, Peter, Daniel, and Nathan Thompson, brothers, from the eastern part of this state, settled in it, and Ebenezer Pierce shortly after. This town, occupying the height of land on the Green mountain range, has a cold, severe climate. The surface is uneven, and the soil hard and stony, and best adapted to grazing. There is a limestone quarry, from which lime is made of the best quality. The first team is said to have crossed the mountain in this town in 1767, over which a turnpike road now passes. The inhabitants of this place have been distinguished for their zeal in supporting the institutions of the gospel. They are mostly Congretionalists thongh there are some Baptists and Methodists |