Place:Pittsfield, Berkshire, Massachusetts, United States

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NamePittsfield
Alt namesBoston Plantationsource: USGS, GNIS Digital Gazetteer (1994) GNIS25000400
Pontoosucsource: USGS, GNIS Digital Gazetteer (1994) GNIS25000400
Poontoosucksource: USGS, GNIS Digital Gazetteer (1994) GNIS25000400
Wendells Townsource: USGS, GNIS Digital Gazetteer (1994) GNIS25000400
Pontoosuck Plantationsource: incorporated in 1753
TypeTown, City
Coordinates42.452°N 73.252°W
Located inBerkshire, Massachusetts, United States     (1761 - )
Contained Places
Cemetery
Pittsfield Cemetery ( 1850 - )

Pittsfield, formerly known as Pontoosuck plantation, was founded in 1761.

  • April 21, 1761, established as a town.
  • June 5, 1889, incorporated as a city.
  • February 11, 1890, Act of June 5, 1889, accepted by the town.

Contents

Modern Pittsfield

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield’s population was 43,927 at the 2020 census. Although the population has declined in recent decades, Pittsfield remains the third largest municipality in Western Massachusetts, behind only Springfield and Chicopee.

In 2017, the Arts Vibrancy Index compiled by the National Center for Arts Research ranked Pittsfield and Berkshire County as the No. 1 medium-sized community in the nation for the arts.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The Mohicans, an Algonquian people, inhabited Pittsfield and the surrounding area until the early 1700s, when the population was greatly reduced by war and disease, and many migrated westward or lived quietly on the fringes of society.

In 1738, a wealthy Bostonian named Col. Jacob Wendell bought of lands known originally as Pontoosuck, a Mohican word meaning "a field or haven for winter deer", as a speculative investment. He planned to subdivide and resell to others who would settle there. He formed a partnership with Philip Livingston, a wealthy kinsman from Albany, New York, and Col. John Stoddard of Northampton, who had claim to here.

A group of young men came and began to clear the land in 1743, but the threat of Indian raids around the time of King George's War soon forced them to leave, and the land remained unoccupied by Englishmen for several more years.

Soon, many others arrived from Westfield, Massachusetts, and a village began to grow, which was incorporated as Pontoosuck Plantation in 1753 by Solomon Deming, Simeon Crofoot, Stephen Crofoot, Charles Goodrich, Jacob Ensign, Samuel Taylor, and Elias Woodward. Mrs. Deming was the first and the last of the original settlers, dying in March 1818 at the age of 92. Solomon Deming died in 1815 at the age of 96.

Pittsfield was incorporated in 1761. Royal Governor Sir Francis Bernard named Pittsfield after British nobleman and politician William Pitt. By 1761 there were 200 residents and the plantation became the Township of Pittsfield.

By the end of the Revolutionary War, Pittsfield had grown to nearly 2,000 residents, including Colonel John Brown, who in 1776 began accusing Benedict Arnold of being a traitor, several years before Arnold defected to the British. Brown wrote in his winter 1776-77 handbill, "Money is this man's God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country."

Pittsfield was primarily an agricultural area because of the many brooks that flowed into the Housatonic River; the landscape was dotted with mills that produced lumber, grist, paper, and textiles. With the introduction of Merino sheep from Spain in 1807, the area became the center of woolen manufacturing in the United States, an industry that would dominate the community's economy for almost a century.


The town was a bustling metropolis by the late 19th century. In 1891, the City of Pittsfield was incorporated and William Stanley Jr., who had recently relocated his Electric Manufacturing Company to Pittsfield from Great Barrington, produced the first electric transformer. Stanley's enterprise was the forerunner of the internationally known corporate giant, General Electric (GE). Thanks to the success of GE, Pittsfield's population in 1930 had grown to more than 50,000. While GE Advanced Materials (now owned by SABIC-Innovative Plastics, a subsidiary of the Riyadh-based Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) continues to be one of the city's largest employers, a workforce that once topped 13,000 was reduced to less than 700 with the demise and/or relocation of General Electric's transformer and aerospace portions. On October 8, 2015, SABIC announced it would relocate its headquarters from Pittsfield to Houston, Texas.

General Dynamics occupies many of the old GE buildings and its workforce is expanding. Much of General Dynamics' local success is based on the awarding of government contracts related to its advanced information systems. In September 2018, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, and other Baker administration officials attended the groundbreaking of a $13.7 million project to build a life sciences and advanced manufacturing center in the city.

1902 Presidential Incident

On September 3, 1902, at 10:15 AM, during a two-week tour through New England campaigning for Republican congressmen, the barouche transporting President Theodore Roosevelt from downtown Pittsfield to the Pittsfield Country Club collided head-on with a trolley. Roosevelt, Massachusetts Governor Winthrop Murray Crane, secretary to the president George Bruce Cortelyou, and bodyguard William Craig were thrown into the street. Craig was killed; he was the first Secret Service agent killed while on a presidential protection detail. Roosevelt, whose face and left shin were badly bruised, nearly came to blows with the trolley motorman, Euclid Madden. Madden was later charged with manslaughter to which he pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a heavy fine.

Baseball in Pittsfield

In 2004, historian John Thorn discovered a reference to a 1791 by-law prohibiting anyone from playing "baseball" within of the new meeting house in Pittsfield. A reference librarian, AnnMarie Harris, found the actual by-law in the Berkshire Athenaeum library and its age was verified by researchers at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. If authentic and if actually referring to a recognizable version of the modern game, the 1791 document, would be, as of 2004, the earliest known reference to the game in America. (See Origins of baseball.) The document is available on the Pittsfield Library's web site.

A finding that baseball was invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York, provided the rationale for baseball centennial celebrations in 1939 including the opening of a National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in that city. Few historians ever believed it and even the Hall's vice president, Jeff Idelson, has stated that "Baseball wasn't really born anywhere."

In 1859, the first intercollegiate baseball game was played in Pittsfield. Amherst defeated Williams College, 73–32.


Ulysses Frank Grant, born August 1, 1865, in Pittsfield (died May 27, 1937), was an African American baseball player in the 19th century who played in the International League and for various independent teams.

Professional baseball was played in Pittsfield's Wahconah Park from 1894 through 2003. Teams included the early Pittsfield Colts and Pittsfield Hillies, the Pittsfield Electrics of the 1940s, the Pittsfield Red Sox from 1965 to 1969 with such then A-league players and future major leaguers as George Scott, Carlton Fisk, and Reggie Smith, the Pittsfield Senators (later Rangers) of the 1970s, and the 1985–1988 AA Pittsfield Cubs featuring future stars Mark Grace and Rafael Palmeiro. From 1989 to 2001, the Pittsfield Mets and Pittsfield Astros (2001 only) represented the city in the New York–Penn League. The Astros have since moved to Troy, New York, and are now known as the Tri-City ValleyCats.

In 2005, Wahconah Park became the home stadium of the Pittsfield Dukes, a summer collegiate baseball franchise of the New England Collegiate Baseball League owned by Dan Duquette, former Boston Red Sox general manager. The Dukes had played the 2004 season in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, as the Berkshire Dukes. In 2009, the franchise changed its name to the Pittsfield American Defenders. The American Defenders' name refers to both the United States military and a line of baseball gloves produced by Nocona Athletic Goods Company. Duquette's ownership group also owned the American Defenders of New Hampshire, members of the independent Can-Am League.

Since 2012, Wahconah Park has been the home of the Pittsfield Suns of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.

Mark Belanger, eight-time Gold Glove winning shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, Turk Wendell, relief pitcher for the New York Mets, and Tom Grieve, outfielder for the Texas Rangers, were all from Pittsfield.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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Resources

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog