Berlin, Massachusetts
A Short History of Berlin
From Nashaway planting grounds, to a district set off in 1784 and a town in 1812, to the shoe shops, asparagus fields and egg farms that made a living between two river valleys.
Nashaway Land
Long before any English settler arrived, this land belonged to the Nashaway people. In 1643 their sachem, Sholan, deeded part of what is now Berlin to settlers, and the town was first settled in 1665. For its first century the land you live on was the edge of larger towns, farmed and worked well before it had a name of its own.
1784 and 1812
Berlin was set off as a separate district in 1784 and incorporated as a full town in 1812. The name is spoken with the stress on the first syllable, BUR-lin, not the way you say the German city, and that local pronunciation is believed to date all the way back to 1784. Once it was its own town, Berlin governed itself the way it still does, by open Town Meeting, where the budget and the bylaws are settled by whoever walks into the room.
Shoes, Asparagus, and Eggs
Berlin began as a farming community of mixed hay, grains and cattle, and after the Civil War it added a large shoe factory, with shoe manufacturing and lumbering giving residents work off the farm. Then the town found its specialty. Berlin growers shipped 41,000 bunches of asparagus to market in 1885, raised hops, and turned to poultry: by 1940 the town’s farmers were producing 836,600 dozen eggs a year. That is a working history, not a quaint one, and much of the open land those farms left behind still shapes the town.
The 1870 Town Hall
Berlin built its first town house in 1831, a single hall for town meetings and social life. As the town grew it needed more room, and a new Town Hall was begun in 1869 and finished in 1870, on a lot facing the Meeting House Common in the center of town that Artemas Barnes gave to Berlin. The building still stands as a civic anchor, and its story is one the Berlin Art and Historical Society works to keep.
People From Berlin
For a town of a few thousand, Berlin has sent some striking names into the wider world. The architect Holman K. Wheeler designed more than 400 buildings in Lynn. The businessman and philanthropist Aaron Feuerstein, the third-generation owner of Malden Mills, is counted among the town’s notable people, as is the artist and historian Katherine Bacon. Their range is a reminder that a small town is not a small place.
Sources: Wikipedia, Berlin, Massachusetts (en.wikipedia.org); the Berlin Art and Historical Society (berlinartandhistoricalsociety.org); U.S. Census Bureau.