Brimfield, Massachusetts
A Short History of Brimfield
From a 1706 hill settlement on the edge of Hampshire County, to a library bought with dog-license money, to the fields where the antiques world converges three times a year.
A Town on the County Line
Brimfield was first settled in 1706 and officially incorporated in 1731. For its first eighty years the town belonged to Hampshire County, which then stretched over most of western Massachusetts. In 1812 the map was redrawn and Brimfield’s corner of the old county became Hampden County, where the town has sat ever since, on the line where the hills of central Massachusetts meet the Connecticut River valley.
The Dog Tax That Built a Library
By 1877 the fees Brimfield collected for licensing dogs had quietly accumulated in the town treasury, and nobody had spent them. On April 9 of that year the voters gathered and decided what the money was for: all of it went to establish a free public library. That single vote is a working diagram of how this town still makes decisions. Money sat in the treasury, a town meeting voted, and an institution existed. The Brimfield Public Library still serves the town from Main Street.
A Town of 1,612, Then 934, Then 3,694
Brimfield grew to a peak of 1,612 residents in 1820. Then the count slowly fell until 1910, and by 1915 it stood at 934. The rebound took another century, to 3,694 at the 2020 census. The town that results is unusual: a community that nearly quadrupled in a century while keeping its open fields, its town meeting, and a government run by the neighbors it elects.
The Fields the World Visits
Three times a year, in May, July, and September, Brimfield’s fields fill with dealers’ tents and the town hosts the largest outdoor antiques show in New England. The show gives the Select Board one of its more distinctive jobs: the board is the licensing authority for the flea market operators whose fields host the show.
Neighbors Who Left a Mark
Tabitha Moffatt Brown, a Brimfield native, founded the school in the Oregon country that was chartered as Tualatin Academy and is remembered there as the Mother of Oregon. Erastus Fairbanks left Brimfield for Vermont, where he served as governor. And the town keeps producing civic firsts of its own: at the May 18, 2026 Annual Town Meeting, Brimfield voters passed the budget with electronic clickers, and the clerk published the count on every article.
Sources: Town of Brimfield (brimfieldma.org) and its Historical Celebration of the Town of Brimfield (1879); Secretary of the Commonwealth; Massachusetts Historical Commission; Pioneer Valley Planning Commission; Massachusetts Municipal Association; Oregon Encyclopedia; National Governors Association; U.S. Census Bureau.
MassCivics last checked this page on September 25, 2026.
Sources
- History and incorporation: Secretary of the Commonwealth, MHC Reconnaissance Survey Town Report, Brimfield (1982), as of December 1982.
- Community organizations: Oregon Historical Society, The Oregon Encyclopedia, Tabitha Moffat Brown (1780-1858), as of May 4, 1858.