New Ashford, Massachusetts
A Short History of New Ashford
From a 1762 hill settlement named for a Connecticut town, to the years it was the first place in America to report its presidential vote, to the ski slopes of Brodie Mountain.
A Town Named for Another
New Ashford was first settled in 1762 and officially incorporated on November 4, 1835. It took its name from Ashford, Connecticut, the home its founding families had left behind. For most of its history it has been a small, rural farming community in the northern Berkshire hills, with few mills ever built on its streams. It is one of the smallest towns in Massachusetts, about 13.5 square miles, the third smallest in Berkshire County by land area, tucked against Williamstown to the north.
First in the Nation to Vote
Beginning in 1916, and for several years after, New Ashford held a title far larger than its size: it cast the first vote in United States presidential elections. On election morning the tiny town would gather, mark its ballots, count them, and telegraph the result to a waiting country, the role Dixville Notch, New Hampshire plays today. A town of a few hundred people got to speak first, and the nation listened, which is a fair picture of what a single ballot is worth here.
The First Woman to Vote
The town holds another first. On November 2, 1920, after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, Phoebe Jordan cast her ballot at the New Ashford poll and became the first woman to vote in a national election. The old wooden ballot box she used that day still sits in Town Hall, and the town still uses it. It is a working reminder that the right to vote was won, not given, and that it is exercised here in the same room, in the same box, that made the history.
The Mountain and the Fields
In 1939 a ski area opened on the Makaroff farm on the town’s western heights, and for decades Brodie Mountain drew skiers to New Ashford’s slopes. The resort has since closed, but the mountain still defines the town’s skyline and its open, wooded character. Farms, forest, and hill roads remain the shape of New Ashford, a town that has stayed small and self governing while the region around it grew.
Sources: Town of New Ashford (newashford-ma.us); Wikipedia, New Ashford, Massachusetts; U.S. Census Bureau.