North Brookfield, Massachusetts
A Short History of North Brookfield
From a farming parish that inoculated its neighbors against smallpox, to a shoe town that honored George M. Cohan and beat the Philadelphia Athletics, to a Town House the whole town is still deciding how to bring back.
The North Parish
The land here was settled in the 1660s as part of Brookfield, and for generations the farmers of its north end were the North Parish of that town. The soil was good and the farms prospered, and in 1812 the parish became a town of its own: North Brookfield, incorporated with about 1,100 residents. A famous hand arrived before any of that was official. Rufus Putnam, who would become one of George Washington’s chief engineers in the Revolution, served his apprenticeship as a millwright at the Matthews Fulling Mills from 1754 to 1757, mills whose canals and tunnels threaded the area’s glacial kettle holes into a working pond system.
Revolution, and a Medical Gamble
North Brookfield and its neighboring town sent 150 Minutemen to the Battle of Lexington and Concord. In the 1770s the community also made a bet that looks remarkably modern: local physicians inoculated more than 200 people with a weakened form of smallpox, and patients came from as far away as Worcester to take the experimental vaccine and convalesce in small hospitals the town built on its outskirts, while epidemics burned through other towns. A decade later, some residents took the other side of authority, joining Shays Rebellion in the 1780s, meeting in town and hiding weapons at Ayre’s Tavern, one of the oldest buildings still standing here.
Shoe Town
Nineteenth-century North Brookfield built a vigorous industrial economy on top of its farms, above all in shoes, and later in rubber products. Industry brought fire risk: in 1862 the largest fire the town had seen destroyed the 1847 town hall, two shoe manufactories, livery stables, and every town, bank, and school record. With the Civil War still on, the town answered by building bigger. The Town House of 1864, designed by Elbridge Boyden and Son of Worcester, was dedicated on February 25, 1864, and the Worcester Spy called its hall one of the most tasteful in the state. Its 60 foot tower still stands over North Main Street.
Poets, Showmen, and a Ballgame
The poet William Cullen Bryant lived in North Brookfield while preparing for college with his uncle, the town’s minister for 64 years. Bates Observatory was given to the town in the 1890s, and on a clear day, townspeople say, you can see all the way to Boston. The town’s best summer may have been 1934, when it honored two former residents at once: George M. Cohan, the actor, producer and playwright, staged Ah, Wilderness on the Town House stage with the original New York cast under his own direction, and Connie Mack brought his Philadelphia Athletics to play the Quabaug Rubber company team, which beat them, a result townspeople are quick to note.
The Town House Today
The 1864 Town House has belonged to the town its whole life, and it has been closed since 2002. A town wide survey found 81 percent of residents want it back in use, a Town House Committee stewards the building, and the Friends of the North Brookfield Town House raise money and publish a newsletter from its belltower’s long shadow. The building where Cohan took a bow is now the town’s largest open question, and it will be answered the way North Brookfield answers everything: at a town meeting, out loud, by the people who show up.
Sources: Town of North Brookfield, About North Brookfield and Brief History of the Town House (northbrookfield.net); U.S. Census Bureau.