Petersham, Massachusetts
A Short History of Petersham
From a hill settlement of the 1730s, to the winter morning that ended Shays’ Rebellion on the common, to a 4,000-acre forest that Harvard University still studies, Petersham has kept the same form of self government the whole way through.
A Town Built Around Its Common
Europeans first settled Petersham in 1733, and the town was incorporated on April 20, 1754. The heart of it has always been the common, the wide green at the center of town, ringed by the meeting house, the library, and the homes that make up the Petersham Common Historic District, roughly 45 buildings now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From the start, the town governed itself by Town Meeting, and it still does: the budget and the bylaws are set by the registered voters who gather in the hall.
The Morning Shays’ Rebellion Ended
In the winter of 1786 and 1787, farmers across western Massachusetts rose up against the courts and the debt collectors in what became known as Shays’ Rebellion. The last chapter played out at Petersham. On February 4, 1787, General Benjamin Lincoln marched his militia through the night in bitter cold and reached Petersham in the morning, scattering the rebels and effectively ending the uprising. A monument on the common, placed in 1927, marks the event with the words “Obedience to the law is true liberty.” The rebellion is remembered as one of the events that pushed the country toward a stronger federal constitution.
The Forest Harvard Still Studies
In 1907, Harvard University established the Harvard Forest at Petersham, buying 4,000 acres with a gift from John S. Ames and setting it up as a field laboratory for the study of forestry and the land. More than a century later it is still an active Harvard University research forest, and its trails are open to the public year round for hiking, snowshoeing, and sledding. A town of about 1,194 people holds within its borders a working research forest that Harvard has studied for generations.
A Small Town That Still Governs Itself
Petersham never grew into a city, and it never traded away its Town Meeting. Today it remains a large, rural town in north central Worcester County, run by a three-member Select Board and by the voters who fill the hall each spring. The same person who walks the Harvard Forest trails on a Saturday can, once registered, stand up at Town Meeting and vote the town budget. That continuity, a working direct democracy in a town of barely more than a thousand people, is Petersham’s most durable civic fact.
Sources: Wikipedia, Petersham, Massachusetts; Harvard Forest, Harvard University (harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu); Town of Petersham (townofpetersham.gov); U.S. Census Bureau.