Concept

North Adams, Massachusetts

Summary
North Adams is a city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its population was 12,961 as of the 2020 census. Best known as the home of the largest contemporary art museum in the United States, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams has in recent years become a center for tourism, culture and recreation. North Adams was first settled in 1745 during King George's War, when the most western of a line of defensive forts was built along the bank of the Hoosic River, and occupied by British soldiers and their families. During the war, Canadian and Native American forces laid siege to Fort Massachusetts 30 prisoners were taken to Quebec; half died in captivity. In 1747 Fort Massachusetts was rebuilt with improved defenses, but was never attacked again. In a period of peace following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, many of the soldiers who had been garrisoned at the fort turned to farming instead by opting to each take a 190-acre package of nearby land in lieu of back-pay in the nearby township of West Hoosac (now known as Williamstown). The North Adams Women's Club began raising funds in 1895 to reconstruct the fort as a memorial site. It was dedicated in 1933 and operated as a historical tourist site until the 1960s. The 1933 Fort's replica chimney is located at the rear of the Central Markets Supermarket that opened at the site in 1960 and closed in 2016 as a Price Chopper Supermarket. The historic site was conveyed to the City of North Adams by the Golub family in 2017. The town was incorporated separately from Adams in 1878, and reincorporated as a city in 1895. The city is named in honor of Samuel Adams, a leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and governor of Massachusetts. For much of its history, North Adams was a mill town. Manufacturing began in the city before the Revolutionary War, largely because the confluence of the Hoosic River's two branches provided water power for small-scale industry.
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