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Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Summary
Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield’s population was 43,927 at the 2020 census. Although its population has declined in recent decades, Pittsfield remains the third-largest municipality in Western Massachusetts, behind only Springfield and Chicopee.
In 2017, the Arts Vibrancy Index compiled by the National Center for Arts Research ranked Pittsfield and Berkshire County as the number-one medium-sized community in the nation for the arts.
The Mohicans, an Algonquian people, inhabited Pittsfield and the surrounding area until the early 1700s, when the population was greatly reduced by war and disease, and many migrated westward or lived quietly on the fringes of society.
In 1738, a wealthy Bostonian named Col. Jacob Wendell bought of land known originally as "Pontoosuck", from a Mohican word meaning "a field or haven for winter deer", as a speculative investment. He planned to subdivide and resell to others who would settle there. He formed a partnership with Philip Livingston, a wealthy kinsman from Albany, New York, and Col. John Stoddard of Northampton, who had claim to here.
A group of young men came and began to clear the land in 1743, but the threat of Indian raids around the time of King George's War soon forced them to leave, and the land remained unoccupied by Englishmen for several more years.
Soon, many others arrived from Westfield, Massachusetts, and a village began to grow, which was incorporated as Pontoosuck Plantation in 1753 by Solomon Deming, Simeon Crofoot, Stephen Crofoot, Charles Goodrich, Jacob Ensign, Samuel Taylor, and Elias Woodward. Mrs. Deming was the first and the last of the original settlers, dying in March 1818 at the age of 92. Solomon Deming died in 1815 at the age of 96.
Pittsfield was incorporated in 1761. Royal Governor Sir Francis Bernard named Pittsfield after British nobleman and politician William Pitt.
Official source
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