Alford Town

Berkshire County, Massachusetts

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Alford Town Hall is located at 5 Alford Center Road, Alford, MA 01230.
Phone: 413‑528‑4536.

Neighborhoods

Alford Massachusetts [1] was originally settled in 1750 as a farming community, and was bought from the Stockbridge Indians, the Shawanon Purchase of 1756. Joseph Quiniquant and Shauanum Stockbridge Indians conveyed the land to Timothy Woodbridge and others. The town was named for Colonel John Alford of Charlestown, who was known for his work in preaching Christianity to Native Americans, and for sponsoring a theology professorship at Harvard College's Divinity School.

When the quarries were going full-tilt, Alford was bustling. There were blacksmith shops, tanneries, cooper shops, a reed factory, two grist mills, tow sawmills, a forge with a trip hammer and a furnace for casting hollow ware. The manufacture of charcoal was also a big business during the 1800s. The Alford Meeting House (also known as the Union Meeting House which still stands between the Town Hall and the School House) was built in 1817 and served as a gathering house for the community's diverse religious needs; Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists all worshipped there.

  1. Alford Community Development Plan Advisory Committee, Alford Open Space & Recreation Plan,, 2004, www.townofalford.org, accessed September, 2017.

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