OPENING ADDRESS. 5 



This town was incorporated in 1761, having previous to 

 that time been included in Sheffield, and was known as the 

 north parish of Sheffield. At the time of its incorporation 

 it contained about 500 inhabitants, and for the next eiij^ht or 

 ten years the history of this town is the history of most other 

 inland New England towns of that period. Soon after 1770, 

 howevei^ the political condition of the country began to 

 claim the attention of the people, and the feeling of dissatis- 

 faction with the measures of the government — so general 

 throughout the province — seemed to have been even more 

 intense in Berkshire than elsewhere ; and from that time on, 

 until the close of the Revolutionary war, the history of Great 

 Barrington is rich in its records of the zeal, energy and 

 patriotism of its people. I shall call your attention, spe- 

 cially, to the history of this town during the Revolutionary 

 period, because I think there are some events connected 

 with that period that have never been duly recognized. 



It is not generally known that the first actual, forcible 

 opposition to British rule, the first act by which the authority 

 of Great Britian was defied and the officers of the Crown 

 forcibly and etl'ectually resisted, occurred in this town and 

 very near this place ; but such I believe is the fact. It is 

 hard to understand, at this late date, how an inland com- 

 munity, as remote from the seaboard as this, sparsely settled, 

 lacking the means of intercommunication to an extent hardly 

 to be imagined to-day, should have been so alive to the 

 political issues of the time, and should have been actually in 

 advance of the other portions of the Province in opposing 

 the measures of the government, but such is the fact in 

 regard to Berkshire. On the sixth day of July, 1774, a con- 

 vention of delegates from the several towns in the county 

 was called at Stockbridge, to take into consideration certain 

 acts of Parliament, afFectins: the interests of the colonies. 

 At that convention resolutions were adopted setting forth 

 principles at variance with the policy of the government, 

 but at the same time acknowled2:in2: allesfiance to the king. 

 A committee was also appointed to frame articles of agree- 

 ment to be recommended to the towns in the count}^ to 

 prevent the use of articles of British manufacture. That 

 committee reported and the convention adopted a covenant 



