Berkshire County was formed in 1761 out of Hampshire County.
The county seat is Pittsfield.
Berkshire County is in the western part of the Massachusetts, about 125 miles north of New York City and the same west of Boston.
Berkshire County is bounded by the following counties:
Berkshire County was the winter home of the Mahican (Also known as Mohican) Indians. After selling off much of their lands in the Hudson Valley to the Dutch in New York, Berkshire County (specifically Stockbridge) became their permenent residence.
Earliest known european settlement of Berkshire County was in 1692 by Dutch settlers from New York in the area of Mount Washington. They were employed as farmers, traders and miners of iron ore for the forge at Ancram (now Copake), NY. A patent for the area was granted by New York in 1705 and was, at that time, known as the Westenhoeck Patent.
In 1722, Joseph Parsons and 176 other Hampshire County residents were given permission by Boston to settle in the region in spite of the claims of ownership by New York. These actions set off a long. spordic war between New York and Massachusetts known as the border war or the first anti-rent war.
The Lookup Volunteers have been placed on a seperate page, in expectation of a flood of requests :.) If you have any books or CDs on this county and will volunteer to do lookups, please email me at bathrick@berkshire.net .
Please follow these guidelines when requesting a look-up.
A query page is available for the Berkshire County GenWeb project. Queries should be sent to bathrick@berkshire.net with "Berkshire County Query" in the subject line. Your query may also be entered using the Massachusetts Queries page of the USGenWeb project.
Thanks are due to BerkshireNet for
storing this site.
Page Design by Michael D. Bathrick