Buckland, Massachusetts

By the time English settlers began settling in the Connecticut Valley the Pocumtucks, their numbers greatly reduced due to smallpox, had left the area around Buckland and consolidated themselves into several villages in the rich river valleys. In 1735, title to the land was obtained from Pocumtucks living in Schaghticoke, near Albany, New York. The General Court of Massachusetts then allocated three townships to Boston, and Buckland lay in Boston Township No. 1. A series of land transactions followed, but Buckland was not settled until the 1750s. By that time it was a part of Charlemont, Massachusetts, which was incorporated in 1766. However, the increasing number of settlers found the travel to the town center too time-consuming and in 1779 they were granted their petition to make a town of Buckland. Agriculture formed the heart of town's industry in the years around the American Revolution, although there were some mills. In 1797 Buckland's most famous inhabitant, Mary Lyon (1797-1849), was born, and she was educated in the town's schools. In 1824 she began her own school in Buckland for young women and ran it until 1830, when she moved out of the town to another school and began raising funds for what would become Mt. Holyoke, the first woman's college in the United States. Buckland's manufacturing center developed in Shelburne Falls, due to the ready access of water power, beginning in 1850 when the Lamson & Goodnow Manufacturing Co., a cutlery firm, located there. The Buckland side of Shelburne Falls eventually eclipsed Buckland Center in size. The remainder of the town was overwhelmingly agricultural well into the 1950s.