History

From 1785 through the 1820s, largely Yankees from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the older Vermont towns settled Northfield. Next to arrive were the Irish, attracted in the 1840’s by jobs on the railroad. The Welsh arrived after the Irish to work in the slate quarries in the 1850’s and 1860’s. Stonework also brought the next wave. Starting about 1890, Italians, Spaniards, and Scots joined the workforce in the granite sheds. From the 1880’s onward, Canadians of French descent came seeking opportunity, many buying up hill farms abandoned in the decades after the Civil War.

The years from 1785 to 1825 saw the development of Northfield’s four villages. The first settlement was on East Hill (now Mill Hill), close by Elijah Paine’s grist and sawmills. As the population grew, boundaries crept up the hill and northward along Route 12. Clusters of houses became villages, each with its own personality and name: South Village, Center Village, Factory Village, and the Falls.

First to have a distinct identity was South Village, which had numerous small businesses and manufacturing operations through the nineteenth century. Next was Center Village, where the first post office, town clerk’s office, and churches were established, and which for many years was the social and political center of town. After the Center came Factory Village (the present Village of Northfield) named for the woolen mill located there. Last to develop was Northfield Falls, and by the late 1820’s it, too, was a thriving community.

With the arrival of the railroad in the 1840’s, Factory Village and Depot Square increasingly became the hub of local activity. Residents there began to demand lighted streets, sidewalks, fire and police protection, and they then petitioned the legislature to establish a separate Village of Northfield. The Village of Northfield was incorporated November 14, 1855.