Adams and North Adams.

Adams, was originally known as East Hoosuck. This section was first explored probably in 1739; but it was not until 1749 that it was surveyed and its boundaries were defined by a committee of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. This committee was instructed to lay out the new township six miles square. With the desire probably of getting more valley land and fewer rocks and mountains within the territory, the committee disobeyed orders and made the township five miles from east to west and seven from north to south. It succeeded, however, in laying out the only perfectly rectangular town in the county. Three years before the survey of the township, in 1746, occurred the fight at Fort Massachusetts and the destruction of the fort. This battle was the almost one historic and romantic incident in the early history of the section. The country was settled so late that it missed those stirring episodes of early colonial days, such as King Philip’s War, the Salem witchcraft delusion, the persecution of the Baptists and other social and political matters that troubled the pioneers in eastern Massachusetts. It almost missed having a hand in the American Revolution. In fact, it emerged from the woods at almost the same period that Washington Irving caused Rip Van Winkle to come forth, and found itself, like Rip, not in the quaint, quiet atmosphere of colonial times, but in that raw period of democracy immediately following the Revolution.

The story of Fort Massachusetts deserves some notice. When in the early forties of the last century the first traces of villages began to appear in Berkshire and along the northern border of Massachusetts, the provincial government became aware of the fact that these new settlements were in constant danger, not only from the incursions of the Indians, but also from the attacks of the French. To provide for this contingency funds were provided for a line of wooden forts along the northern border of the province of Massachusetts. One of these, Fort Shirley, was in the present town of Heath; another, Fort Pelham, was in the present town of Rowe; and the last was much farther