The old Berkshire House having bided its time was now the only hotel in the village, the North Adams House having been closed. Mr. Hicks made many improvements in the house and premises according to the demands of the times. On the first of December 1860, A. E. Richmond purchased the interest of Mr. Hicks and sold out to D. S. Hicks in February of 1865, who run it about a year and a half when Mr. Richmond bought it back again in August of 1866.

In 1835, the Old Black Tavern having become too small, inconvenient and dilapitated for public necessity, and the business of its landlord, Alpheus Smith, he, in connection with 0. C. Smith and Walter Laflin, purchased the private residence of Capt. Jeremiah Colegrove on Main street, added twenty-one feet front of brick, three stories high, raised the roof of the rear part to correspond and completed the whole in good shape for a first class hotel, with piazzas to each story eight feet in width. This new hotel was open in 1836 and kept by A. & 0. C. Smith. A few years later Alpheus Smith purchased the interest of 0. C. Smith and soon after Mr. Laflin’s interest also. He in turn, in 1847, sold all the property to Jenks Kimbell and Charles I. Tremaine, and retired from business.

Chas. I. Tremaine kept the house in good repute for one year and then sold his interest to Mr. Kimbell. Arthur F. Wilmarth leased the premises and kept the house in 1848. He was succeeded as lessee by Wm. R. Shaw, who kept the house in 1850 and ’51. He retired to accept from President Pierce the post of steward of the White House.

Fortunately for the reputation of our village, upon the closing of the Berkshire House in 1852, by an agreement between the proprietors of both houses, Phineas Cone leased the North Adams House, and removed into it from the Berkshire House. He kept this house for three years and was succeeded by R. D. Hicks, who kept it very acceptably until it was sold to S. and E. Thayer in 1856. This popular hotel, the resort of the villagers for quiet, social intercourse, and ever the comfortable home of the stranger, ceased its career as it had begun, with a high reputation at home and abroad.

This hotel was built in 1866 by A. B. Wilson, the inventor of the Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, at a cost of $140,000.

It was opened to the public in 1867. At the end of one year It was leased by the Manufacturers’ Association, and re-leased by them to A. E. Richmond of the Berkshire House, he running, both hotels. It was soon after re-leased to E. Rogers and H. M. Streeter, who kept it until the end of the association’s five year’s lease. The property was then bought by John F. Arnold for $90,000, and after many improvements had been made was leased to Streeter, Smith & Co., they keeping it about two and one-half years, during which time the property passed into the hands of the North Adams Savings bank. In 1877 Mr. F. E. Swift became the sole proprietor, leasing it of the bank until 1880, when he purchased the entire property by paying off the mortgage of $75,000.

In 1870 Maturin Ballou erected a hotel at a cost of $40,0001, on the site of the building now owned by H. W. Clark & Co., near the depot. The house was managed by Mr. Ballou’s sons until 1876, when Edwin Thayer foreclosed a mortgage of $12,000, and took possession. For a year after this it was kept by A. A. Jones and John Thayer, the name being changed to the Commercial House. Upon the retirement of Mr. Jones in 1878, the premises were leased by Mr. John Thayer, who was keeping it on the third of January, 1881, when it was entirely destroyed by fire.