In 1765, 10 years before the Battle of Bunker Hill, an incident occurred in Lanesborough that was known at the time as "The Lanesborough Affair". I have been unable to find any information about this incident that involved the entire town of Lanesborough. Of the many books I have read about Lanesborough, Berkshire County and Massachusetts history, I have only found 1 reference to this important piece of Lanesborough history. I stumbled across this while searching for my ancestor Abel Kent. I found a newspaper article printed in 1766 in The Boston Evening Post. I have written a page about the incident and transcribed this article for this website. The article was authored by Joseph Hawley and it also featured in a book about his life I found at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The book was titled "Historical sketch of Major Joseph Hawley of Northampton, Mass., 1723-1788. A reprint from the "Hawley record", 1300-1890." and another book at the same library was titled "Historical sketch of Major Joseph Hawley of Northampton, Mass., 1723-1788" by Elias S. Hawley. You can view that page here.
Listed below is a link to the photo gallery available here for Lanesborough.
Other pages about Lanesborough on this site are listed below. You may also look at the page for Abel Kent Sr..
Lanesborough was first settled around 1753 at which time it was called New Framingham. It was not incorporated until 1765 at that time the name was changed to Lanesborough. It was named after the Countess of Lanesborough. Many of the early settlers in this town came from Connecticut. Early land records mention Woodbury and Suffield but also New York and other areas of Massachusetts. In the early days there was no court in Lanesborough and matters that required a court were held first in Northampton then in Great Barrington and later Pittsfield.
Before 1759 the following list of men were heads of the first families of Lanesborough.
After 1759 first settlers who came into Lanesborough included the following:
You can find more information about the early settlers of Lanesborough on the land records page here.
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