Siege of Fort Massachusetts

Fort Massachusetts See also Fort Massachusetts for other similarly named forts. Fort Massachusetts was the westernmost in a line of forts built by British colonists to protect the northern border of Massachusetts from French and Indian forces in 1745. It was constructed along the banks of the Hoosac River in what is currently North Adams, Massachusetts by a company of British soldiers led by Captain Ephraim Williams. It consisted of a wooden stockade with a guard tower at each corner and a central blockhouse which was designed to be defensible if the walls were breached.

St. Joseph's School is a historic former school building located at 85 Eagle Street at the intersection of Union Street in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is a 3+1⁄2-story brick Classical Revival structure, built, in 1928–29 as an expansion of an older building. It was operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, and reached a peak enrollment over 1,200 students in 1958. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. It is now called St. Joseph's Court and is used for federally subsidized low-income housing for senior citizens.

The Freeman's Grove Historic District is a residential historic district in North Adams, Massachusetts. It encompasses a neighborhood north of the city center that is a well-preserved instance of a working class area developed during its industrial heyday in the late 19th century. It includes the Chase Hill Estate as well as all the houses on Chase Avenue, Bracewell Street, Hall Street and several smaller streets adjacent to those. It is roughly bounded by Liberty Street, Eagle Street, Bracewell Avenues and Houghton Street. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Windsor Print Works is a historic textile mill at 121 Union Street in North Adams, Massachusetts. Founded in 1829, with buildings dating to 1872, it was one of the first textile mills in western Massachusetts, and the first place in the United States to create printed cotton fabric. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The property now houses a variety of arts-related and light manufacturing businesses.

The Monument Square–Eagle Street Historic District is a historic district encompassing the civic heart of North Adams, Massachusetts. When it was originally designated in 1972, the district encompassed Monument Square – west of the intersection of Main Street and Church Street, and the location of a Civil War memorial – and the area around it. This designation included the North Adams Public Library (formerly the Blackinton Mansion), the First Baptist Church and First Congregational Church, and a block of shops Eagle Street. In 1988, the district's boundaries were increased to be roughly bounded by Holden, Center and Union Streets, the East Middle School (now the Silvio O. Conte Middle School), Summer Street, and Main Street. This expansion extended the district westward along Summer Street to include the US Post Office building and St. John's Church, and eastward to include Colgrove Park, the middle school, and St. Francis Catholic Church. An additional block of commercial buildings was also added on the north side of West Main Street, extending just west of Holden Street.North Adams was settled as part of Adams in the mid-18th century, and soon developed as an industrial village, powered by the waters of the two branches of the Hoosic River, which meet just northwest of its central business district. The waterfront areas were developed with mills producing a variety of goods, which were eventually dominated by textiles beginning in the mid-19th century. The central business district around Monument Square, were the town's Baptist Church was founded in 1808, led by Otis Blackinton, whose family would dominate the local industrial business landscape. Most of the city's business district was developed between about 1870 and 1920, the greatest period of its economic success. A major decline was begun by the Great Depression, resulting in little growth in subsequent decades.

Church Street Historic District is a historic district roughly on Church Street between Park Ave. and Highland St. in Ware, Massachusetts. This mainly residential area includes some of Ware's finest late 19th century houses and a well-preserved collection of Greek Revival houses. The area was developed primarily in response to the growth of industry to the south. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

The Church Street–Cady Hill Historic District, originally known as the Church Street Historic District, is a historic district in North Adams, Massachusetts. It was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 and was expanded and renamed in 1985. The district encompasses the principal residential areas near the center of downtown. When first designated it included residences primarily on East Main Street and Church Street, as well as properties in the neighborhood south of East Main and east of Church; the 1985 expansion extended the district further east and west, to properties on Ashland Street and streets connecting it to Church Street to the west, and the properties along Pleasant Street, Cherry Street, and adjacent streets to the east of Church Street.Church Street, the area's principal route, was laid out about 1780, and is one of the city's oldest roads. Residential development in the area remained modest until the 1850s, and in the subsequent decades a significant number of Italianate and Second Empire houses were built on Church Street and adjacent side streets, which were laid out beginning in the 1840s. Later development extended further from Church Street, with a fine assembly of Stick and Queen Anne style houses on Holbrook and Cherry Streets to the east. Most of these houses were not designed by architects; one (27 Wall Street) is based on a pattern published by Palliser, Palliser & Company in one of its architectural design books.

The North Adams strike (also called North Adams Scandal) was a strike in 1870 by shoe workers of the Order of the Knights of St. Crispin, against Calvin T. Sampson's Shoe factory, in North Adams, Massachusetts. The strike itself was broken when the factory superintendent, George W. Chase, fired the Irish workers, replacing them with newly employed seventy-five Chinese men from California. Bringing national attention to North Adams, the event started a nation-wide trend of bringing in scab labor and helped perpetuate the concept of immigrants coming to the United States to steal jobs, which led to much hostility towards Chinese immigrants across the nation.

The Houghton Mansion is the former home of Albert Charles Houghton and his family in North Adams, Massachusetts. It was later used as a Masonic temple, but is now empty.

The Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum was a museum proposed for North Adams, Massachusetts that plans to display model trains running through a landscape of notable modern architecture. Architect Frank Gehry has contracted to design the new museum, which will be located a few blocks away from the MASS MoCA modern art museum. Thomas Krens, former director of the Guggenheim Museum who oversaw the creation of the Gehry-designed Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and a Mass MoCA founder, is heading the creation of the new museum.The plan calls for an 83,000-square-foot museum to be built at an estimated cost to $65 million, featuring model trains running continuously past scale-models of buildings by notable architects including Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Frank Gehry. It will be built on publicly owned land overlooking a disused rail freight yard; the proposed Museum holds an option to purchase the land. About half of the financing is projected to come from state and local government funds allocated to support the growth of tourism, and half from private donations of which $2.5 million had been raised by August 2017.As of 2017 the projected opening date was 2020, but as of February 2022 the new projected opening date is 2025. As of January 2023 the project did not have a start date or funding finalized.

Western Gateway Heritage State Park is a history-focused Massachusetts state park in the city of North Adams managed by the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Exhibits at the park, which is located in a former railyard, tell the story of the creation of the Hoosac Tunnel. The freight yard was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 as the Freight Yard Historic District.

The North Adams Museum of History and Science is located on State Street in North Adams, Massachusetts as part of Western Gateway Heritage State Park. The building it inhabits was originally built in 1880 as a coal distribution center. The museum, however, was established by the North Adams Historical Society in 1988.The first floor of the museum contains exhibits on the Industrial Revolution, and its effects on what became an industrial center during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This exhibit displays machine parts and goods of some of the major manufacturing companies in the town during this era: Hunter Machine Company, Arnold Printworks and Sprague Electric. This floor also contains artifacts that depict farming, education, and home life during this era. One can find a children’s room, North Adams school paraphernalia, city uniforms, and household objects. The second floor is particularly notable for its Freight Yard exhibit. A moving train set has been constructed to model the town of North Adams and its train system. In this room there are also exhibits on immigration, which highlights French, Lebanese, Welsh, Italian, Jewish, Irish, and Chinese immigration to the area; religion, mainly by showing the churches that have been built in North Adams; and ballooning. In an adjacent room exist displays on flora and fauna, geography (containing a topographical map of this area of the Berkshires), and a kids’ room relating to flora and fauna of the area. Finally, the third floor is centered on political and military history of the area. It contains a voting machine from the nineteenth century, information on past mayors of North Adams, information on military heroes of the area, and Native American artifacts of those who inhabited the area before the settlers. There is also a side room dedicated to Fort Massachusetts, an English fort in North Adams during the French and Indian War. Finally, there is also a blacklight gallery that is used as a display of the Solar System. The museum’s hours are Saturday 10AM-4PM and Sunday 1-4PM November through April, and Thursday through Saturday 10AM-4PM and Sunday 1-4PM May through October. The museum is closed on holidays.