Adams, Massachusetts

Adams on the map

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2026

Adams today

By KNOWOL

Shaded relief from the Hoosic Valley up to the summit of Mount Greylock, with Park Street, Columbia Street, Grove Street and Howland Avenue, Cole Mountain, Hales Hill, the Bassett Reservoir and Renfrew Pond.⁴

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The story of Adams

Zylonite, the rival of celluloid

Between Adams and North Adams, a mill village once called Howlands took a new name from what it made. Zylonite was an early plastic, a compound of linen paper, camphor and alcohol, invented by an Englishman, Daniel Spill, whose American patents went to the American Zylonite Company in 1880. An 1890 guide said the works here were the only zylonite plant in the United States. Pressed into slabs, it stood in for ivory, shell and bone in collars, combs, brushes and knife handles, and unlike celluloid it wasn't liable to explode. The village had its own hotel with twenty-four bedrooms, and in winter dancing parties came out when the sleighing was good. By 1904 the Berkshire Hills Paper Company was making paper at Zylonite, on Howland Avenue.⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹

Friends at the south end

Adams began as East Hoosac, and among its early settlers in the 1760s was a group of Quakers, many of whom came together from Smithfield, Rhode Island. At the time of the Revolution the main settlement was the south village, written in the records as South End. The Quakers formed their own society around 1780, and an 1885 county history says they first worshipped in a log cabin. Their plain clapboard meetinghouse of 1784, with one door for men and one for women, still looks over the Maple Street Cemetery, where the earliest settlers lie in unmarked graves. In 1820 a Quaker family named Anthony had a daughter here. Susan B. Anthony lived in Adams until she was six, and her birthplace is now a museum.¹¹⁰²¹¹¹²¹³

The Plunketts and the president

An 1892 history says the first factory in Adams proper was the old Plunkett Mill, with only a grist mill before it. In 1829 W. C. Plunkett took over the South Village mill built in 1814, and his sons kept the cotton warp business going. In 1889 the Plunkett brothers founded the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company, and by 1890 they had just finished a mill with 35,000 spindles, one of the finest in New England by one guide's count. President William McKinley was their friend and stayed with W. B. Plunkett in Adams more than once. In 1897 he laid the cornerstone of the Adams Free Library, and the McKinley statue that went up beside it in 1903 owed a great deal to Plunkett's work. Berkshire Cotton later became part of Berkshire Hathaway.¹⁴⁵¹⁵¹⁶¹

Through the years

25 moments from 1762 to today.

1762Nathan Jones buys the township of East Hoosac at auction for 3,200 pounds.¹
1760sQuaker families, many from Smithfield, Rhode Island, settle in East Hoosac.¹
1777Men of the settlement fight at the Battle of Bennington, and some lose their horses there.¹⁰
1778East Hoosac is incorporated as Adams, named for Samuel Adams.¹
1778The voters twice refuse to take the New Providence settlement into the new town.¹⁷
1780The Quaker society of Adams is formed.²
1784The Quakers build their plain meetinghouse, still standing in the Maple Street Cemetery.¹²
1814The Adams South Village Cotton Manufacture Company opens.¹
1820Susan B. Anthony is born in Adams.¹
1829W. C. Plunkett takes over the South Village mill of 1814.⁵
1829A county history finds the Hoosic at the south village barely a rod wide and a foot deep.¹⁸
1866The Renfrew Manufacturing Company is formed and named for James Renfrew Jr.¹⁹
1877Adams is the largest town in the state when a petition to divide it goes to the Legislature.²⁰
1878North Adams is set off as its own town.¹
1880The American Zylonite Company is incorporated to make the new plastic in America.⁶
1889The Plunkett brothers found the Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company.¹
1890Berkshire Cotton has just finished a mill with 35,000 spindles.¹⁵
1892L. L. Brown ledger paper and Follett lime from Adams are shipped all over the country.²¹
1897President McKinley lays the cornerstone of the Adams Free Library.¹
1903The town puts up a larger-than-life statue of McKinley beside the library.¹
1904The Berkshire Hills Paper Company is formed at Zylonite, on Howland Avenue.⁹
1925Adams still governs itself by town meeting, which its historian calls the best in the world.²²
1932The Veterans War Memorial Tower is finished on the summit of Greylock.⁴
1958Berkshire Cotton's big factory in Adams closes.¹
1984Fire destroys Renfrew Mill No. 2, long the town's largest employer.²³

Places to see

Places worth a visit in Adams today.

Mount Greylock State ReservationWest of the valley. Holds the highest point in Massachusetts.Visit their website
Veterans War Memorial TowerGreylock summit. The 93-foot tower of 1931 and 1932.
Bascom LodgeGreylock summit. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Thunderbolt Ski TrailGreylock's eastern slopes. A CCC ski trail of the 1930s.
Susan B. Anthony Birthplace MuseumEast Road. Where Anthony was born in 1820.Visit their website
Adams Free LibraryPark Street. McKinley laid its cornerstone in 1897.Visit their website
Quaker Meeting HouseMaple Street Cemetery. Plain meetinghouse of the first Quakers.
Armory BlockPark Street. One of four brick blocks of the cotton boom.
Ashuwillticook Rail TrailAlong the old railroad. Walking and biking on the old rail bed.Visit their website
Summer Street Historic DistrictEast of the river. Merchants' homes of the mill era.

On the National Register

All 15 places in Adams on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.³

Maple Street Cemetery

Built about 1760 · Listed 2004 · Maple Street

The town's oldest cemetery, with burials from 1760 and the unmarked graves of the first Quaker settlers. Its lanes were laid out in the late 1860s by local engineer Charles F. Sayles, and the Plunkett family monument is the grandest in it.²⁴
Quaker Meetinghouse

Built 1784 · Listed 1976 · Maple Street Cemetery

A plain two-story frame meetinghouse with separate doors for men and women, used by the Adams Friends until 1842. Relatives of Susan B. Anthony are buried nearby.¹²
Anthony House

Built 1817 · Listed 1985 · 67 East Road

The Federal-style house where Susan B. Anthony was born in 1820. Restored from 2006 to 2009, it is now the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum.¹³

Visit their website
Phillips Woolen Mill

Listed 1982 · 71 Grove Street

A small woolen mill complex near the Cheshire line, run by Blackinton and Phillips in the 1850s and possibly holding parts of a millworks from as early as 1828.²⁵
Summer Street Historic District

Listed 1985 · Crandall, Center, East, Liberty, Orchard and Summer Streets

The fashionable neighborhood of the town's merchants and mill men, with 75 historic buildings from Greek Revival houses of the 1830s and 1840s to Victorian homes of the late 1800s.²⁶
P. J. Barrett Block

Built about 1880 · Listed 1982 · 70-76 Park Street

One of the four big brick blocks on Park Street, built with shops below and apartments above during the town's rapid industrial growth.²⁷
Simmons Block

Built about 1885 · Listed 1982 · 86-90 Park Street

One of the town's most elaborate Queen Anne buildings, a wood-frame block with a corner tower, built for A. H. Simmons and his funeral parlor.²⁸
Hoosac Street School

Built 1887 · Listed 1988 · 20 Hoosac Street

A brick schoolhouse with a cupola, built for $20,000 as the mill town grew. It taught children until 1981 and became apartments in 1985.²⁹
Park Street Firehouse

Built about 1890 · Listed 1982 · 47 Park Street

A Queen Anne brick fire station built for the Adams Fire District, a fire service run largely by the mill owners, with colored glass in its upper windows.³⁰
Pittsfield & North Adams Passenger Station and Baggage & Express House

Built 1889 to 1894 · Listed 1982 · 10 Pleasant Street

The town's railroad station on the line to North Adams, later part of the Boston and Albany. The old track bed beside it is now the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail.³¹
Armory Block

Built 1894 to 1895 · Listed 1982 · 39-45 Park Street

A Renaissance Revival block in yellow brick, among the most refined commercial buildings in town. It served as the local National Guard armory until 1914.³²
Jones Block

Built 1895 · Listed 1982 · 49-53 Park Street

Built for Albert Jones, a clothing store clerk, with his store on the ground floor and the Hibernian Hall upstairs. A third floor was added in the early 1900s.³³
Berkshire Mill No. 1

Built 1895 · Listed 1982 · Hoosac Street

A surviving mill of the Plunketts' Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing Company, the business that later became part of Berkshire Hathaway. Its brick tower still faces the town center, and the mill became 65 apartments in 1987.³⁴
Mausert Block

Built 1900 to 1901 · Listed 1982 · 19-27 Park Street

A Romanesque Revival block built by the brothers George and Conrad Mausert. It once held the Masonic hall and the town's first telephone exchange.³⁵
Mount Greylock Summit Historic District

Built 1932 to 1938 · Listed 1998 · Junction of Notch, Rockwell and Summit Roads

Three 1930s structures on the highest summit in Massachusetts: Bascom Lodge, built of Greylock schist and red spruce, the Thunderbolt Ski Shelter and the War Memorial Tower.³⁶

Visit their website

In their words

“Greylock mountain towers above the bustling village and is the chief feature of the landscape.”

Inland Massachusetts illustrated, 1890³⁷

“The Old New England Town Meeting (best in the world) is still in use in Adams.”

Western Massachusetts: a history, 1926²²

“The Renfrew Gingham Works has a reputation that extends to the four corners of civilization”

Massachusetts of today, 1892, on the Renfrew mills³⁸

Adams, Massachusetts

Adams on the map

Adams today

The story of Adams

Zylonite, the rival of celluloid

Friends at the south end

The Plunketts and the president

Through the years

Places to see

On the National Register

Maple Street Cemetery

Quaker Meetinghouse

Anthony House

Phillips Woolen Mill

Summer Street Historic District

P. J. Barrett Block

Simmons Block

Hoosac Street School

Park Street Firehouse

Pittsfield & North Adams Passenger Station and Baggage & Express House

Armory Block

Jones Block

Berkshire Mill No. 1

Mausert Block

Mount Greylock Summit Historic District

In their words

Nearby towns

Sources