Deerfield, Massachusetts

A Connecticut River town of rich meadows below Sugarloaf Mountain, where Old Deerfield's mile-long street of old houses and elms has been cared for since its people began saving their own past in 1870.

Franklin County · Record checked October 12, 2026

5,090Population2020 census¹

1673Set apartby the General Court, from Dedham's grant¹

1 mileThe StreetOld Deerfield's main street, once arched with elms²

320Civil Warsoldiers Deerfield sent to the Union army³

2National Registerplaces, both still there⁴

Deerfield on the map

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2026

Deerfield today

By KNOWOL

Shaded relief from Sugarloaf Mountain to the meeting of the Deerfield and Connecticut rivers, with Old Deerfield, South Deerfield, Greenfield Road, Conway Road, Sugarloaf Street, Chard Pond, the Roaring Brook Reservoir, the Tabak Memorial Forest and Great Hill.⁵

See the 2026 print More about this map

The story of Deerfield

The door that kept being saved

Ensign John Sheldon's house on the Street came through the raid of 1704 with its front door hacked through by tomahawks. The house stood until 1849, known far and wide as the Old Indian House, and when it came down the door was kept. For a time it belonged to Dr. Daniel Denison Slade, a collector, who let the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association buy it back. The association kept it in a glass case in the front hall of the Pocumtuck House hotel. On May 18, 1877, the hotel burned to the ground, and a neighbor, Frank Nims, gathered a party and carried the door out safely. It waited in an old corner store, then in Nathaniel Hitchcock's corn house, and in September 1879 it went into Memorial Hall, where an 1881 visitor called it the great attraction for everyone.⁶⁷⁸⁹

When Deerfield made things by hand

By 1902 a farm paper was calling Deerfield a town given over to making things by hand. Women in the old houses put the blue-and-white needlework on an artistic footing and found there was some money in it, not a fortune, but enough for a quiet place. Basket makers followed with raffia and new shapes. Rug makers turned rag carpet into rugs said to be as fine in coloring as Persian ones, and one woman beat silver, copper and brass into designs set with stones. Two men made copies of the town's old furniture, and two women took photographs known for their color. The Arts and Crafts Society had fifty-three members, with officers who served without pay, in a village gathered mostly along one street of houses that averaged 120 years old.¹⁰¹¹¹²¹³

Wheat, a common fence and onions

Deerfield has always lived off its meadows. When the Rev. John Williams became minister in 1686, his salary of 60 pounds was paid in wheat, peas, Indian corn and pork at set prices. For generations the owners of two thousand acres of meadow belonged to the Proprietors of the Common Field, which by 1734 could make every owner keep up his share of the common fence. Each man farmed his own land in summer, and after the harvest the whole field was pastured in common. Boats came up the Connecticut to trade at Cheapside, then Deerfield's port of entry. Later South Deerfield's farms turned to tobacco and onions, and in 1908 James Campbell organized the Connecticut Valley Onion Company there. By 1926 it handled four to five hundred carloads of onions a year.¹⁴²¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

Through the years

24 moments from 10,000 years ago to today.

10,000 years agoHunters camp and work stone near Mount Sugarloaf, at what is now the Dedic Site.¹⁸
1665A Pocumtuck deed for the land keeps the right to fish, hunt deer and gather nuts.¹⁴
1670House lots are drawn on May 23 for the new plantation at Pocumtuck.¹
1673The General Court sets Deerfield apart from Dedham on May 7.¹
1675The Battle of Bloody Brook is fought in South Deerfield, and the village is abandoned.¹
1682Settlers return and begin rebuilding Deerfield.¹⁹
1686The Rev. John Williams becomes minister, paid in wheat, peas, corn and pork.¹⁴
1704French and Native forces raid the village on February 29 and carry more than 100 people to Canada.¹
1753Greenfield is set off from Deerfield.¹
1799Deerfield Academy formally opens on New Year's Day.²⁰
1812During the war, the academy adds a Professor of the Art of War.²¹
1818The South Deerfield Congregational church is founded.²²
1835About six thousand people gather at Bloody Brook for its 160th anniversary and monument cornerstone.²³
1849The Old Indian House comes down, but its hacked front door is kept.⁶
1863A new railroad bridge over the Deerfield River fails its test, dropping cars into the river.¹⁵
1870Residents found the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.¹
1877The Pocumtuck House hotel burns on May 18, and Frank Nims carries the Indian House door to safety.⁸
1880Memorial Hall Museum opens in the 1798 academy building.²⁴
1890C. Alice Baker comes home to restore the Frary House.¹
1901For Old Home Week, almost every house on the Street wears a placard telling its history.²⁵
1902The Deerfield Arts and Crafts Society has fifty-three members making rugs, baskets, needlework and metalwork.¹²
1908The Connecticut Valley Onion Company is organized in South Deerfield.¹⁷
1936Henry and Helen Flynt first come to Deerfield, the start of Historic Deerfield.²⁶
1966The Old Deerfield Village Historic District is listed on the National Register.⁴

Places to see

Places worth a visit in Deerfield today.

Historic DeerfieldOld Main Street, Old Deerfield. Eleven house museums on the mile-long street.Visit their website
Memorial Hall MuseumMemorial Street, Old Deerfield. Opened in 1880 in the 1798 academy.Visit their website
Ashley HouseOld Deerfield. The minister's home of 1734.Visit their website
Stebbins HouseOld Deerfield. Asa Stebbins's brick house of 1799.Visit their website
Frary HouseOld Deerfield. Restored by C. Alice Baker.Visit their website
Deerfield AcademyOld Deerfield. Chartered in 1797 under Samuel Adams.
Sugarloaf MountainSouth Deerfield. Sandstone cliffs above the Connecticut.
Sunderland BridgeRoute 116, South Deerfield. Route 116 crosses the Connecticut.
Deerfield RiverThe town's northern point. Where it meets the Connecticut.

On the National Register

All 2 places in Deerfield on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.⁴

Dedic Site

Listed 1980 · Address restricted, South Deerfield

An archaeological site near Mount Sugarloaf with evidence of people living here some 10,000 years ago, in the Clovis era. Digs in 1995 and 2013 found scrapers, drills, a stone bead and what was, as of 2015, the largest fluted lance head known from the northeastern United States. Some finds are shown in the town's Conway Street municipal building.¹⁸
Old Deerfield Village Historic District

National Historic Landmark

Listed 1966 · West of U.S. Route 5, bounded by Mill Village Road, The Street, Broughton's Pond Road and Pogues Hole Road

The old village on its mile-long street, a National Historic Landmark district. Historic Deerfield keeps eleven house museums here, among them the 1734 Ashley House, the Wells-Thorn House of 1747 and the 1799 Stebbins House, and Memorial Hall Museum stands nearby.²⁶

Visit their website

In their words

“The beautiful Deerfield Street, without a rival in all New England, with its grand elms and venerable dwellings, became an historic wonderland.”

The Massachusetts magazine, 1908, on Old Home Week of 1901²⁷

“Today all that is changed. It is like no other village in the United States.”

Massachusetts Ploughman, 1902, on Deerfield's Arts and Crafts¹⁰

“One of the highest tributes which can be paid to a New England town is this, that it compares favorably as to beauty with Old Deerfield.”

The historic trees of Massachusetts, 1919²⁸