Brimfield Timeline - Federal Period (1775

Federal Period (1775 - 1830)

Town History and Development

The Federal period which began with the Revolutionary war pulling Brimfield's young men away from their farms and taxing all citizens to support the effort, saw the town pass through the post-war economic crisis of Shay's Rebellion to emerge at the end of the period a prosperous agricultural/transportation town with several new villages. An increase in population over the fifty-five years, from 1,064 in 1776 to 1,599 in 1830, brought about an increased number of buildings, additional roads, a town common and new means of getting about. This major period of growth is reflected in the large number of Federal style buildings in town.

As was the case with the majority of Western Massachusetts towns, Brimfield was strongly supportive of the war of independence. What may distinguish it is the leadership role taken by several of its residents. Timothy Danielson was probably the most notable, acting as Brimfield's representative to the General Court from 1767-1772. Danielson was chairman of the Congress of Committees in Hampden County in 1774, representative to the Provincial Congress in 1774 and 1775; and during the war he was commissioned a colonel.

The town voted to organize itself by assigning all its males into one of two military companies, and Minutemen were encouraged to sign up with one of the two groups. Altogether one hundred forty-four men from Brimfield served in the war as officers and Minutemen, beginning with the battle in Lexington. Jonathan Brown (50 Tower Hill Road - MHC #80) was among them. In 1776 seventeen of Brimfield's soldiers headed for Canada including Abner Morgan (19 Brookfield Road - MHC #23) who was afterwards a leading lawyer in Brimfield. In 1778 Captain Thomas Bliss (120 Tower Hill Road - MHC #83) was a prisoner of war. Christopher Ward (58 Warren Road - MHC #75) escaped British dragoons; Col. Jonathan Thompson was in command of a regiment at the siege of Yorktown. One of the several members of the Blodget family in the war was taken prisoner, but he escaped by stealing and wearing one of his guard's coats. Enoch Morgan served through the war from the age of sixteen.

Back in Brimfield, townspeople were asked to come up with blankets, uniforms, and muskets, which they did; and in 1781 they were required to furnish the money for 14,458 pounds of beef.

The town saw some of the enemy when Hessians came to Brimfield after Burgoyne's surrender in 1777. On the march to Boston, a number of these soldiers stayed at Powers Corner several days in the inn Isaac Powers built the year before at 124 Brimfield-Palmer Road (MHC #98). A few even managed to stay behind and live in the area. At the end of the war in 1783 the town was much poorer for its efforts. Not only had large quantities of supplies and money been spent, but farms were only partially tended and many families whose heads of household were in the war had to depend on town support to get by. Captain Sherman is said to have cried when he came home at one point early in the war and found his two sons had not gathered in crops and prepared for the winter.

Debt was high after the war and the courts enforced claims against farmers by taking away their land. It was intolerable to many that they were seeing their fellow townspeople lose their only means of getting out of debt. So when Daniel Shays of Pelham and Luke Day of west Springfield incited active resistance to the trying and jailing of debtors, they had a great deal of moral support in the region. Brimfield's residents, though, stopped short of the violence that Shay's rebellion brought about, and Captain Sherman's militia of Brimfield men marched to Springfield and Northampton to protect the courts.

Brimfield sent Abner Brown as Lieutenant to the War of 1812 and he was accompanied by twenty-eight other young men from the town. Rev. Charles Hyde in his Celebration of the History of Brimfield noted that the men spent a lot of time in Boston without much to do, but distinguished themselves, at the very least, as skilled wrestlers.