Pittsfield is the largest city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The US The Census Bureau recorded a population of 43,927 as of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Berkshire County and one of the larger cities in western Massachusetts. This is where the Berkshire Museum is located.
The Mohawks, a type of Algonquian tribe, lived in and around
Pittsfield until the early 1700s, when war and disease caused a dramatic
decline in population, and many migrated west or lived quietly on the
edges of society.
In 1738, Colonel Jacob Wendell, a wealthy
Bostonian, purchased as a speculative investment 24,000 acres (97 km2)
of land called "Pontoosac," which in the Mohawk language means "a field
or shelter for deer in winter. He planned to subdivide the land and
resell it to people who would settle there. He entered into a
partnership with Philip Livingston, a wealthy man from Albany, NY, and
Colonel John Stoddard of Northampton, who owned 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) on
the land.
Young men arrived in 1743 and began to settle the land,
but the threat of Indian attacks atthe time of King George's War soon
forced them to leave, and the land remained out of English hands for
several more years.
Eventually, many people from Westfield,
Massachusetts, arrived and villages began to form, and in 1753, Solomon
Deming, Simeon Crofoot, Stephen Crofoot, Charles Goodrich, Jacob Ensign,
Samuel Taylor, Elias Woodward It was incorporated as Ponto Ozark
Plantation by Mrs. Deming, the first and last of the original settlers,
died in March 1818 at the age of 92. Solomon Deming died in 1815 at the
age of 96.
Pittsfield was incorporated in 1761. The royal
governor, Sir Francis Bernard, named it Pittsfield after William Pitt,
an English nobleman and politician; by 1761, the plantation had grown to
200 residents, and the plantation became the township of Pittsfield.
Among them was Colonel John Brown, who began accusing Benedict
Arnold of being a traitor in 1776, a few years before Arnold defected to
England. Brown wrote in a handbill issued in the winter of 1776-77,
"Money is this man's god, and he would sacrifice his country to get
enough of it."
Pittsfield, with its many streams flowing into the
Housatonic River, was primarily agricultural, and the landscape was
dotted with lumber, grist, paper, and textile mills. with the
introduction of merino sheep from Spain in 1807, the area became the
center of woolen textile manufacturing in the U.S., and for almost a
century It became the dominant industry in the local economy for almost
a century.
By the late 19th century, the town had become a
bustling metropolis, and in 1891, the city of Pittsfield was founded and
William Stanley, Jr. had just moved to Pittsfield from Great Barrington,
where he manufactured the first electrical transformer. Stanley's
business was the forerunner of the world-renowned giant General Electric
(GE); GE's success helped Pittsfield's population grow to over 50,000 in
1930; GE Advanced Materials (now a Riyadh-based Saudi Basic Industries
Corp. owned by SABIC-Innovative Plastics, a subsidiary of SABIC) remains
one of the city's largest employers, but its workforce, once over
13,000, has dwindled to less than 700 due to the elimination and
relocation of GE's Transformers and Aerospace divisions.10, 2015 On
October 8, SABIC announced the relocation of its headquarters from
Pittsfield to Houston, Texas.
General Dynamics occupies many of
the former GE buildings and its workforce is expanding. Much of General
Dynamics' local success is based on winning government contracts related
to its advanced information systems.In September 2018, Massachusetts
Governor Charlie Baker, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Carlin Polito,
and other Baker administration officials announced that the city's Life
Science and Advanced Manufacturing Center at a groundbreaking ceremony
for the $13.7 million project.
At 10:15 a.m. on September 3, 1902, a horse-drawn carriage carrying President Theodore Roosevelt from downtown Pittsfield to the Pittsfield Country Club, where he had spent two weeks touring New England campaigning for Republican Congress, collided head-on with a trolley. Roosevelt, Massachusetts Governor Winthrop Murray Crane, presidential secretary George Bruce Cautheriou, and bodyguard William Craig were thrown onto the road. Craig died, becoming the first Secret Service employee to die while on presidential guard duty. Roosevelt, who suffered severe bruising to his face and left shin, nearly came to blows with trolley driver Euclid Madden. Madden was later charged with manslaughter and pleaded guilty. Madden was later charged with manslaughter and sentenced to six months in prison and a heavy fine.
Two highways intersect in downtown Pittsfield: US 7 and US 20.
Garrett McNamara is an American world record surfer.
Pittsfield is the most populous city in Berkshire County. The 45,793
inhabitants identified in the 2000 census lived in 19,704 households;
among them were 11,822 families. The population density was 434 per km².
21,366 residential units were recorded in the town. The population was
92.58% White, 3.66% African American, 0.14% American Indian, 1.16%
Asian, and 0.81% from other races; 1.64% stated that they belonged to
several ethnic groups.
Among the 19,704 households, 27.3% had
children under the age of 18; 34.0% were single households. The average
household size was 2.26, the average family size 2.89 people.
The
population was distributed among 23.2% under 18 years, 6.9% from 18 to
24 years, 28.3% from 25 to 44 years, 23.0% from 45 to 64 years and 18.6%
from 65 years or older. The median age was 40 years.
The median
household income was $35,655 and the median family income was $46,228.
Pittsfield's per capita income was $20,549. 11.4% of the population
lived below the poverty line.