Visiting the Nature Center at Clarksburg State Park.  Clarksburg was first settled in 1749. One of the first settlers was Seth Hudson, a soldier and surgeon at Fort Massachusetts located on the Mohawk Trail between North Adams and Williamstown. He was credited with discovering the Natural Bridge and Chasm (Natural Bridge State Park). The first settlers to establish homesteads were Captain Matthew Ketchum, Colonel William Bullock and Nicholas Clark. The town was named after the Clark Family due to the birth of a child just before the vote for the town’s name.

Clarksburg was incorporated as a town in 1798. Stone walls built by the farmers clearing the land are still scattered throughout the forests. From 1812-14, farmers formed the Farmer’s Glassworks, producing household wares and window panes with the raw quartzite being quarried in Washington. By 1843, the town contained one cotton factory and 5 sawmills. In 1876, it was noted that the Hoosac River north branch and the Hudson’s Brook, Muddy Brook and Beaver Creek were furnishing water power to the mills; and that
“The people are principally engaged in farming, lumbering and the manufacture of (gun) powder, bricks and woolen cloth. The town has one woolen and one wool carding mill, and three powder, two grist and five saw mills. Powder to the value of $36,000 has been manufactured in one year and lumber to the value of $4,300 prepared for market. The forests, which cover more than half the area, consists mainly of oak, chestnut, spruce and hemlock.”

Interestingly, several mills manufactured and supplied gunpowder during the Civil War. However, the industry was stopped by the town after the Edward Richmond Tinker Mill exploded in 1869. Courtesy DCR.

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