Northfield, Massachusetts Northfield, Massachusetts Official seal of Northfield, Massachusetts Northfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States.
The populace was 3,032 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The Connecticut River runs through the town, dividing West Northfield from East Northfield and the village of Northfield, where the town hall is located.
Part of the town is encompassed in the census-designated place of Northfield.
As a result, the English colonists were occasionally taken north to Quebec, held as hostages by the French, causing the town to revert to American Indian control a several times. Eventually, conflicts with the Native American populace ceased after most of the native populace was displaced and/or sold into standardized as a result of King Philip's War and after a series of massacres of small-town Indian villages. During Dummer's War, on August 13, 1723, Gray Lock raided Northfield, and four warriors killed two people near the town.
Much of Northfield's evolution in the late nineteenth century was spurred by the work of evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody, a native of Northfield who established the Northfield Seminary for Girls in 1879 on a sweeping hillside in East Northfield.
The school was the site of Moody's theological conferences, which thriving thousands of visitors to Northfield each summer.
The influx of visitors led to the evolution of the town as a summer resort, especially after the opening of the Northfield Hotel in 1887.
Francis Schell, a New York capitalist thriving by his interest in Moody's work at the Northfield Seminary, commissioned architect Bruce Price to design a summer home, which became known as the Northfield Chateau.
The Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad had established rail service to Northfield by 1850, along a line running from Millers Falls, Massachusetts to Brattleboro, Vermont.
Even though the stockyards crossed the Connecticut River in Northfield, East Northfield Station was actually positioned in West Northfield, making it necessary for disembarking passengers to travel back athwart the Connecticut River on the lower deck of the rail bridge.
In 1971 the Northfield Mount Hermon School was formed by the consolidation of the Northfield Seminary and the Mount Hermon School for boys, which Moody had established in 1881 in close-by Gill.
The school continued to operate as one school with two campuses some 5 miles (8 km) apart on opposite banks of the Connecticut River until 2005 when the school merged its operations on the Mount Hermon ground in Gill.
The school's former ground in Northfield was purchased by Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma-based chain of arts and crafts stores, as of December 2009 to be used as the ground for the new C.S.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town has a total region of 35.4 square miles (91.6 km2), of which 34.3 square miles (88.8 km2) is territory and 1.1 square miles (2.8 km2), or 3.07%, is water. Northfield is the only town in Franklin County to be divided by the Connecticut River, though only partially; the river forms the southwest border of town.
Several brooks flow directly into the Connecticut River inside town, with the the rest (on the east side of the hills) dominant into the Millers River, itself a tributary of the Connecticut.
To the east of the river are a several mountain peaks in the Upper Bald Hills, including Northfield Mountain, Brush Mountain (the highest point in town), Beers Mountain, South Mountain, Notch Mountain and Hogback Mountain (along the New Hampshire border).
The southeast corner of the town is protected as part of the Northfield State Forest, with part of the northwest corner protected as part of Satan's Kingdom Wildlife Management Area.
Most of the inhabited areas in town lie along the Connecticut River, and the town's chief villages include East Northfield, Mount Hermon Station, Gill Station, Northfield Farms, and Sky Farm (between Brush Mountain and Northfield State Forest).
The town is also home to a cross-country skiing region at Northfield Mountain, which is also traversed by the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail.
Northfield is positioned at the junction of the Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont state borders along the Connecticut River.
The town center is positioned 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Greenfield, 44 miles (71 km) north of Springfield, 52 miles (84 km) northwest of Worcester and 84 miles (135 km) west-northwest of Boston.
The town is bordered by Vernon, Windham County, Vermont, and Hinsdale and Winchester, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, to the north, Warwick to the east, Erving to the south, Gill to the southwest and Bernardston to the northwest.
The town has no interstate highways, the closest being Interstate 91 in neighboring Bernardston, the nearest exit being along Route 10, which enters through the northernmost portion of Gill before it crosses the Connecticut River over the Bennett's Meadow Bridge.
The Route 10 bridge is the only active car bridge inside town; the lesser Schell Bridge lies inactive (since 1987) near the Vermont state line, and the old Vermont & Massachusetts Rail Bridge lies between them.
However, it no longer stops at Northfield (the nearest stops are in Greenfield and Brattleboro) and there is no other enhance transit inside town.
Source: United States Enumeration records and Population Estimates Program data. In the town, the population's age was spread out with 26.3% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 26.4% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older.
The town is part of the Second Berkshire District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, represented by Paul Mark, and the Franklin and Hampshire Senate district, represented by Stan Rosenberg.
"Profile of General Population and Housing Characteristics: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (DP-1): Northfield town, Franklin County, Massachusetts".
"Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Northfield town, Franklin County, Massachusetts".
"TOTAL POPULATION (P1), 2010 Enumeration Summary File 1".
"1990 Enumeration of Population, General Population Characteristics: Massachusetts" (PDF).
"1980 Enumeration of the Population, Number of Inhabitants: Massachusetts" (PDF).
"1950 Enumeration of Population" (PDF).
"1920 Enumeration of Population" (PDF).
"1890 Enumeration of the Population" (PDF).
"1870 Enumeration of the Population" (PDF).
Populations of Cities, Towns, &c.
Populations of Cities, Towns, &c.
Northfield Drive-In Wikimedia Commons has media related to Northfield, Massachusetts.
Town of Northfield official website Municipalities and communities of Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States Ashfield Bernardston Buckland Charlemont Colrain Conway Deerfield Erving Gill Hawley Heath Leverett Leyden Monroe Montague New Salem Northfield Orange Rowe Shelburne Shutesbury Sunderland Warwick Wendell Whately Deerfield Millers Falls Northfield Orange Shelburne Falls South Deerfield Turners Falls
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Populated places established in 1673 - Towns in Franklin County, Massachusetts - Springfield, Massachusetts urbane region - Populated places on the Connecticut River - Towns in Massachusetts - 1673 establishments in Massachusetts - Northfield, Massachusetts
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