Stockbridge began its life, as a community with that name, as a Mohican town. In 1730, people of the Mohican nation and offered an exchange of land in the southern Berkshires for a township within the Commonwealth. Their descendants live in Wisconsin now as the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation, and they return often.
The house where John Sargent lived as the first missionary in the new town is a museum now on the Main Street, not far from the 1773 Red Lion Inn. Within a few years the town would be home to Revolutionary War veteran Agrippa Hull and Elizabeth Freeman, the woman who won her freedom and proved slavery illegal in the new state of Massachusetts — and to the 18th-century novelist Catherine Sedgwick
In the 19th century, Daniel Chester French turned an old farm into his studio as he created the Lincoln Memorial. Chesterwood is a museum now with his house and studio, gardens and trails, and an annual contemporary sculpture Show.
And in the 20th century, as the Berkshire Theatre Group founded its campus here, Norman Rockwell took up his easel, painting the changing faces of America through World War II and into the 1960s. His studio is also at the center of a museum here, with shows of contemporary illustrators alongside his work, and a pathway through apple trees to the river.
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In his hometown, the Norman Rockwell Museum celebrates Rockwell’s work and his tradition. Year-round exhibits honor illustration as an artform and celebrate contemporary artists, integrity and freedom.
READ MOREWith classics like Fiorello and contemporary work, Berkshire Theatre Group merges two historic theaters — the one of the county’s oldest continuously running performance companies, the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, and the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, built in 1903 and re-opened in 2006.
READ MOREBerkshire Art Center has been teaching hands-on art since 1991, in stockbridge and Pittsfield and across the county.
READ MOREIn a quiet corner of Stockbridge, the Berkshire Botanical Garden has cared for 20 acres of land since 1934. The gardens open to visitors from May to early October, with art exhibits, talks and events, classes and workshops year-round.
READ MOREIn a studio with tall windows letting in the north light, Daniel Chester French created the figure of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Today contemporary sculpture lines the paths and gardens in the summer and fall.
READ MOREThe Red Lion Inn has stood centrally on Main Street since 1773, when it served as a stage coach between Boston and Albany. The old clapboard building has a history going back to the Revolution, and today it brings locals and visitors to its restaurants and shop of goods from local artists and artisans.
READ MOREStockbridge protects its old New England Main Street, with the Red Lion Inn on the corner. On the right weekend, you might see a parade of coaches and four driving up Route 7 — or classic cars lining the downtown.
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