Old Deerfield Historic District

Old Deerfield Historic District
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark District
	The Deerfield Inn in 2015
location	Deerfield , Massachusetts , United States
Coordinates	42 ° 32 '49.2 " N , 72 ° 36' 14.9" W Coordinates: 42 ° 32 '49.2 " N , 72 ° 36' 14.9" W.
architect	Asher Benjamin et al.
NRHP number	66000774
Data
The NRHP added	October 15, 1966
As NHLD declared	October 9, 1960

The Old Deerfield Historic District (also Historic Deerfield , Deerfield Village or Pocumtuck ) encompasses the historic city center of Deerfield, Massachusetts in the United States and is now an open- air museum . The entire 1.6 km long area along The Street has been a National Historic Landmark since 1960 and has been on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) since 1966 .

description

In 1667, more than 32 acres of land was purchased for the construction of Deerfield and in 1671 it was divided into sections and parcels along a common north-south axis that is almost exactly a mile (1.6 km) long and is still today as "The Street" is called. The 23 plots on the east side and the 20 plots on the west side of this street together form the NRHP-registered Deerfield Village core .

After the Bloody Brook massacre , the settlement was abandoned, but repopulated again in 1682. In 1704, 268 residents lived there, who protected the innermost core of 15 houses by means of a square palisade made of tree trunks, the center of which was "The Street". Outside this fence were another 23 houses. Since the settlement had no defense other than the palisade, it was destroyed on February 29, 1704 in the course of the Queen Anne's War in a French-Indian surprise attack led by Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville , which is now known as the Deerfield massacre , almost completely destroyed. The buildings that can be seen today are based on the rebuilt houses and are true to the original condition from the middle of the 18th century.

The 53 buildings show different architectural styles. Four of the buildings were moved to Deerfield from other locations to prevent their demolition. Almost two dozen of the houses, all of which have been restored today, are open to the public. While a few renovations were sufficient for most of the buildings, only one building, the Indian House , had to be completely restored.

Historical meaning

When the settlement was founded in the 1660s, Deerfield Village was the northernmost outpost of the English colonies. Despite being destroyed twice - in 1675 and 1704 - it was rebuilt and was an important cattle market in the region and the center for in the 1750s the regional trade in wheat . The buildings along “The Street” still bear witness to the prosperity of the place back then.