Barber - Shelburne Falls View in 1839

 

This may be the oldest view of Shelburne Falls village. It is taken from the John Warner Barber "Historical Collections..." book published in 1839. The view is, i believe, taken from High Street looking down on the Shelburne side of the village.  The Buckland hills are in the background.  The houses are along either side of Main Street which is seen as a narrow band extending from left to right at a slight diagonal. 
I have added numbers to the house as an aid to discussion.  House #13 is Franklin Academy, a brick building which still stands as # 77 Main Street.  #9 is the Baptist Church.
We know #9 and #13 because the original manuscript map made by Barber exists.  You will note that there is no house #1.  It was omitted from the published view, see below.

The Massachusetts Historical Society has the manuscript sketches made by John Warner Barber. This is what he drew, presumably on the day he visited Shelburne Falls, probably in 1838.
I have numbered all houses to aid discussion. Barber wrote "Baptist Ch" and "Academy"  above those two houses, but did not name any others.

It would be an interesting project to study these two images and to identify all the others.
As a further aid, we can study the 1856 map.

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Close-up of the 1856 map - Main Street area..

  
 
Larger area of the 1856 map
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Dave Allen    Dec 2025
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