Brimfield Center Historic District

Brimfield Center is a village district of about 133 acres in western Massachusetts, organized around the town common with Main Street and the Brookfield, Warren and Wales roads radiating from it. Its 78 contributing resources include houses, a town hall, a library, churches, a cemetery and its stone walls. Only two buildings predate 1776, both on Brookfield Road, and one ell there is traditionally considered the oldest house in town, dated about 1738. Most of the buildings are Federal in style, though many keep Georgian features such as center chimneys and windows set close to the eaves. Local housewrights built many of them, and the architect Elias Carter, among the first practicing in Massachusetts, began his career with Brimfield commissions. The cemetery, laid out in 1721, has gravestones showing changes in carved imagery over time, along with an 1804 hearse house. Together the buildings and landscape keep the look of a rural village center, which is the basis for the listing.