Charlemont Village Historic District

Charlemont Village is a linear settlement of unusual density for rural Massachusetts, stretching about a mile along Main Street (Route 2) beside the Deerfield River. Its 50 acres hold 87 contributing buildings, most of them two-and-a-half-story wood-frame houses, shops and churches put up between 1800 and 1850, many with pedimented end gables and pilastered corners. Greek Revival is the dominant style, with earlier Federal examples such as the Charlemont Inn of about 1787, and later work including the brick Romanesque Revival Goodwin Hall and the Classical Revival high school. The village grew from settlement in the 1740s into a transportation and commercial stop on the Mohawk Trail, with stores, mills, a snath factory and several churches. Its decline followed the construction of Route 2 around 1915. Route widening and a single gas station intrusion have affected its setting, but the historic streetscape remains largely intact. The area also has high potential for prehistoric and historical archaeological remains.