Hatfield Center Historic District

Hatfield Center is a farming village on the west bank of the Connecticut River in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Its plan dates to surveys and allotments of the 1660s: long, narrow homelots with houses and barns close to Main Street, backed by open tilled fields, pasture and hayfields. The village was set away from the riverbank to limit flood damage and was once protected by a stockade. Buildings in the district include Georgian farmhouses from about 1740, the Greek Revival Congregational Church of 1849, a Victorian Gothic school of 1871, Dickinson Memorial Hall of 1894 and the Colonial Revival Memorial Town Hall of 1930. A burying ground established in 1669 holds some of the region's finest late 17th- to mid-19th-century gravestones. The district was listed for its agricultural history, its architecture, its early settlement and its well-preserved community plan, with a period of significance from 1669 to 1944.