West Granville Historic District

West Granville is a small crossroads village in the hills of southwestern Massachusetts, set apart from Granville's other settlements by the Great Valley to the east and a notch in the Berkshire Hills to the west. Its houses, mostly wood-frame with center chimneys, stone foundations and clapboard siding, line Main Road beneath maples about 150 years old. Georgian farmhouses from the 1760s, including the Baldwin, Coe and Lloyd houses, are the oldest buildings in the town. Federal houses followed, among them the 1790 brick John Phelps House, the only brick Federal dwelling in Granville's three villages. The Second Church of Christ Congregational, built in 1778 and later given Greek Revival additions, anchors the village green. Its first preacher, Lemuel Haynes, became a notable Black figure in American history. Building slowed after 1830 as the town's population moved east toward industry. The district's boundaries follow natural land formations, and few modern intrusions affect its historic character.