Historic Sites in Franklin County

History of Franklin County

Franklin County is the rural northern stretch of the Connecticut River valley, split off from Hampshire County in 1811, with Greenfield as its seat. Its best-known history is at Deerfield, raided in February 1704 by French and Native forces who carried more than a hundred captives north to Canada. The village's old houses are now Historic Deerfield.

The hill towns hold covered bridges like Conway's Burkeville bridge, old district schoolhouses, and mill villages along the Deerfield River. At Shelburne Falls, an old trolley bridge has been a garden, the Bridge of Flowers, since 1929. The Mohawk Trail, opened as a scenic auto road in 1914, crosses the county toward the Berkshires.