The Cummington Town Hall is called the Community House and serves multiple purposes. It is a brown brick building with a centered door. There are 8 windows with them stacked evenly 4 over 4. Each side has a chimney. There is a cupola on the roof.
Cummington is a small rural town at the Western end of Hampshire County in the foothills of the Berkshires. Purchased in 1762 as Township Number Five by proprietor Col. John Cumings of Concord, it was settled in the spring of that year by surveyor Samuel Brewer.
In the beginning, the affairs of both the church and town were handled together at town meetings. On June 23, 1779, Township Number Five was officially incorporated as the Town of Cummington. the official organization of the Church also took place at that time and the minister was ordained. It took about ten years of adjustments between the church and the town for the Town Meeting form of government that we know today to be established.
During the 1800s, the town was marked by thriving industrial growth due to the rivers and the streams which furnished water power. There were sawmills, grist milklsm, tanneries, woolen and cotton mills, tin ships, a cutlery shop, a wood mill, a blacksmith shop, a shoemaker and a brick maker. there were three Congregational Churches, a Mormon, a Baptist, a Methodist, a Universalist and a Unitarian. In 1830, the population rose to 1,200 people.
The Hillside Agricultural Society, a group of farmers from all the surrounding towns, held its first Cattle Show on Main Street in 1869, hoping that this would encourage young men to stay in farming. In the late 1800s, there were 180 farms in Cummington. Today there are five. However, the Cummington Fair is as active today as ever.
The Cummington Grange was organized May 25, 1874. It was reorganized November 2, 1900 and is stall active today.
Originally the town had ten district schools and the teachers were paid from the taxes. Men were hired for the winter when the older boys, who worked on the farms were in attendance. less expensive female teacheres taught in the summer. During the 1930s, the schools were united at the Union School which was situated were the town tennis courts are today. In the 1950s, the Cummington Elementary School was built. After the town joined the Central Berkshire regional School District, the name was changed to Berkshire Trail Elementary School.
In 1872, William Cullen Bryant gave to the town the Bryant Free Library as well as a home for the librarian. In 1923 the Community House was given to the town by Worcester Warner.
Today Cummington is a town rich in cultural diversity. The town has a number of small businesses ranging from small retail stores to restaurants to contracting to farming to computers to crafts, while many people travel to other places of work, there is a group of people who have chosen to retire or raise their families here. There is also an established group of natives. Cummington is the hmoe of two summer camps: Shire Village and the Greenwood Music Camp; the William Cullen Bryant Homestead, the Kingman Tavern Historical Museum and the Cummington Fair.
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