history

history. . , The Village of Deerfield is an old settlement on an ancient site., The Mile-long street before you was originally a Native path. Ancestors of the Pocumtuck, an Algonquin people, lived here in their homeland for at least 8,000 years, travelling and trading with neighbors along waterways and forest trails that crisscrossed the Northeast. About 1,000 years ago the Pocumtuck began to cultivate corn and other plants along the Deerfield River’s fertile terraces, After 1669, English newcomers laid out homelots in the English tradition, and constructed houses, barns, outbuildings, and fences for their fields and kitchen gardens along the original Native path. While none of these early structures remain, the original location of “the Street” and boundary lines of the lots and fields remain largely intact. Twenty-six 18th-century houses still stand on their original foundations.