Heath Center Historic District
The Heath Center Historic District encompasses a rural village with predominantly 18th- and 19th-century structures in Heath, a small agricultural town in hills of northwestern Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The district is centered on the junction of several roads, around which the center of the town grew. South Road arrives from the south, East Main Street and Bray Road from the east, Ledge Road from the north, and West Main Street from the west. The first European settlement in what is now Heath was Fort Shirley, built in 1744 to defend the frontier of Massachusetts against French and Native American attacks. Permanent residents began to settle the area in the 1750s, and what is now Heath Center began to organize in 1765, when the area was still part of Charlemont. Originally known as Charlemont Hill, Heath was incorporated in 1785. In 1789 the nucleus of its civic center was determined by the placement of the meetinghouse and common on land of Benjamin Maxwell. The center includes a cluster of well-preserved late colonial (Georgian) and early Federal style homes, and a number of institutional buildings that date from the 19th century. The only major Greek Revival building is the Old