Ashley House

A Brief History: Located at 117 Cooper Hill Road in Sheffield Massachusetts, the Ashley House was built in 1735 by Colonel John Ashley and is now the oldest house in Sheffield, Massachusetts. The Ashley House is a part of the Berkshire 18th Century Trail and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Col. John Ashley spent decades acquiring both wealth and land; his financial success was based in part on the labor of five enslaved people. In time he would eventually own more than 3,000 acres, including the land encompassing upon Bartholomew’s Cobble. Colonel John Ashley supported the American Revolution and became the head of a committee that wrote the Sheffield Declaration in 1773, which was a petition against British tyranny and manifesto for individual rights. Less than one year after the adoption of the Massachusetts State Constitution. Motivated by the promise of liberty, brave Mum Bett, became the first African American woman to successfully file a lawsuit for freedom in the state of Massachusetts. This case would be the beginning of “freedom suits” that would eventually direct the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to prohibit slavery in the state of Massachusetts. Mum Bett, was born in New York in Columbia County, as a slave around 1744. She had grown up on a plantation of Pieter Hogeboom. When Pieters daughter married Colonel John Ashley, he gave Mum Bett and her sister Lizzie to them. It was said, Mrs. Ashley was cruel to her slaves. She whipped them and struck them with objects that lay near by, one time injuring Betts arm so badly it never fully healed. Being her master served as a judge in the court of common pleas, he wrote the Sheffield Declaration, and it had stated that “mankind in a state of nature are equal, free, and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.” It is believed that Bett overheard the ideas spoken when Colonel Ashley held his meetings and events in the home and when they were read in public. Betts turned to attorney Theodore Sedgwick, to help her gain her freedom. Theodore was one of the men that helped draft the Sheffield Declaration with Colonel John Ashley.

Once Bett gained her freedom she changed her name to Elizabeth Freeman. Colonel Ashley had asked her multiple times to come back and work as a paid servant, but she had declined, instead choosing to work for Theodore Sedgwick as a paid servant and she also worked as a midwife, nurse, and healer. Eventually, buying her very own house 20 years later. She would live in her house with her children until her death on December 28, 1829, where she was laid to rest in the Sedgwick Family plot. She was believed to have been around 85 years, and is the only non- family member buried in the plot.

Haunted History: People have claimed to see a woman in white clothing roam around the outside to the house.  People have also claimed to hear disembodied voices coming from inside of the house when no one is present.