The Rowe post office opened in 1820, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Davis (1885), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 424206 years
Founding year: the first Rowe post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Rowe’s past
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Rowe was the site of fishing and foraging for local Native American tribes. The area was first visited by white settlers in 1744, and was the site of a fort to guard against raids. In 1762, the town lands were purchased by the Rev. Cornelius Jones, who named it "Myrifield" after the Greek word for "thousand". The town had enough settlers by 1785 to have it incorporated as a town, renamed by the Massachusetts General Court after John Rowe, a prominent Boston merchant.
Passages that mention Rowe, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Rowe, Massachusetts1921 · page 109Read the page →
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Difficulty of travel was experienced at an early date and in 1801 the inhabitants petitioned the town of Rowe to '' set off the land that lies west of Deerfield in this Town to be annexed to a gore of land adjoining to it." The town acquiesced provided the General Court allowed it, but it was not to be just yet. In October 1803 the town voted ' ' that the inhabitants of the Town west of Deerfield River, be exempt from paying
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History of Rowe, Massachusetts1921 · page 105Read the page →
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the company organized the following year. The section from North Adams to the State Line, about six miles in length, was opened in 1859 and the section from the Tunnel to Greenfield in 1868. Rowe in common with her neighbors, had been asked to contribute to the expense of construction, but she declined. The Zoar station which is a scant four miles from the Eowe postoffice is really the port of entry and depar-
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (6), Wikipedia, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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