Shays' Rebellion at the Courthouse

In the years right after the American Revolution, hard times fell on the farmers of western Massachusetts. Money was scarce, taxes were high, and the courts were seizing farms and jailing men who could not pay their debts. Anger boiled over into an uprising remembered as Shays Rebellion, named for a Revolutionary War veteran named Daniel Shays.

In the autumn of seventeen eighty six, the rebellion reached Great Barrington, which was then a center of county courts. A large crowd of men marched on the courthouse here and forced the sitting judges to stop their proceedings. The protesters are said to have freed debtors held in the jail.

It was one of a string of courthouse shutdowns across the state that fall, as ordinary farmers tried to halt the machinery of debt collection. The rebellion was eventually put down by force, but it left a deep mark on the young nation. Leaders like George Washington were alarmed that the loose government under the Articles of Confederation could not keep order.

That fear helped drive the call for a stronger national constitution. In a real sense, the unrest that swept through this Berkshire town helped shape the Constitution of the United States.