Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. 21 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1885.
From the record
“The Colonel John Ashley House is a historic house museum at 117 Cooper Hill Road in Sheffield, Massachusetts. Built in 1735 by a prominent local enslaver, it is one of the oldest houses in southern Berkshire County.”
Wikipedia article Colonel John Ashley House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 183 National Register listings published here for Berkshire County · listed in 1975 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.75001915- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Then and now
1885 to 1997
The ground this property stands on, surveyed
112 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are
United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
18851997
Fires near this property
79 since 1993
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 79 fires within 5 miles of Col. John Ashley House
between 1993 and 2020, burning about 142 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
52
Debris and open burning
18
Arson/incendiarism
3
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Recreation and ceremony
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
Power generation/transmission/distribution
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 996 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Col. John Ashley House between 1860 and 1973: 824 Plantae, 127 Animalia, 44 Fungi, 1 Chromista.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. Brown, A. L. Ericson, A. Lorenz and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
21 workings within 5 miles of Col. John Ashley House: 13 past producers, 6 producers, 1 prospect, 1 unknown.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Marble, Dimension, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Sheffield, the town this property stands in, in 21 storm reports between 1997 and 2025: 14 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 3 flash flood, 1 flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Heavy rainfall led to flooding in portions of Berkshire county. This led to many road closures, including main roads in Sheffield, and several secondary roads in Egremont Plain and Richmond.||In addition, flooding was reported along the Green River near Great Barrington.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
[X Moved - Unexposed (Check One) - Original Site The Col.John Ashley House, built in 1735, faces west on 4.9 acres of farmland in a rural area of Sheffield. When the house was built, Town Street was the major road in Sheffield. In 1803 Town Street was bypassed by a larger road and the Ashley House found itself situated on a back way. In 1930 the house was moved 3/10 of a mile on the same property to avoid a chaotic clutter of outbuildings which had grown up around it. The move was carefully supervised and the house was placed facing the same direction in its new location. Only the center chimney and the 2½ story rear ell (1745) were replaced (with exact replicas). With the exception of the two restorations cited above, the house is nearly identical to its original 1735 appearance.
It is a 2½ story center chimney structure, two rooms deep and two wide. A 2½ story ridge roof ell projects from the rear center of the house. Both ell and main house are clapboarded; the latter is believed to show its original siding. Windows are 6/6 sash with simple moulded lintels and plain surrounds. The center entrance retains its original 6-panel door and hardware. Its high style pedimented doorway has a wide entablature with broken moulding and fluted Doric pilasters. The interior remains intact. Its most notable feature is the 2nd floor study. This room is elaborately panelled with a boxed and coffered crossbeam, wide cornice frieze and broken moulding, concave shell-carved cupboard, and stop-fluted pilasters. RECEIVED DEC 11 1974 NATIONAL REGISTER KTTS Tô 25 - NSTRUCTIONS
Statement of significance
18th Century 19th Century - 20th Century [A Political Religion/Phi- losophy Science Sculpture Social/Human- itarian Theater Transportation Urban Planning Other (Specify) LJ This 1735 structure is significant as the home of Col.John Ashley and as a we1l-preserved example of a high-style mid-18th c. Connecticut River Valley house. Born in Westfield,Mass. in 1709, John Ashley played a very important role in the development of both Sheffield and Massachusetts. In Sheffield, Ashley served in various capacities as surveyor, merchant, lawyer, judge, mill and marble quarry owner, and builder or the first iron works in Berkshire County. Ashley was also a member of the General Court of Massachusetts.
During the French and Indian War (1754-1763) Ashley served as Colonel of the South Berkshire Regiment of the Massachusetts Militia. In 1754, Ashley rode to the aelief of Stockbridge and Pittsfield and later, in 1757, to the aid of Fort William Henry. By 1776, he was unfit for campaigning, but he served on the Committee of Correspondence and used his resources to convert the Great Oare Bed in Salisbury to the manufacture of cannon. The Col.John Ashley House contains woodwork in the entrance door and study- which was the product of sophisticated master craftsmen. The house also con- tains siding, floorboards, and panelling which were among the first sawed out by the first water-powered sawmill in Berkshire County.
The saw had been drawn by oxen 40 miles from Westfield, home of Col.Ashley's father. RECEIVED DEC 11 1974 NATIONAL REGISTER To
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 75001915, 14 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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