PITTSFIELD, pIts'feld, Mass., city, county-seat of Berkshire County, on the New York, New Haven and Hartford and the Bos ton and Albany railroads, about 50 miles north west of Springfield. It was settled in 1743, in corporated as a town in 1761 and chartered as a city in 1891. It was called at first Boston Plantation and Poontoosuck, but the name was changed to Pittsfield when it was incorporated. Within the present corporate limits are several small villages. The city is noted as the centre of a residential section among the Berkshire Hills; but it has considerable manu facturing; the chief industrial establishments are foundry and machine shops, electrical ma chinery and supply works, a silk mill, cotton and woolen mills, paper mills, fine stationery, men and boys' clothing. The principal public buildings are the Berkshire Athenaeum (cost $100,000), the Crane Art Museum, the court house, built of white marble at a cost of $400, 000, the Berkshire Life Insurance building, the Berkshire County Savings Bank and the County Home for Aged Women, Agricultural National Bank building, City Savings Bank building.
The educational institutions are the high school, academic high school, commercial high school, about 25 grammar schools, Miss Hall's private school for girls, one business college, Saint Joseph's Academy, public and parish elementary schools, the Henry W. Bishop Training School for Nurses, the Public Library containing about 40,000 volumes and connected with the Berk shire Athenaeum. There are five public parks, in one of which is a statue, "The Color Bearer.* The government, administered under a revised charter of 1895, provides for a mayor, who holds office one year, and a council. The mayor appoints the license commissioners and the council elects several of the administrative offi cials. The school committee is chosen at the popular election. The city owns and operates the waterworks. Pop. 39,301. Consult Smith, 'History of Pittsfield' ; Mullany, 'History of Berkshire Hills.>