Shelburne, Massachusetts
town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States of America
Shelburne is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,884 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The village of Shelburne Falls is located partly in Shelburne and neighboring Buckland.
History
Shelburne was first settled in 1756 as part of Deerfield, Massachusetts, known then as "Deerfield Northwest". It was initially organized as the district of Shelburne in 1768, named in honor of William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, an Irish-born British politician, who later served as Prime Minister during the American Revolutionary War. Shelburne was officially incorporated as a town in 1775. Its character has always been two-sided; the main body of town has farmland among the low hills, while the area around Shelburne Falls has mostly been a milling community.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 23.4 square miles (60.6 km2), of which 23.2 square miles (60.0 km2) is land and 0.23 square miles (0.6 km2), or 0.96%, is water. Shelburne is located in central Franklin County, and is bordered by Colrain to the north, Greenfield to the east, Deerfield to the southeast, Conway to the south, Buckland to the west, and a short, 0.4-mile (0.64 km) stretch of Charlemont to the northwest.
“Shelburne, Massachusetts” enters the record as town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Shelburne, Massachusetts and town can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Shelburne, Massachusetts” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Shelburne, Massachusetts and town provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2416708. VIAF identifies the subject as 128017118. The Library of Congress control number is n97103113. Authority coordinates are 42.590, -72.689. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1756, 1768 and 1775.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Shelburne, Massachusetts”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Shelburne, Massachusetts primary sources, Shelburne, Massachusetts archive and Shelburne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Shelburne, Massachusetts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.