Brookfield (Images of America)

Incorporated in 1673, the town of Brookfield was part of the original Quaboag Plantation land grant of 1660 and is situated at a crossroads of the Boston Post Road that connected New York and Boston. Brookfield grew from a farming community to an industrial town, with early factories producing shoes, boots, bricks, and paper. When the factories were in full swing in 1880, Brookfield was one of the wealthiest and most populated towns in the area. The town has since returned to a quiet state, and today residents and visitors enjoy the pastoral atmosphere while remembering some of Brookfield's more noteworthy characters: Bathsheba Spooner, who was found guilty after a sensationalized 18th-century trial of conspiring to murder her husband; author Mary Jane Holmes, whose books about daily life sold more than two million copies; and Borden Company's bovine mascot, Elsie the Cow, who was raised on Elm Hill Farm and made her way to Hollywood.