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"The Town of the Ancient Trees"
When the first English settlers came to Sheffield in 1725-26 they found a number of Dutch settlers with
substantial farms in what is today Egremont. Dutch claims to the area arose under the 1722 Patents of
Westenhook. As one provision of the 1724 sale of Mahican (Mohican) Indian lands in South
Berkshire, Chief Konkapot reserved a strip of land 5/8 mile wide extending from the Housatonic to the
1761 New York boundary. The land was deeded to one of their own, John Van Gilder, in 1737.
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