Westhampton is a quiet Hampshire County hill town of about 1,600, sitting in the agricultural uplands west of Northampton. It was first settled in 1762 and incorporated as a separate town on September 29, 1778, set off from Northampton along with several other “Hampton” towns in the same era. The town is small, rural, and largely undeveloped; most of its 27 square miles are still in fields, hill farms, woodlots, and second-growth forest, with a single state highway (Route 66) running east–west through the village center.
The village center
The village sits on a low ridge along Route 66 near the geographic middle of town. The white-clapboard Congregational United Church of Christ stands above the small common, with the Westhampton Town Hall, the Westhampton Memorial Library, and a town fountain clustered nearby. A short walk away, the small Blacksmith Shop Museum (pictured) preserves an old village blacksmith’s shop with anvils and tools out front. The whole village fits within a few hundred yards of road, and the rest of the town is hill country in every direction.
Farms and forest
Westhampton is one of the more agricultural towns in the hill country west of Northampton. Outlook Farm, on Route 66 in the eastern part of town, is the best-known working farm, a combined farm market, butcher shop, bakery, deli, and restaurant that draws steady traffic from the valley towns below. Outside the village, back roads climb into hayfields and pasture, with sugarbushes, woodlots, and small homesteads scattered through the hills. The town has no public reservoir of its own at the scale of Southampton’s Tighe-Carmody, but several small streams in town drain east toward the Manhan River and ultimately to the Connecticut.
Getting there
Westhampton sits about ten to fifteen minutes west of Northampton on Route 66, the only state highway through town. Easthampton is to the southeast, Southampton to the south, and Williamsburg to the north. There is no rail or regular bus service. The town is dry (alcohol sales are not permitted) and there are essentially no commercial services in town other than Outlook Farm and a small handful of home-based businesses; visitors looking for restaurants, shops, or lodging will find them in the larger neighboring towns.
Sources
- Town of Westhampton
- Westhampton, Massachusetts — Wikipedia (2020 U.S. Census population: 1,622; incorporated September 29, 1778)
- Outlook Farm