Editing Tyringham, Massachusetts (section)

=== Economy ===

The town of Tyringham began with an agricultural economy which soon shifted to include cottage industries and manufacturing. 
In 1786, the town had 182 dwelling houses, forty shops, two tanneries, four potash works, two iron works, and four grist and saw mills. The townspeople made 1185 barrels of cider that year. More than ten thousand acres of the uplands were woodlands or unimproved land, but about 2500 acres had been improved for tillage. About two thousand acres were mowed for hay, and more than three thousand acres were used as pasturage for the townspeople's five hundred horses, eight hundred swine, 178 oxen, five hundred cattle, and 541 milk cows.<ref>"Tyringham," 1786 Massachusetts Town Valuations (Mass. Archives, vol. 163), p. 340.</ref>

By 1837, Tyringham farmers had incorporated sheep into their economy and owned 1678 Merino sheep as well as 598 sheep of other breeds, and produced more than 6500 pounds of wool. One tannery was still in operation. Their manufactories made boots, shoes, iron castings, forks, wooden ware, palm-leaf hats, rakes, chairs, and corn brooms. The biggest business, a paper mill, employed seven men and nineteen women, and made fifty tons of paper valued at $21,000.<ref>John P. Bigelow, "Tyringham," ''Statistical Tables: exhibiting the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts for the year ending April 1, 1837'' (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 116-17.</ref>

Manufacturing continued to grow. The [[Shakers]]' rake factory employed nine men and made thirty thousand rakes in 1865. Two paper mills employing 22 men and 41 women made more than $110,000 worth of paper. In addition, Tyringham townspeople worked in two blacksmith shops, a boot and shoe factory, and five sawmills.<ref>Oliver Warner, ''Statistical Information: relating to certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts for the year ending May 1, 1865'' (Boston: Wright and Potter, 1866), p. 69-70.</ref> After the Tyringham Shakers left in 1875, their businesses closed and their farms were sold. One Shaker family's buildings on Jerusalem Road became a summer resort known as Fernside.<ref>Tyringham Shaker Settlement Historic District, Massachusetts Historical Commission file, 2014.</ref><ref name=":1" />