The people of Glasgow, Scotland, had promised the settlers a gift of a church bell if they named the town after their city.

Settlement came to Blandford and other "hilltowns" some 75 years after the more fertile alluvial lowlands along the Connecticut River were cultivated with tobacco and other commodity crops.

In contrast, farming in the hilltowns was of a hardscrabble subsistence nature due to thin, rocky soil following Pleistocene glaciation and a slightly cooler climate, although upland fields were sometimes less subject to unseasonal frosts.

After these two arrived, several other families soon followed, including Reed, McClintock, Taggart, Brown, Anderson, Hamilton, Wells, Blair, Stewart, Montgomery, Boies, Ferguson, Campbell, Wilson, Sennett, Young, Knox and Gibbs.

But the roots of the church were said to have dated back to 1735, when in Hopkinton the settlers then preparing to move to Blandford created "the religious organization which flourished contemporaneously with the early settlement in the wilderness.

[2] The settlers were so poor that they frequently asked for assistance from the men that had sold them their land, and often petitioned the General Court for money grants and remission of taxes.

Along with other parts of the country, by 1840 drinking alcoholic beverages had fallen out of favor and total abstinence took hold "more or less" in Blandford.

The leaders of the Presbyterian church music were chosen at town meetings and were encouraged to conduct it in "the good old way".

Caleb Taylor, of Westfield, was the first singing-master, and when he named the tune and sang with the beat, many were so shocked at what they termed the "indecency of the method" that they left the church.

[2] Eventually the community decided to leave behind the suggestive beat of Presbyterian music and converted in 1800 to the more conservative Congregational Church.

[2] During the Revolutionary War, General Henry Knox led a detachment of troops that hauled cannon from Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain over the Berkshires and through Blandford, eventually on to Boston to bluff the British into withdrawing from the city.

[2] Population density in Blandford and other hilltowns was limited by outmigration by about 1800 as more productive land in western New York and the Northwest Territory became available.

However, emigrants were typically young men and women, while the older generation and usually one or two children usually remained in place and farms were not yet abandoned.

Then the Industrial Revolution drew additional workers away from hilltown farms, especially after 1850 when steam engines fueled by local wood or by coal began to replace water power.

Blandford Center, the site of the early settlements, in 1879 had a population of about 300 with two churches, one hotel, two stores, a post office, a school, fairgrounds and two cemeteries, with a focus on agriculture.

[2] Three miles away stood North Blandford, once a substantial manufacturing location due to its excellent water power provided by numerous mountain streams.

In addition, North Blandford had a church, school, two stores, post office and a population of about 300 as well.

One story was that John Baird discovered lead and silver ore near the north line of town around 1795.

In 1912 electrified street railways (trolley car lines) covered Massachusetts, connecting towns and densely blanketing urban areas like Boston as in virtually all major American cities.

They offered inexpensive, frequent and fast transportation, with some lines that connected urban areas (interurbans) regularly exceeding 50 mph (80 km/h).

Tiny remnants of this once huge network still exist as the street-level portions of the T, Boston's subway system.

[4] The last significant line built in Massachusetts, by the Berkshire Street Railway, was from East Lee to Huntington via Blandford, opening August 15, 1917.

[4] The town is located near the eastern edge of the Berkshire Hills, above an ancient rift zone where the Connecticut River Valley is downfaulted approximately 1,000 feet (300 m).

Elevations increase to the west with expansive views eastward across the Connecticut River Valley as far as Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire.

Abandoned fields and pastures have reverted to forests of beech, birch, maple, hemlock, pine and oak.

Via MA 23 and U.S. Route 20, Blandford is 21 miles (34 km) west of Springfield, the largest city in western Massachusetts.