[1] Founded as Housatonic Township Number 1, the land which became Tyringham and Monterey was first settled in 1735.

[2] The two main villages were set up along two waterways, Hop Brook to the north and the Konkapot River to the south.

In 1750, Adonijah Bidwell, a Yale Divinity School graduate from the Hartford region, became the first minister of Township No.

When a meetinghouse was founded in the south, it led to a buildup in the north, and by 1762 the town was incorporated.

[7] The Stedman Rake Factory located in town made rakes for several American Presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

[8] The town was the site of several small country estates for notable wealthy families.

The town of Tyringham began with an agricultural economy which soon shifted to include cottage industries and manufacturing.

Their manufactories made boots, shoes, iron castings, forks, wooden ware, palm-leaf hats, rakes, chairs, and corn brooms.

In addition, Tyringham townspeople worked in two blacksmith shops, a boot and shoe factory, and five sawmills.

One Shaker family's buildings on Jerusalem Road became a summer resort known as Fernside.

[13] The town is four-sided, bordered by Lee to the north, Becket and Otis to the east, Monterey to the south, and Great Barrington to the west.

To the northeast of the valley, Baldy Mountain rises to a large plateau which stretches into the neighboring towns, and includes Goose Pond.

To the southwest of the valley, two mountain peaks—Mount Wilcot and Hunger Mountain—rise in a plateau in neighboring Monterey.

Informally, some residents on Main Road provide bed and breakfast, and hot showers, to hikers.

Tyringham uses the open town meeting form of government, and is led by a board of selectmen and an administrative assistant.