In 1735 the Massachusetts General Court established Fall Town Plantation to compensate militiamen’s service in the Falls Fight of 1676 during Metacom’s (King Philip’s) War (1675-1676). Led by Capt. William Turner (1623-1676), militia from Hadley, Hatfield, and other Connecticut River Valley towns attacked Native men, women, and children camped at Peskeompskut, a site at a falls on the Connecticut River near present-day Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Fifty-nine years later land was granted to the survivors among Turner’s men and the heirs of the deceased, numbering ninety-seven in all.

Settlement began in 1737. A sawmill was built on the Falls River later that year and the first meeting house was erected in 1739. During King George’s War in the 1740s, although several forts were built, Fall Town suffered the ravages of war. In 1762 it was incorporated as the town of Bernardston and named in honor of Massachusetts Royal Governor Francis Bernard (1712-1779).

Agriculture was Bernardston’s main economic activity, but the town also supported tanneries, shoe shops, harness and saddle makers, distilleries, cigar makers, a cutlery works, a pocketbook manufacturer, and a rope making establishment. In the mid-18th century Bernardston farmers became among the first in New England to make maple sugar products for sale.

By 1900 lumbering and dairy farming had become important sources of income. Private schools, such as Goodale Academy and the Powers Institute, were established in the mid-19th century but are no longer in operation.