The Historic Hill-Ross Homestead is a multi residential property comprising of 3 antique houses and 2 barns. We ask all our guests to be courteous of one another while enjoying its peaceful, park-like setting along the Mill River.
Listed on the National Historic Registry for being a stop along the Underground Railroad, along with other attributes.
Hill-Ross Homestead features a 19th-century farmhouse (circa 1820)- the home for two important figures in the abolitionist movement, Samuel Lapham Hill and Austin Ross. Samuel Hill purchased the farm in 1841 from the Northampton Silk Company. In 1842, Hill and others founded the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, an organization with strong abolitionist views. The Association chose to locate in the Broughtonâs Meadow (now Florence) section of Northampton due to the communityâs thriving silk industry. Free laborers, rather than enslaved workers, produced silk, increasing the industryâs popularity among abolitionists. The Associationâs property, including the Hill-Ross Farm, provided a store, school, common eating area and living space for its members. Because of the strong presence of the Association and silk manufacturers, Northampton became a haven for African Americans and abolitionists. Northampton proper often served as a stop for fugitive slaves traveling to Canada, and Association members encouraged fugitivesâ permanent settlement.