Founded in 1913 by social reformer William Gould and his wife Agnes, Gould Farm is amongst the oldest residential therapeutic communities in the country. Sited on 670 acres in the pastoral Berkshire Mountains, the farm serves as a place for patients to recover from mental illness through farm work and community stewardship of the land. A white clapboard farmhouse is surrounded by pasture and hayfields, and abutted by wooded hills that were once used as charcoal making sites for the iron-ore furnaces in neighboring industrial towns. The property is further delineated by stone walls, wooden fences, and archaeological remains of wells and old farmhouses.
A forest, composed of white pine, red-oak, and northern hardwoods, covers 500 acres of the property. A network of paths and trails for hiking, skiing and the collection of maple sap and firewood, meanders through the woodlands. A wetland trail, named Diane’s Trail, serves an outdoor classroom for environmental education.
On the western border of Gould Farm lies the Berkshire Fish Hatchery, dating to 1914. The Hatchery spans 148 acres with a spring water aquifer that has facilitated aquaculture in the area since the early 19th century. Today the Hatchery harvests salmon, trout and bass and serves as a public educational resource run jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and volunteers from the Berkshire Hatchery Foundation.
