Colonel John Ashley House
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house located on Cooper Hill Road, Sheffield, Massachusetts (in a local village sometimes known as Ashley Falls). It is now National Historic Landmark and a non-profit museum operated by The Trustees of Reservations, open to the public for an admission fee.
In 1773 the Sheffield Declaration, a petition against British tyranny and manifesto for individual rights, was drafted in the upstairs study of the house. Less than a decade later, a celebrated 1781 Massachusetts state court battle freed the Ashleys' slave, Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, under the new state constitution. The case helped to end slavery in Massachusetts.
The house is typical of early 18th century rural American architecture, with furnishings and items dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries.
