An opposition of a different kind broke out after the State authority had been re-established under the new Constitution.  The national Government was involved in difficulties; values were unsettled by the excessive emission of paper money.  Heavy taxes, cruel collection laws, numerous private debts, and frequent cases of imprisonment for debt, caused a wide-spread feeling of discontent.  The State Constitution was found fault with from the start, and a clamor arose for the abolition of the Senate, a change in the basis of representation, and an annual grant of salaries to all officers.  This agitation, in 1786, culminated in an appeal to force of arms, known from its leader, as Shay’s Rebellion.  It is unnecessary to repeat the story of its suppression.  The leaders of the former opposition held aloof.  There was a desire felt by the steadier portion of the community to make a fair trial of the State Constitution, which afforded a legal means, however slow, for redressing the heavier grievances.  Pittsfield in particular was now advancing in material prosperity, and looked with disfavor upon any radical changes.

[Illustration:  Berkshire athenaeum.]

Rev. Thomas Allen, one of the early ministers, was the man most actively engaged in town affairs at this period of its history.  He was of medium height, slender, of a mild, pleasant countenance.  Courteous, sincere and just, he set his parishioners an example of Christian morals.  An application of doctrines to the practical questions of life was a favorite subject of his sermons and private conversation.  He held small respect for any religious faith which did not manifest itself in outward acts, and especially those done for the public good.  Endowed with a keen sense of right and wrong he took his position and maintained it with zeal.  His personal participation in several battles of the Revolution gained for him the title of “The Fighting Parson.”  Once, when asked whether he actually killed any man at Bennington, he replied “that he did not know; but, that observing a flash often repeated from a certain bush, and that it was generally followed by the fall of one of Stark’s men, he fired that way and put the flash out.”

[Illustration:  First congregationalist church.]

He was a firm friend of Democracy.  During the revolution he was a radical Whig, and later on became an ardent supporter of Jeffersonian doctrines.  In the second period partisan feelings were very bitter in the community.  When, therefore, he gave full freedom to his thoughts in articles published in the Pittsfield Sun, and, in accordance with a practice more prevalent then than now, mingled political subjects with his Sunday discourses, the Federalist members of the Congregational Church grew restive under his pastorship.  At this time, it should be noted, Berkshire differed in politics from the rest of the State.  Matters grew worse, until a division of the parish was made and continued for seven years.  Thomas Allen died in 1811, at the age of 67.