the territory of Berkshire than can be credited to any other tract
of equal extent in the United States.

Of late years the world of wealth and fashion has invaded the Berkshire
country and there are no more magnificent summer homes than those of
Lenox, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and the neighboring towns.

The first of the Anthony family of whom there is any record was
William, born in Cologne, Germany, who came to England during the reign
of Edward the Sixth and was made Chief Graver of the Royal Mint and
Master of the Scales, holding this office through the reigns of Edward
and Mary and part of that of Elizabeth. His crest and coat of arms are
entered in the royal enumeration. His son Derrick was the father of Dr.
Francis Anthony, born in London, 1550. According to the Biographia
Britannica, he was graduated at Cambridge with the degree of Master of
Arts and became a learned physician and chemist. Although a man of high
character and generous impulses, he was intolerant of restraint and in
continual conflict with the College of Physicians. He died in his
seventy-fourth year, and was buried in the church of St. Bartholomew
the Great, where his handsome monument still remains. He left a
daughter and two sons, both of the latter distinguished physicians.
From John, the elder, sprung the American branch of the family. His
son, John, Jr., born in Hempstead, England, sailed to America in the
ship Hercules, from that port, April 16, 1634, when he was twenty-seven
years old. He settled in Portsmouth, R.I., and became a land-owner, an
innkeeper and an office-holder. His five children who survived infancy
left forty-three children. One of these forty-three, Abraham, had
thirteen children, and his son William fourteen, his son, William, Jr.,
four, his son David nine.