Founded as Housatonic Township Number 1, the land which became Tyringham and Monterey was first settled in 1735. Tyringham was established in 1739.[2] The two main villages were set up along two waterways, Hop Brook to the north and the Konkapot River to the south.
In 1750, Adonijah Bidwell, a Yale Divinity School graduate from the Hartford region, became the first minister of Township No. 1. When a meetinghouse was founded in the south, it led to a buildup in the north, and by 1762 the town was incorporated.[3] The origins of the town name are somewhat disputed, with some sources claiming it was named for Tyringham, a village in Buckinghamshire, England,[4] and others asserting it was named by Sir Francis Bernard, the former governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, after a woman, Jane Beresford (adopted by John Tyringham), from whom he had inherited an estate.[3][4] If the latter, it would be the only town in Massachusetts named after a woman.[5]
The town was home to the Tyringham Shaker Settlement Historic District, with the Shaker holy name of "Jerusalem", which lay just south of the town center.[6] The town of Monterey was set off and incorporated as its own town in 1847.