As early as 1774, the people of Great Barrington rose up against the King, seizing the courthouse. Today, Great Barrington is the shopping center of the southern Berkshire resort country. Writer, professor, and lawyer James Weldon Johnson, cofounder of the NAACP, and W. E. B. du Bois, black author and editor, lived here. Another resident, the poet William Cullen Bryant, was the town clerk for 13 years.