History of Springfield, Massachusetts

The history of Springfield, Massachusetts dates back to the colonial period, when it was founded in 1636 as ''Agawam Plantation'', named after a nearby village of Algonkian-speaking Native Americans. It was the northernmost settlement of the Connecticut Colony. The settlement defected from Connecticut after four years, however, later joining forces with the coastal Massachusetts Bay Colony. The town changed its name to ''Springfield'', and changed the political boundaries among what later became the states of New England. The decision to establish a settlement sprang in large part from its favorable geography, situated on a steep bluff overlooking the Connecticut River's confluence with three tributaries. It was a Native American crossroad for two major trade routes: Boston-to- Albany and New York City-to-Montreal. Springfield also sits on some of the northeastern United States' most fertile soil.

Springfield flourished for the decades after its founding, operating as a trading post surrounding by numerous colonial farmsteads. The nearby Indian tribes were gradually displaced by colonial settlement and by the late 17th century became gradually confined to a palisaded fort on Long Hill. During King Philip's War, a pan-tribal effort to expel the colonists from their settlements in New England, a successful Indian attack on Springfield destroyed the settlement. After being rebuilt, Springfield's prosperity waned for the next hundred years but, in 1777, Revolutionary War leaders made it a National Armory to store weapons, and in 1795 it began manufacturing muskets. Until 1968, the Armory made small arms. Its first American muskets (1794) were followed by the famous Springfield rifle and the revolutionary M1 Garand and M14s. The Springfield Armory attracted generations of skilled laborers to the city, making it the United States' longtime center for precision manufacturing (comparable to a Silicon Valley of the Industrial Revolution). The Armory's near-capture during Shays Rebellion of 1787 was among the troubles that prompted the U.S. Constitutional Convention later that year.

Innovations in the 19th and 20th centuries include the first American English dictionary (1805, Noah Webster), the first use of interchangeable parts and the assembly line in manufacturing (1819, Thomas Blanchard), the first American horseless car (1825, again Thomas Blanchard), vulcanized rubber (1844, Charles Goodyear), the first American gasoline-powered car (1893, Duryea Brothers), the first American motorcycle company (1901, "Indian"), an early commercial radio station (1921, WBZ), and most famously, the world's third-most-popular sport of basketball (1891, Dr. James Naismith).

17th century

Native inhabitants

It is difficult to estimate the origins of human habitation in the Connecticut River Valley, but there are physical signs dating back at least 9,000 years. Pocumtuck tradition describes the creation of Lake Hitchcock in Deerfield by a giant beaver, which perhaps represents the action of a glacier that retracted at least 12,000 years ago. Various sites indicate millennia of fishing, horticulture, beaver-hunting, and burials. Excavations over the last 150 years have taken many human remains from old burial places, sending them to the collections of institutions such as UMASS Amherst. The passage of the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act in 1990 ordered museums across Western Mass and the country to repatriate these remains to Native peoples, an ongoing process.

The region was inhabited by several Algonkian-speaking Native American communities, culturally connected but distinguished by the place names they assigned to their respective communities: Agawam (low land), Woronco (in a circular way), Nonotuck (in the midst of the river), Pocumtuck (narrow, swift river), and Sokoki (separated from their neighbors). The modern-day Springfield metropolitan area was inhabited by the Agawam Indians.
The Agawam, as well as other groups, belong the larger cultural category of Alongkian Indians.

In 1634, Dutch traders triggered a devastating smallpox epidemic in among the region's Native people. Governor Bradford of Massachusetts writes that in Windsor (the site of the Dutch trading post), "of 1,000 of he Indians150 of them died." With so many dead, "rotingabove ground for want of burial," English colonists were emboldened to attempt significant settlement of the region.

Colonial settlement

Puritan fur trader William Pynchon was an original settler of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a magistrate, and then assistant treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1635, he commissioned a scouting expedition led by John Cable and John Woodcock to find the Connecticut River Valley's most suitable site for the dual purposes of agriculture and trading. The expedition traveled either across the inland Bay Path from Boston to Albany via Springfield or, equally likely, along the coast and northward from the mouth of the Connecticut River. It concluded at Agawam where the Westfield River meets the Connecticut River, across the Connecticut River from modern-day Springfield, the northernmost settlement on "The Great River" at that time. The region's numerous rivers and geological history have dictated that its soil is among the finest for farming in the Northeast.Swift, p. 11.

Cable and Woodcock found the Pocomtuc (or perhaps Nipmuck) village of Agawam on the western bank of the Connecticut River. The land near the river was clear of trees due to burns by the Indians, and covered in nutrient-rich river silt from both floods and glacial Lake Hitchcock. Just south of the Westfield River, Cable and Woodcock constructed a pre-fabricated house in present-day Agawam, Massachusetts (at modern-day Pynchon Point.)

On May 15, 1636, Pynchon led a settlement expedition to be administered by the Connecticut Colony, which included Henry Smith (Pynchon's son-in-law), Jehu Burr, William Blake, Matthew Mitchell, Edmund Wood, Thomas Ufford, John Cable, and a Massachusett Indian translator named Ahaughton. Pynchon likely never learned the Algonkian language, making the help of Native interpreters crucial in learning about the land and dealing with its Native inhabitants. Dutch and Plymouth Colonists had been leapfrogging their way up "the Great River," as far north as Windsor, Connecticut, attempting to establish its northernmost village to gain the greatest access to the region's raw materials. Pynchon selected a spot just north of Enfield Falls, the first spot on the Connecticut River where all travelers have to stop to negotiate a waterfall in height, and then transship their cargoes from ocean-going vessels to smaller shallops. By founding Springfield, Pynchon positioned himself as the northernmost trader on the Connecticut River. Near Enfield Falls, he erected a warehouse to store goods awaiting shipment, which is still called "Warehouse Point" to this day, located in East Windsor, Connecticut.Swift, p. 16.

In 1636, Pynchon's party purchased land on both sides of Connecticut River from 18 tribesmen who lived at a palisade fort at the current site of Springfield's Longhill Street. The price paid was 18 hoes, 18 fathoms of wampum, 18 coats, 18 hatchets, and 18 knives. Ahaughton was a signatory, witness, and likely negotiator for the deed. The Indians retained foraging and hunting rights and the rights to their existing farmlands, and were granted the right to compensation if livestock owned by colonists ruined their corn crops. As is the case for many Indian deeds, it is dubious whether or not the Native signatories of the document possessed the political authority to sign on behalf of their tribes.

In 1636, the fledgling colonial settlement was named Agawam Plantation and administered by the Connecticut Colony, as opposed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Leaving Connecticut for Massachusetts

In 1640 and 1641, two events took place that forever changed the political boundaries of the Connecticut River Valley. From its founding until that time, Springfield had been administered by Connecticut along with Connecticut's three other settlements: Wethersfield, Hartford, and Windsor. In the spring of 1640, grain became scarce and the Connecticut Colony's cattle were dying of starvation. The nearby Connecticut River Valley settlements of Windsor and Hartford (then called "Newtown") gave power to William Pynchon to buy corn for all three English settlements. If the natives would not sell their corn at market prices, then Pynchon was authorized to offer more money. The natives refused to sell their corn at market prices, and then later refused to sell it at what Pynchon deemed "reasonable" prices. Pynchon refused to buy it, believing it best not to broadcast the English colonists' weaknesses, and also wanting to keep market values steady.

Leading citizens of what would become Hartford were furious with Pynchon for not purchasing the grain. With Windsor's and Wethersfield's consent, the Connecticut Colony's three southern settlements commissioned Captain John Mason, notable for his leadership in the Pequot War (including the Mystic Massacre), to travel to Springfield with "money in one hand and a sword in the other" to acquire grain for their settlements. On reaching what would become Springfield, Mason threatened the Pocumtucs with war if they did not sell their corn at "reasonable prices." The Pocumtucs capitulated and ultimately sold the colonists corn; however, Mason's violent approach deepened Native distrust towards the colonists. Before leaving, Mason also upbraided Pynchon publicly, accusing Pynchon of sharp trading practices and of forcing the Pocumtucs to trade only with him because they feared him. (The three southern Connecticut Colony settlements were surrounded by different tribes than Springfield, i.e. the more warlike Pequots and Mohegans.)

Ultimately, in 1640, Pynchon and the planters of Agawam voted to separate themselves from the other river towns, removing themselves from the jurisdiction of Connecticut Colony. Looking to capitalize on Springfield's defection, the Massachusetts Bay Colony decided to reassert its jurisdiction over land bordering the Connecticut River, including Agawam.

Tensions between Springfield and Connecticut were exacerbated by one final confrontation in 1640. Hartford had been keeping a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, for protection against various tribes and the New Netherland Colony. After Springfield sided with the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Connecticut, demanded that Springfield's boats pay a toll when passing the Fort at Old Saybrook, (which, at the time, was not administered by the Connecticut Colony, but the short-lived Saybrook Colony.) Pynchon would have been agreeable to this if Springfield could have had representation at the Fort at Saybrook; however, Connecticut refused to allow Springfield a presence at the fort, and thus Pynchon instructed his boats to refuse to pay Connecticut's toll. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony heard about this controversy, it took Pynchon's side and immediately drafted a resolution that required Connecticut ships to pay a toll when entering Boston Harbor. Connecticut, which was then dependent largely on trade with Boston, immediately dropped its tax on Springfield.

When the dust finally settled, Pynchon was named magistrate of Agawam by the Massachusetts Bay Colony and, in honor of his importance, the settlement was renamed Springfield after his place of birth, in England. For decades, Springfield, which then included modern-day Westfield, was the westernmost settlement in Massachusetts.

In 1642, Massachusetts Bay commissioned a definable border to be drawn up, one of the first in what is now America. Led by Nathaniel Woodward and Solomon Saffery, the group left in a border crossing at the old Bissell's Ferry in Windsor, north of today's downtown Windsor and went into a line near what is currently U.S. Route 44. After the results were published, this line greatly benefited the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The towns of Suffield, Enfield, Somers, Stafford, and Granby were placed in the jurisdiction of Springfield lands. Connecticut protested the result, claiming that they didn't even walk but sailed by boat from the Charles River, around Cape Cod and went up to near Enfield Falls. This resulted in one of the longest running border disputes in American history.

Early "firsts"

In 1645, 46 years before the Salem witch trials, Springfield experienced America's first accusations of witchcraft when Mary (Bliss) Parsons, wife of Cornet Joseph Parsons, accused a widow named Marshfield, who had moved from Windsor to Springfield, with witchcraft—an offense then punishable by death.name="King 1885" For this, Mary Parsons was found guilty of slander. In 1651, Mary Parsons was accused of witchcraft, and also of murdering her own child. In turn, Mary Parsons then accused her own husband, Hugh Parsons, of witchcraft. At America's first witch trial, both Mary and Hugh Parsons were found not guilty of witchcraft for want of satisfactory evidence. However, Mary was found guilty of murdering her own child, but died in prison in 1651, before her death sentence could be carried out.

William Pynchon was the New World's first commercial meat packer. In 1641, he began exporting barrels of salt-pork; however, in 1650 he became famous for writing the New World's first banned book, ''The Meritous Price of Our Redemption''. In 1649, Pynchon found time to write the book which was published in London in 1650. Several copies made it back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and its capital, Boston, which reacted with rage to Pynchon rather than with support. For his critical attitude toward Massachusetts' Calvinist Puritanism, Pynchon was accused of heresy, and his book was burned on the Boston Common. Only 4 known copies survived. By declaration of the Massachusetts General Court, in 1650, ''The Meritous Price of Our Redemption'' became the first-ever banned book in the New World. In 1651, Pynchon was accused of heresy in Boston – at the same meeting of the Massachusetts General Court where Springfielder Mary Parsons was sentenced to death. Standing to lose all of his land-holdings – the largest in the Connecticut River Valley – William Pynchon transferred ownership to his son, John and, in 1652, moved back to England with his friend, the Reverend Moxon.

William's son, John Pynchon, and his brother-in-law, Elizur Holyoke, quickly took on the settlement's leadership roles. They began moving Springfield away from the diminishing fur trade into agricultural pursuits. In 1655, John Pynchon launched America's first cattle drive, prodding a herd from Springfield to Boston along the old Bay Path Trail.

Purchases of large swaths of land from the Indians continued throughout the 17th century, enlarging Springfield's territory and forming other colonial towns elsewhere in the Connecticut River Valley. Westfield was the westernmost settlement of Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1725, and Springfield was, as it remains today, the colony's most populous and important western settlement. Over decades and centuries, portions of Springfield were partitioned off to form neighboring towns; however, throughout the centuries, Springfield has remained the region's most populous and most important city.

Due to imprecision in surveying colonial borders, Springfield became embroiled in a boundary dispute between the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Connecticut Colony, which was not resolved until 1803–4. (See the article on the History of Massachusetts-Connecticut Border). As a result, some lands originally administered by Springfield – including the William Pynchon's Warehouse Point – are now administered by Connecticut.

Trade and encroachment

For the next several decades, Native people experienced a complex relationship with the colonists. The fur trade stood at the heart of their economic interactions, a lucrative business that guided many other policy decisions. White settlers traded wampum, cloth and metal in exchange for furs, as well as horticultural produce. Because of the seasonal nature of goods provided by Native people, compared with the constant availability of colonial goods, a credit system developed. Land, the natural resource whose availability did not fluctuate, served as collateral for mortgages in which Native people bought goods from colonists in exchange for the future promise of beavers. However, trade with the colonists made pelts so lucrative that the beaver was rapidly overhunted. The volume of the trade fell, from a 1654 high of 3,723 pelts to a mere 191 ten years later. With every mortgage, Native people lost more land - even as their population base recovered and expanded from previous epidemics of diseases.

In a process that historian Lisa Brooks calls "the deed game", colonists acquired an increasing amount of land from Indian tribes through debt, fraudulent purchases and a variety of other methods. Springfield settler Samuel Marshfield took so much land from the inhabitants of Agawam that they had “little left to plant on,” to the point that the Massachusetts General Court stepped in and forced Marshfield to allocate them 15 acres. Native people began to construct and gather in palisaded “forts” - structures that were not necessary beforehand. The Agawam fort outside of Springfield was on Long Hill, although it is commonly (incorrectly) believed that it stood in a modern-day park called “King Philip’s Stockade.” These sites were excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries by anthropologists, who, as previously noted, took cultural objects and human remains and displayed them for years in area museums. With the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990, a long process of repatriation began.

Tensions between the colonists (including those living in Sprinfield) and surrounding Indian tribes, which had already been poor for some time, continued to deteriorate in the years preceding the outbreak of King Philip's War. Colonial encroachment on Indian lands, combined with the decimation of the native population from European diseases, led to increasing Native resentment and hostility towards the colonists. Though some Indians became integrated into colonial society, with many being employed in white households, numerous pieces of legislation were passed which prevented Indians from marrying settlers and staying in colonial settlements after dark, while colonists were prevented from living among the Indians.

King Philip's War

Wamsutta's brother, Chief Metacomet

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