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 [the Indians] 150 of them died." With so many dead, "rot[ting] above 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.Swift, p. 9. 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,Swift, p. 5. 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.Deed of purchase (PDF), 15 July 1636. 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 TownDate of separationWestfield1669Suffield (CT) (as Southfield)1682Enfield (CT) (as Freshwater)1683Stafford (CT)1719Somers (CT) (from Enfield)1734Wilbraham1763East Windsor (CT) (northern part)1768West Springfield1774Ludlow1774Southwick1775 (from Westfield)Montgomery1780 (from Westfield)Longmeadow1783Russell1792 (from Westfield)Chicopee1848Holyoke (except Smith's Ferry)1850 (from W. Springfield)Agawam1855 (from W. Springfield)Hampden1878 (from Wilbraham)East Longmeadow1894 (from Longmeadow)
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.name="Barrows 1911" 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.