This is a timeline of the history of the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA.
14th century – The era of the reportedly oldest instrument in Wistariahurst's former Belle Skinner Collection of Old Instruments, a guqin, with the signature of noted poet and scholar Zhao Mengfu.
17th century
1653 – May: The earliest date at which the traditional story of the naming of Mount Holyoke and Mount Tom originates. In 1653 Springfield residents petitioned the General Court for the laying out of a new plantation by Norwottuck, christened on May 18, Northampton, Massachusetts. It was during this surveying expedition, or a second in 1660, that Elizur Holyoke, and Rowland Thomas, gave the names of the respective mountains that their parties each charted, this origin story being relegated to folklore today. 1655 – The western banks of the Connecticut River are first settled, in modern-day Holyoke and West Springfield. 1658 – First ferry begins operations on Connecticut River; Smith's Ferry, namesake of the village that grew around it, moved passengers from the then-Northampton side of the river to Hockanum. 1665 – Initial lands on the west side of the Connecticut River are claimed by settlers of Springfield, Massachusetts; one of the first to lay claim to Holyoke land is John Riley. 1667 – John Riley's Ingleside land is occupied by his daughters Mary and Margaret, and their Irish Protestant husbands, Joseph Ely and William MacCranny.
18th century 1704 – May 13: Months after the successful Raid on Deerfield during Queen Anne's War, a number of tribesmen attack Easthampton in the Pascommuck Massacre. Several go further south and set fire to the homestead of Benjamin Wright in Smith's Ferry, only to be repelled, with one killed during the skirmish. 1725 – Elmwood, then-known as Baptist Village, is settled; 5 baptized on the Connecticut River by the First Baptist Church of Boston. 1745 – Rock Valley village is settled. 1776 – Captain Joseph Morgan, resident of Ireland Parish and descendant of pioneer Miles Morgan, gathers a number of recruits to join the cause of the American Revolution, and serves in several campaigns, including as part of the reinforcements who prevented the recapturing of Fort Ticonderoga in the autumn of that year. The exact date Morgan joined the Continental Army is unknown.
1778 – February 7: Bushman Fuller marries bride Flora Parry, representing one of the earliest records of Black freemen living in Holyoke, then a part of West Springfield. 1780 – The earliest year which the oldest identified house in Holyoke is estimated to have been built; the Henry Tuttle House at 1329 Northampton Street, is today one of the only Federal style houses in the city with a center chimney.HLY.641, Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS). 1783 – The first mills, a gristmill and a sawmill, powered by flumes, are constructed on the westerly banks at Hadley Falls. The sawmill is constructed by Titus Morgan, great-uncle of Junius Spencer Morgan, who was father of J. P. Morgan.
1785 – Crafts' Tavern, first called Miller's Inn, is built near Northampton Road. One of Holyoke's first post offices, stagecoaches from Northampton and Springfield would stop there twice daily. At a 1923 Daughters of the American Revolution dedication, it was described as "the seat of all social activity in Old Holyoke". 1786 – July 7: The boundaries of the 3rd Parish of West Springfield are defined; with the exception of the Smith's Ferry purchase of 1909, these boundaries would be coterminous with the future city. 1792 – The first church meetinghouse is built in Baptist Village, known colloquially as the "Lord's barn", as it remained an unfinished structure, and served as a home for the First Baptist and First Congregational churches, then unofficially extant. 1799 – December 4: The First Congregational Church of Holyoke is formally established, with only nine male members.
19th century
1803 – October 5: Dr. Thomas Rand becomes the first formal pastor of the First Baptist Church of Holyoke. 1815 – A gang of counterfeiters from Chicopee are caught producing fake silver coins in a small hut in the woods in a since-filled dingle in modern-day Highlands to the west of Log Pond Cove; following their capture, the ringleader had his ears cropped as penalty. The incident lent the area the name "Money Hole Hill" for a number of decades thereafter. 1827 – The first Hadley Falls Company, not to be confused with the 1848 company by the Boston Associates, is established by John, Stephen, and Warren Chapin, and Alfred Smith. Believing the area could be used for future industrial purposes, Smith ordered that the company purchase 100 acres of land by the present-day location of the Holyoke Dam. He would go on to serve on the boards of the 1848 counterpart and its successor, the Holyoke Water Power Company, established in 1859. 1846 – George C. Ewing, a traveling salesman for Fairbanks Scales first suggests the idea of a dam at Hadley Falls to his employer, Erastus Fairbanks, who approaches the Boston Associates and other merchants in Hartford, proposing a venture for a new industrial city. 1847 – December 16: In the earliest days of the excavation of the Holyoke Canal System, workers find a subterranean channel with a chamber holding the skeletons of four Amerindians in seated positions, facing the East, with a stone mortar and pestle beside them. 1848 – January 1: Workers go on strike during preliminary foundation work building the Holyoke Dam; when 20 returned to work a riot formed, and 25 men from the local militia were called in from Northampton to restore order. November 19: The first Holyoke Dam is completed, made of timbers, it collapses within hours of its gates closure. 1849 – The second timber Holyoke Dam is completed, withstanding the forces of the Connecticut River. July 15 – August 15: 79 people in the city die of cholera, all but one being Irish, and all but two being Irish in the early squatters village of The Patch. By the end of August the cases would drop off, with 10 additional deaths. September 1: The first edition of the abolitionist Hampden Freeman is published by William L. Morgan, marking the beginning of the history of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, its successor.Holyoke Transcript-Telegram. Congressional Record. October 13, 1949. Extensions of Remarks. Page A6279 . 95 Cong. Rec. (Bound) - Volume 95, Part 1
1850 March 14: Holyoke incorporates as a town.An act to incorporate the town of Holyoke, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1850 March 20: First town meeting held. 1853 – May 14: Joseph C. Parsons establishes the Parsons Paper Company out of the old 1783 grist mill and neighboring buildings, establishing the first paper mill in Holyoke, and the beginning of a city industry which would produce 80% of the United States' writing paper.
1856 – The first Catholic church is established, St. Jerome's, serving a growing Irish Catholic population. 1865 – January 19: Germania Mills is established by August Stursberg, marking the beginning of the history of the city's German immigrant colony. 1867 – The First Lutheran Church is established, originally as the German Lutheran Church in South Holyoke; the church's earliest ministers would also offer German language classes. 1868 – July 4: Ingleside, the neighborhood's namesake resort, opens to travellers. Date taken from pamphlet, Ingleside; This Delightful Resort. (Holyoke, Mass.) Transcript Printing House. 1869 – June 12: The Holyoke & Westfield Railroad Company is established, in part backed by the City, it is created in an effort to foster more competitive shipping rates than those offered by the Connecticut River Railroad. 1870 – James B. Emerson establishes the Holyoke Testing Flume on the Canal System at the request of the Holyoke Water Power Company, it is later described by "father of modern hydrology", Robert E. Horton, as the "first modern hydraulic laboratory" in the United States and the world. 1871 – Construction on City Hall begins. July 21: The first college rowing regatta in the United States, by the Rowing Association of American Colleges, one of the country's earliest intercollegiate undergraduate sporting events, is held at Ingleside on the Connecticut River. Massachusetts Agricultural College wins in an upset against the teams of Harvard, Yale, and Brown. 1872 – Holyoke High School begins receiving students from Qing China from the Chinese Educational Mission, several of whom would go on to serve important roles in the Qing government. March 7: Holyoke Water Works established, entering service in the following year. 1873 – April 7: Holyoke incorporated as a city.An act to establish the city of Holyoke, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1873 1874 – The Skinner family moves their business William Skinner & Sons and their estate Wistariahurst to Holyoke, following the devastation of the Mill River Flood of 1874. December 17: The roof over City Hall is complete, and all other openings are sealed for the winter. 1875 May 27: Precious Blood Church fire occurs. July 25: The Ingleside resort fire occurs. 1876 – March: John B. McCormick develops the Holyoke "Hercules" water turbine while working for the Holyoke Machine Company, and subsequently J. W. Jolly Co. The turbine reached double the efficiency of others at the time, exceeding 80%, and was the first modern mixed-flow turbine ever developed. The design, combining the inward flow principles of the Francis turbine with the downward discharge of the Jonval turbine, ushered in a new era of American waterpower design.
1877 – City Hall's clock tower is complete, with the timekeeping mechanism installed. 1878 March 26: John W. Albaugh performs his titular role in Louis XI as the opening show of the Holyoke Opera House.
June 15: The world's first public-use toll line begins service between Springfield and Holyoke, at the Springfield Telephone and Automatic Signal Company's first telephone exchange in the Hotel Jess/Perkins Block.
1879 – December 5: A Massachusetts jury awards $3,433 to Joseph Parker, a French-Canadian parishioner in Holyoke, after finding that Rev. André Dufresne unlawfully excommunicated him for allegedly attending a lecture by ex-priest Charles Chiniquy. The case garners national attention, with Harper’s Weekly publishing a Thomas Nast cartoon titled “No Interference,” highlighting the tension between ecclesiastical authority and civil liberties. 1880 – The first French-language school opens in Holyoke at the new Precious Blood Church. 1881 – November: Irish republican John Devoy makes an address before local Fenians during which he predicts the Easter Rising, stating "Ireland's opportunity will come when England is engaged in a desperate struggle with some great European power". 1882 – January 31: A banquet is held at William Whiting's Windsor Hotel honoring poet Louis-Honoré Fréchette, the first Canadian author to receive a European literary prize; among other dignitaries he is received by Governor Long, Mark Twain, and a telegram from President Garfield welcoming him to the United States. 1883 – March 23: The first issue of the German Holyoke Journal is published; later merging with Der Beobachter (The Observer), it would become the Neu England Rundschau (New England Review) in 1889, the longest running German-language newspaper in Massachusetts. – Based on volume numbering. 1884 – The first Italians are recorded arriving in Holyoke, with the marriage of one Charles Marano to a May O'Connor. September 24: The first horsecars of the Holyoke Street Railway begin service. Eva Tanguay makes her debut performance as a singer at an amateur night in Parsons Hall.Erdman, Andrew. Queen of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanguay, Cornell University Press, 2012 pp. 30–32, 36–38, 47, 93–94, 100–03, 114–15, 139–43, 212–14, 222–23. 1885