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Springfield

Springfield, Massachusetts Vacations, Experiential Tours and Springfield Travel Packages

Springfield is a city in, and the county seat of, Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States.

In the 2000 census, the city population was 154,082. It is the third largest city in Massachusetts and fourth largest in New England (behind Boston, Worcester, and Providence). Springfield holds two nicknames — The City of Homes and The City of Firsts.

Historically the first Springfield in the United States, it is also the largest city on the Connecticut River (and the largest city in Western Massachusetts and the Pioneer Valley).

Springfield is notable as birthplace of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, as well as the city in which James Naismith invented basketball. It is home to the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Springfield Falcons AHL hockey team. It also holds the western world's largest collection of Chinese cloisonné at the G.W. Vincent Smith Art Museum.

The Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area consists of three counties - Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin. As of the 2000 census, the Springfield MSA had a population of 680,014 (though a July 1, 2007 estimate placed the population at 682,657. It is also part of a larger metropolitan area known as the Northeast megalopolis.

In an economic and cultural partnership with Hartford, Connecticut, the Springfield-Hartford region constitutes New England's Knowledge Corridor - the second-largest concentration of institutions of higher learning in New England, after Greater Boston.

Springfield History

Contact with European explorers, conquerors, and colonists from the 1500s onward brought diseases (possibly smallpox and measles) which decimated the native population of North America. By 1635, the still-active epidemics had left an estimated 5,000 Indians in all of New England.

In 1635, William Pynchon, then the assistant treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, led an expedition with John Cable and John Woodcock, either up the Connecticut River or west across land from the Boston settlement, to the site of the Native American village of Agawam (which was associated with either the Pocomtuc or Nipmuck tribe) on the western bank. The lands nearest the river were both clear of trees due to occasional burns by the Indians, and covered in nutrient-rich river silt from occasional floods.

They constructed a pre-fabricated house south of the Westfield River in what is now Agawam, Massachusetts. Cable and Woodcock were supplied with food and goods to trade over the winter.

In 1636, Pynchon led a settlement expedition with at least seven other men.[6] The English settlers and their livestock travelled over land from the existing settlements in eastern Massachusetts, while some supplies were transported by boat.[7] Pynchon's party purchased (by barter) land on both sides of river from the 18 inhabitants of the village, representing the inner tracts of what is now Agawam, West Springfield, Longmeadow, Springfield, and Chicopee.[8] The Indians retained foraging and hunting rights, the rights to their existing farmlands, and were granted the right to compensation if the English cattle ruined their corn crops.

The settlement was originally named Agawam Plantation, but in 1640 it was renamed Springfield after the village near Chelmsford, Essex in England where Pynchon was born.

After warnings about the west side being prone to flooding,[10] and to "avoid trespassing" on the reserved Indian lands, the settlement moved to the less favorable farmland on the east side of the river, and the initial land grants to English families were made there.[11] Long, narrow plots of farmland were created, extending out from the river, in addition to more distant forested "wood lots". A warehouse was also constructed at Warehouse Point in Connecticut, to facilitate the main profit-generating industry for the settlement - trade with the Indians for beaver skins.

Purchases of large swaths of land from the Indians continued throughout the 1600s, enlarging Springfield's territory and forming other colonial towns elsewhere in the Pioneer Valley. Westfield was the westernmost settlement of Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1725, making Springfield a "frontier town" for a number of decades.[8] Over decades and centuries, portions of Springfield were sectioned off to form neighboring towns (see table for dates and links to individual town histories).

Due to imprecision in surveying the colonial borders, Springfield was soon 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.) As a result, some lands originally administered by Springfield are now in Connecticut.

Springfield remained a small working town when its security was threatened in 1675, during King Philip's War. The leader of the Wampanoag Indian tribe, Wamsutta, died shortly after being questioned at gunpoint by Plymouth colonists. Soon thereafter, the war began. Wamsutta's brother and successor, Metacomet, known as Philip to the colonists, started war with the colony to avenge his brother's death; the Pocomtuc tribe attacked Springfield and destroyed more than half the town on October 5, 1675.

Springfield Armory
 
Springfield ArmoryDuring the 1770s, George Washington selected Springfield as the site of the National Armory. By the 1780s the Arsenal was a major ammunition and weapons depot. In 1787 poor farmers from western Massachusetts, led by Daniel Shays, tried to seize the arms at Springfield. This came to be known as Shays's Rebellion, and was a key event leading to the Federal Constitutional Convention. Those involved in the rebellion planned to use the weapons to force the closure of the Commonwealth and county courts, which were seizing their lands for debt.

The term Springfield Rifle may refer to any sort of arms produced by the Springfield Armory for the United States armed forces.

Springfield Industrialization
 
Main Street, looking north, 1905Springfield is known as the City of Homes, a nickname given to it in the late 19th century due to its many Victorian mansions, as well as multitudes of single-family houses inhabited by workers.

Wason Manufacturing Company, one of the earliest makers of railway passenger coach equipment in the United States, was established in Springfield in 1845.

On May 2, 1849 the Springfield Railroad was chartered to build from Springfield to the Connecticut state line. By the 1870s it had become the Springfield and New London Railroad.

In 1856, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson formed Smith & Wesson to manufacture revolvers. The company headquarters are still located in Springfield.

Charles Gilbert and John Barker formed the Gilbert and Barker Manufacturing Company in 1865. The company produced gasoline pumps in Springfield until moving to West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1912. The company became Gilbarco and moved to Greensboro, North Carolina in 1965. [2]

Two Springfielders, Charles and Frank Duryea, built a gasoline powered automobile in Springfield in 1893. The Duryea Motor Wagon was put on the streets (in what is now Chicopee, home of Stevens Arms) on September 20, 1893 and soon became to be the first ever offered for sale. The Duryeas were joined in the automobile industry in 1900 by Skene (which disappeared the next year) and Knox (which survived until 1914).

Indian Motorcycles were manufactured in Springfield from 1901 to 1953. Chief and Scout models were the best sellers from the 1920s to the 1950s. The Hendee Manufacturing Company, Indian's parent company, also manufactured other products such as aircraft engines, bicycles, boat motors, and air conditioners.

From 1921 to 1931 a Rolls-Royce factory in Springfield assembled nearly 3000 Silver Ghosts and Phantoms before production was halted by the Great Depression.[3]

Granville Brothers Aircraft manufactured aircraft at Springfield Airport from 1929 until their bankruptcy in 1934. They are best known for the trophy and speed record holding Senior Sportster series of racing aircraft.

www.wikipedia.com

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