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First explorations
By the time Europeans arrived in the valley in 1614, Native Americans had been regularly burning the forest undergrowth and farming in the region for centuries. -
William Pynchon
Sailed to the Connecticut river investigating prospects for beaver trade -
John Pynchon
exerted a tremendous influence over the Connecticut River Valley in the late seventeenth century. -
Agawam and Nonotuck
The Agawams and the Nonotucks were two of the groups that inhabited the Connecticut River Valley and some of the first to come into contact with English colonizers such as William Pynchon. Both sold land to English settlers, the Agawams in 1636 and the Nonotucks -
King Philips war
A war between European colonists and indigenous people of New England -
Indentured Servitude in Colonial Springfield
The life and experiences of Peter Swink, a black servant of the Pynchon family in Springfield, provides clues as to the potential status of such laborers in the area. The town records note Swink's arrival in 1659 -
The Springfield Armory
Was founded in 1777 advocated for the location on a hill above present-day downtown Springfield. It's position is near the Connecticut River and its distance from Enfield Falls, where the British Army kept its boats. -
Irish immigrants in Holyoke
The Connecticut River Valley experienced an influx of Irish immigrants in the wake of the potato famine that ravaged Ireland -
John Brown
Moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in the summer of 1847, he was on a mission: to establish a method of distribution that would offer wool manufactures fair market value for their product. -
Abolitionism & the Underground Railroad
The fugitive slave law allowed slave hunters to capture runaways in the North and made it a crime to harbor or assist escaping slaves. -
Springfield and the civil war
When the first shots rang out at Fort Sumter in April of 1861, Springfield was a city of 15,000 residents supported by several local industries. -
Industry and Innovation in the Connecticut River Valley
Champion bicycle racer George Hendee and Swedish immigrant Oscar Hedstrom founded the Indian Motocycle Company in Springfield in 1901. -
Immigration from Russia and the Soviet Union
More Russians immigrated to escape the upheaval caused by the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. -
The Civil Rights Movement in Springfield
U.S congress passed legislation that prohibited racial segregation and discrimination in voting, education, employment and housing. -
The Hmong Story Cloth
Asians comprised the fastest growing minority population in the Valley, with much of this growth in the Vietnamese community in Hampden County, which includes the cities of Springfield, West Springfield, Chicopee and Agawam.
