When Hampshire County was created in 1662, it included territory that is now in modern day Hampden County, Franklin County, and Berkshire County, as well as small parts of modern-day Worcester County. It originally included the entire western part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.
This essay will focus mostly on the towns of Hadley, Hatfield, and Northampton, where most of my Hampshire County ancestors lived. This map illustrates the location of these towns in Hampshire County. The Connecticut River winds between these towns, and explains why they are located where they are.
One thing that I have had to become accustomed to in doing this research is that in much of New England, the towns make up the entirety of every county. There is no county land that is not in a town. That’s not what I’m used to in Virginia, where towns are small enclaves surrounded by counties.
Evolution of County Boundaries
My ancestors in Hampshire County group into three families, which I’ll talk about in detail a little later on. However, here’s the surname breakout for those of you who want to know whether “your” names will be the focus of later discussion.
Family 1: Dickenson, Beardsley, Gull, Meekins
Family 2: Stebbins, Bartlett, Kingsley, Warriner
Family 3: Warner and Humphrey
All three of these families are on my father’s side of my family tree. Families 1 and 2 are on the Arnold side and come together in the person of my 4th great-grandfather Rev. Phillip Perry Brown (1790-1876), who was born in Vermont but lived most of his life in western New York state. Family 3 connects through my Ellefritz family line, and doesn’t link up to Families 1 and 2 until my grandfather John Cecil Arnold (1896-1957) married Orpha Lydia Ellefritz (1897-1986) in Hancock County, Illinois, in 1916.
A (Very) Little History
The three towns I’m interested in – Hadley, Hatfield, and Northampton – were all founded in the middle of the 17th century. I’m going to talk about them in the order in which they were founded, and then talk about King Philip’s War, which impacted all of New England along with these towns. But first, I want to show you this map, which provides interesting insights into the settlement of Massachusetts:
This map shows that western Massachusetts – the deep tan area toward the left side of this map – was settled just a decade or so after the eastern counties that made up the original Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies. The Connecticut River, which arises in northern New Hampshire and forms much of the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts before flowing into Long Island Sound, formed an avenue for commerce and migration during the early colonial period. Major cities in Connecticut – Wethersfield, Hartford, and New Haven – grew along this river, as did the most significant towns in Hampshire County – Northampton, Hadley, and Hatfield.
Northampton
Northampton was founded in 1654 by settlers who moved up the Connecticut River from Springfield, which had been founded 20 years earlier by English Puritan William Pynchon (who was also a founder of Northampton). It was the first town to be named Springfield in the United States (although not the last – there are currently 33 populated places named Springfield in 25 US states, and there are at least 36 Springfield townships. And let’s not forget The Simpsons’ fictional home of Springfield.).
Pynchon had originally settled in Roxbury, but he and other settlers there had heard good things about the Connecticut Valley. Migrants from Cambridge had already settled Hartford, those from Dorchester were in Windsor, and those from Watertown were in Wethersfield, so Pynchon knew he and his party would not be alone in the Connecticut Valley as he settled an area known as “Agawam,” which he renamed Springfield. Originally the settlers believed that they were under the jurisdiction of the Connecticut Colony, and only later was its attachment to Massachusetts affirmed.
William’s son John Pynchon was the leader of the plan to move 25 families 20 miles up the Connecticut River to an area named Nonotuck, which they renamed Northampton.
Hadley
Hadley was founded in 1659 by religious dissenters from Wethersfield, Connecticut. A group of families from Wethersfield followed their minister, John Russel, to establish a new settlement 50 miles up the Connecticut River and less than 10 miles north of Northampton. Three leaders of the party purchased the land, and 30 individuals are identified as “withdrawers” – men who withdrew their families from Wethersfield and relocated to Hadley. Among these men were two of my 10th great-grandfathers Nathaniel Dickinson and Andrew Warner, about whom I’ll write later. One of my other 10th great-grandfathers, Thomas Meekins, moved with this party but settled on land on the west side of the Connecticut River, closer to Northampton. Thomas moved directly to Hadley from Braintree in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and not from Connecticut like the other people in this group of settlers.
Hatfield
Hatfield was the last of the three towns to be established, in 1670. It was settled by families who had moved to Hadley (on the east side of the Connecticut River) but who had relocated to the west side of the river by 1661. These families included my Dickinson and Meekins families that I mentioned above. Nathaniel Dickinson was among the settlers who shared in the distribution of land in 1660.
From 1660 to 1670, Hatfield operated as a separate village but still part of the town of Hadley. The residents of Hatfield had expressed their desire to become a separate town as early as 1665 – citing the difficulties they experienced in having to cross the river to attend church or court. Their petition to separate from Hadley went into great detail about the travails of crossing the river – invoking floods and ice and wind that made the crossing dangerous. One phrase in the petition captures the mood of the petitioners: “At other times, the winds are high and waters rough, the current strong and the waves ready to swallow us – our vessels tossed up and down so that our women and children do screech, and are so affrighted that they are made unfit for ordinances [services].”
Inhabitants of the east side (Hadley) argued against the partition of inhabitants of the west side (Hatfield), saying “We have done our brethren and neighbors no wrong. We hold to the covenant made between us, which was done upon their desire.” In other words, when the Hatfield folks moved west of the river, they committed to staying in fellowship with the folks of Hadley on the east side of the river, and the people of Hadley saw no reason to allow them to violate their own commitment. The sentiment must have been something like, “Okay, y’all knew the river was there when you decided to move to the other side. Nothing has changed and we see no reason to let you break the promise you made.” However, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony heeding Hatfield’s request and agreed to allow Hatfield to become a separate town, which was incorporated in 1670 and provided its own church, minister, and court.
King Philip’s War (1675-1676)
These towns grew and prospered through the first years of their existence, but they were still on the frontier and the residents faced the constant threat of violence from the local Native American tribes that were supplanted by these migrants. After the Pequot War (1637-1638), the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven recognized that they need to form a military alliance to defend against both the Indians and the Dutch, whose presence in New Amsterdam threatened the English colonies. They formed the New England Confederation in 1643 in an attempt to unite in against their common enemies, but the confederation never achieved its aims.
A note here: the sources I have consulted in writing about this conflict have generally been written, compiled, and maintained by the descendants of the white settlers who described the natives as savages and who gave the name “massacre” to events the natives called self-defense. I know that there is another side to this story.
How had the situation become so tense by the 1670s? A little background information will help frame this issue. At the very beginning, in 1621, the Wampanoag chief Massasoit had negotiated a peaceful relationship with the settlers at Plymouth. He had been able to maintain a fragile peace with the English settlers at Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay until his death in 1661. His son, Metacom (the English called him King Philip), became the leader of the Wampanoag. His view of the English settlements was quite different from his father’s and he soon hatched a plan to attack English settlements. Although a “Christian Indian” named John Sassamon warned the English of the upcoming attack, the English ignored the warning. They then found Sassamon’s body in an icy pond, apparently killed by the Wampanoag because of his treachery. Three Wampanoag men were tried for his murder (by a jury made up of both colonists and Indians), found guilty, and hanged on June 8, 1675. King Philip was incensed by their execution, and the stage was set for war.
In the summer of 1675, King Philip and a group of Wampanoag and Algonquian warriors attacked first at Swansea (in Plymouth Colony) and then more broadly throughout Plymouth Colony. In response, the New England Confederation declared war against King Philip and his followers. During the winter of 1675-1676, the Narragansett joined with King Philip, and King Philip’s confederacy assaulted English colonies throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maine.
This map shows the extent of attacks during King Philip’s War
.All three of the towns I’m focusing on were caught up in this conflict, which killed several of my ancestors. I’ll talk about them later in this essay. Here’s the chronology of attacks that impacted Hatfield, Northampton, and Hadley.
October 19, 1675: Hatfield was attacked but the attack was repelled.
February 14, 1676: Northampton was attacked; a handful of settlers were killed and many houses were burned.
May19, 1676: a group of 150 colonists under the command of Captain William Turner of Boston carried out a surprise attack against Indian camps at Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts (north of Deerfield near the Indian village Peskeomscut on the map above). Among the colonists killed in this attack were 36 residents of Hatfield, Hadley, and Northampton. Turner’s Falls
May 30, 1676: Hatfield was attacked again, and this time seven English settlers were killed. This was in retaliation for the May 19 attack referenced above.
June 12, 1676: Hadley was attacked on, but the attack was repelled.
September 19, 1677: Even though King Philip had died on August 12, 1676, Hatfield was raided again, this time by a group of 50 Indians from Canada.
My Ancestors in Hampshire County
This family has its origins primarily in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in the 1630s. My 11th great-grandfather Nathaniel Dickinson (1601-1676) was an early settler of Wethersfield, where he was a member of the Board of Selectmen, Representative to the General Assembly, and church Deacon. Nathaniel had married Anne Gull (1610-1678) in England, and they had 15 children, including my 10th great-grandfather Nathaniel Dickinson (1643-1710), who was their ninth child. In 1659, Nathaniel 1601 and his family moved with a group to residents to found the town of Hadley, Massachusetts.
Nathaniel 1643 married Hannah Beardsley (1642-1678) in Stratford, CT, in 1662. Hannah’s father, William Beardsley (1605-1661), was identified with the town of Stratford in Fairfield County, but he also served as deputy to the General Court at Hartford from 1645-1659. He married Mary Harvey (1601-1655) in England before they moved with three of their children to New England in 1635. They went on to have 8 more children in Connecticut, including Hannah.
Here’s a little more information connecting Nathaniel Dickinson and the founding of Hadley. As I noted above, Hadley was first settled in 1659 and was officially incorporated in 1661. Its settlers were primarily a discontented group of families from the Puritan colonies of Hartford and Wethersfield, Connecticut, who petitioned to start a new colony up north after some controversy over doctrine in the local church. The first settler inside of Hadley was Nathaniel Dickinson 1601, who surveyed the streets of what are now Hadley, Hatfield, and Amherst.
Nathaniel 1601 died in Hadley in 1676. Three of his sons were killed in the Indian attacks associated with King Philip’s War in New England: John (1630-1675), Joseph (1675), and Azariah (1648-1675). Nathaniel 1643 and Hannah lived in Hadley and raised their nine children there. I am descended their third child, my 9th great-grandfather John Dickinson (1667-1761).
John was born in Hadley, and he married Sarah Meekins (1666-1707) there in 1688. Sarah was also descended from an early settler in Hartford County; her grandfather (and my 11th great-grandfather) Thomas Bunce (1612-1683) had come to the county in 1636, although he settled in the town of Hartford, not Wethersfield. Thomas married a woman named Sarah (I don’t know her last name) in Hartford in 1644, and they had five children, including my 10th great-grandmother Mary Bunce (1645-1682). Mary married Thomas Meekins (1643-1675) in Hartford in 1665, and lived in Hadley for the next ten years, before Thomas Meekins was also killed in an Indian attack in 1675. Sarah Meekins, their oldest child, was nine years old when her father died. The Meekins family does not appear to have ever lived in Connecticut; instead, they came directly from Boston to western Massachusetts.
This map shows the impact on this family of the 1677 raid on Hatfield; the Dickinson property is next to the red star. In this raid, my 11th great-uncle Obadiah Dickinson (1639-1698), who was 8th child of Nathaniel 1601, was captured and carried off to Canada along with one of his children. They soon returned to Hadley. Obadiah’s cousin Hannah was also carried off during this raid; she married Stephen Jennings (his house is also on this map, north of the Dickinson property near the Connecticut River) in May of 1677, after her first husband was killed in the Turner’s Falls Fight the previous year. Hannah bore her first child (whom she named “Captivity”) in March of 1678, and she and her child were soon returned to Hatfield.
Hannah’s story does not end there; in 1708, her son was wounded and her son-in-law was killed by Indians. And in 1710, her second husband, Steven Jennings, was killed by Indians.
So, just to recap: Nathaniel 1601 and his wife Anne lost three sons to the violence attendant to this war, and one of their other children was captured (along with one of their grandchildren) and taken to Canada.
The story of this family is quite different from the previous family. The earliest immigrant ancestor in this line was my 11th great-grandfather Rowland Stebbins (1590-1671), who came to Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1634, and relocated in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1639. He was a friend of William Pynchon (see above) and traveled with him to Springfield and again, 20 years later, to Northampton. He had married Sarah Whiting (1591-1649) in England, where they had four children before coming to Massachusetts, including my 10th great-grandfather John Stebbins (1626-1678), who was their third child.
John married Ann Munson in Springfield in 1646. They had three children before Ann’s death in 1656. In that year, John married Abigail Bartlett (1636-1710) and moved to Northampton. Abigail was the daughter of Robert Bartlett (1612-1676) and Ann Warriner (1616-1676). Robert was killed during the Northampton raid in 1676. As one account notes:
“Northampton was attacked, its defences broken through in three places, and five houses and five barns burned. A large number of soldiers being quartered there the assailants soon drew off, but not until they had killed Robert Bartlett and Thomas Holton, and two other men and two women.” http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~shopefamily/misc/Tree/famf494.html
Robert’s wife Ann died two months later; I have not been able to determine the cause of her death.
John and Abigail had 11 children in Northampton, including my 9th great-grandfather Samuel Stebbins (1658-1732). But before I go on to talk about Samuel, I want to talk about John a little more. John Stebbins is associated with a peculiar set of events in Springfield in 1656 and Northampton in 1674 – two witchcraft accusations against Mary Parsons. The story of the Mary Parson’s witchcraft case is too detailed to go into here, but her story connects with John and Abigail in an interesting way. The local suspicions about Mary Parsons did not go away after her acquittal on witchcraft charges in 1675. When John died (under what were described as “mysterious” circumstances – he was killed in an accident at his sawmill) in 1678, Samuel Bartlett (Abigail’s brother-in-law) began to gather evidence against Mary to bring yet another witchcraft charge against her. The court in Boston was apparently not convinced by Samuel’s charges, although the records of the case have disappeared. (More detail about this story can be found at http://larkturnthehearts.blogspot.com/2007/11/early-america-mary-bliss-parsons.html.)
Samuel Stebbins married Mary French (1657-1696) in Northampton in 1678. Mary’s grandparents were Thomas French (1584-1639) and Susanna Riddlesdale (1584-1658), who married in England and had several children there, including my 10th great-grandfather John French (1622-1697), before they came to Massachusetts in the 1630s. John married Freedom Kingsley (1636-1689) in Bristol, Massachusetts, where they had 11 children, including my 9th great-grandmother Mary French, who was their eighth child. John and Freedom came to Northampton sometime in the 1680s – possibly to join Freedom’s brother, Enos Kingsley, who had moved there with the first group of settlers in 1659.
Samuel was not the most upright citizen of Northampton. Mary sued him for divorce in 1691, alleging that he had fathered several children with other women in town, and had abandoned her several years earlier. He was accused of other crimes as well, including “selling strong drink contrary to law.” He apparently skipped town before his expected appearance in court and fled to Rhode Island, where he met and married Sarah Williams. I think I am descended from Samuel and Mary’s daughter Mercy Stebbins (1682-1753), who was born in Northampton but married in Springfield in 1703 and soon moved to Worcester County, Massachusetts. I say, “I think,” because the records of Mercy’s parentage are a little unclear. If Samuel and Mary are not actually her parents, then never mind
.This is a very small stub of a family, but I want to give it its due. My 10th great-grandfather Andrew Warner (1599-1684) married Mary Humphrey (1601-1672) in England, where they had five children before moving to Massachusetts in 1632. Andrew and Mary had three more children after moving to Massachusetts, including my 9th great-grandmother Hannah Warner (1632-1682), who was their sixth child.
After initially settling in Cambridge, they relocated to Hartford, Connecticut, with Reverend Thomas Hooker in 1636. After Mary died in 1672, Andrew remarried and moved to Hadley in 1659. He was one of the leaders of the group of dissidents in Hartford called the “Withdrawers” who organized the move to Hadley. It was at his house in 1660 that the migrants settled on the town structure, which was to create two plantations, one on each side of the river. Warner chose to move to the west side of the river, to establish the town of Hatfield. We saw what happened to that plan just a few years later.
In addition to his role as general rabble-rouser and founder of towns, Andrew was a maltster – someone who prepares barley for use in brewing. Lots of products are made
from malted grain – prominently among them, beer and whiskey. Andrew also ran a still that was used to distill cordials, sweet waters, and medicinal waters from herbs, flower, spices, and the like.
If Hadley was a happy town, it was at least in part due to Andrew.
Widowhood found me a little unexpectedly. So once I pulled myself together, I started travelling around New England, Ohio, and other places wondering where I should alight. I finally decided on Maryland, but I travelled to the Berkshires in MA, a bit farther west of where your family lived. I loved it. Great country. BTW, I found a name in your MA people that is shared with an old friend. I will write to him to see if you and he are related.