Hadley

Geographic position

42.3417° N, 72.5889° W

Sources

http://www.hadleyma.org/Pages/index. Hart, Siobhan M., Elizabeth S. Chilton, and Christopher Donta. “Before Hadley: Archaeology and Native History, 10,000 BC to 1700 AD.” Cultivating a Past: Essays on the History of Hadley, Massachusetts. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009. 43-67. Web. Judd, Sylvester. History of Hadley, Including the Early History of Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby, Massachusetts. Northampton, MA: Metcalf and Company, 1863. Web. Nash, Alice. “Quanquan’s Mortgage of 1663.” Cultivating a Past: Essays on the History of Hadley, Massachusetts. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009. 25-42. Web.

General note

Hadley is a town located in Hampshire County, Massachussetts, on the Connecticut River. In the 1600s, the area that would become Hadley was the home of the Nolwotogg Indians (also known as the Nonotuck, Norrotuck, and Norwottuck Indians). In 1658 John Pynchon, on behalf the colonists of Hadley, purchased land from the Nolwotogg Indians for “220 fathoms of wampum, a large coat worth 8 fathoms of wampum…, and other gifts” (Nash 32). Reverend John Russell (considered the founder of Hadley) led Presbyterians dissenting from the Puritan faith in Connecticut to Massachusetts and settled Hadley in 1659. The town was incorporated in 1661. Native people participated in the seventeenth-century Springfield fur trade, leading to a more market-based Native economy. Hadley was one of the last Indian targets during King Philip’s War, but the attack was thwarted. Land in Hadley often changed hands among colonists due to the increase in land speculation in the eighteenth century. In 1764, Wheelock writes to George Whitfield suggesting that Mr. Titus of Hadley would be a valuable contributing instructor to the Native American education mission.