8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



eral Court approved June 24, 1811, containing twenty-four 

 towns lying on both sides of the Connecticut River, which 

 were subsequently increased to twenty-six by changes of 

 boundaries within the county limits. The first settlement in 

 the western part of this State was made in 1636, on the 

 fertile meadows of the beautiful Connecticut, and called 

 Springfield. 



This gradually grew, especially northward, up the rich 

 alluvion of the river, till in 1662 so much of a population 

 had gathered in this part of the State as to warrant the 

 organization of a county called Hampshire, from the English 

 home of the first settlers, with very indefinite limits east and 

 west, but north and south fixed soon after by the boundaries 

 of Vermont and Connecticut. 



Subsequently town lines were established, dividing it 

 from Worcester on the east, and setting off Berkshire on 

 the west. 



This county of Hampshire covered the largest and richest 

 extent of territory in the province of Massachusetts Bay, but 

 was not rapidly settled. Spiritual quarrels and doctrinal dis- 

 cussions among the people somewhat retarded their advance. 

 It was a long journey — with no road through the shaggy 

 wilderness — from the little communities by the seashore, 

 where they had then but scant possession ; and the settlers 

 here, as elsewhere, met the most determined resistance from 

 the original occupiers of the soil in their constantly advan- 

 cing encroachments. And why not? Was not this a country 

 to love and to fight for ? These warm meadows and sunny 

 slopes were favored places where to grow their corn, their 

 pumpkins, and their beans ; the rivers were filled with 

 salmon, shad, and other fish ; the woods and hills abounded 

 with every kind of game for food and for clothing ; and the 

 swamps and forests yielded grapes, berries, nuts, and all the 

 native productions of a temperate climate. 



This was their country, their home ; and for a hundred 

 years these red warriors defended it from invasion with a 

 fiery courage and a desperate devotion, which, in any other 

 people or nation, would have been called an inspired patriot- 

 ism, but which met with as little sympathy and considera- 

 tion from our Puritan fathers in the Province of Massachu- 

 setts Bay, in 1679, as is shown by their descendants two 



