Historical Collections, by John Warner Barber

338

SOUTH HADLEY.

This church became extinct. The church was re-organized in 1823, with 12 members.

This town is watered by several branches of Swift river, which is a principal branch of the Chicopee. The principal article of manufacture is palm-leaf hats, of which, in 1837, 50,000 were manufactured, valued at $10,000. Population, 788. Distance, 16 miles from Northampton, 8 from Amherst, and 76 from Boston.

SOUTH HADLEY.

THIS town was originally a parish in Hadley; it was incorporated as a town in 1753. "This town was settled as early as 1721 by a few families from Hadley. It was then called the South Precinct in Hadley. The first settlers for some time continued to attend public worship on the Sabbath in Hadley, a distance of about 7 or 8 miles. In 1733 the first town meeting as a separate district was held, and it was resolved that a meeting-house, the frame of which was put up the year before, should be in part finished. The building, however, was not completed until the close of the year 1737. The families were few in number and indigent in their circumstances, and the house was principally built by their personal labor; it was not large, containing only nine pews in the body of it. A gallery was subsequently added. There was no steeple or bell. The people were called together at the appointed hour of public worship by the "blowing of a conch shell." The house still remains, and is occupied as a dwelling-house, on the north side of the common. In consequence of the house being too small to accommodate the people, at the meeting of the town in March, 1750, a vote was passed to build a new house, 55 feet in lenth and 45 in breadth, to be placed as near the old one as might conveniently be done, and as near the center of the town as possible. The difficulty of locating the house was almost without a parallel. It was not till thirteen years afterwards that the question was settled, during which more than fifty meetings for the purpose of agreeing on the place were held. It was finally settled by lot. The lot fixed the place where the meeting-house of the first parish now stands. A part being dissatisfied, a council of ministers was called, consisting of the Rev. Dr. Williams of Longmeadow, Rev. Mr. Breck of Springfield, Rev. Mr. Ballantine of Westfield, and Rev. Mr. Lathrop of West Springfield, who decided that both parties were under moral obligation to abide by the lot. The first pastor of the church in South Hadley was Rev. Grindall Rawson, who was settled in 1733. A grant of land, called the "Proprietor's Land," was set off to this town on its first settlement, by the town of Hadley, for the use of the ministry, on the condition that the people should settle among them "a good orthodox minister." By a vote of the precinct, at their first meeting, this land was appropriated to Mr. Rawson. Rev. John Woodbridge, the successor of Mr. Raw