Town of Hatfield
Hatfield was founded in 1660 on land granted to General Daniel Dennison and Governor William Bradford. It was formally incorporated as a town in 1670 and has a Board of Selectmen and annual town meeting.
As a center for agriculture the region produced cattle, sheep, corn, and tobacco. At first their relations with the local Indians were very welcoming on both sides. On October 16, 1675 a substantial part of the town was destroyed in King Philip's War, and surviving settlers sought refuge in Springfield.
During the American Revolution, Hatfield was an important source of supplies and men for the rebels. In 1786 the town was used as an assembly area for the discontented who became involved in Shays' Rebellion.
One family supplied many of Hatfield's physicians for generations. The Hastings family, descendants of English Puritan immigrant Thomas Hastings, was originally settled at Watertown, but within a generation members of the family had relocated to Hatfield, where they produced a succession of Hatfield physicians, including Dr. Thomas Hastings (1652–1712); Dr. Thomas Hastings (1679–1728); Dr. Waitstill Hastings (1714–1748); and Dr. John Hastings (1765–1845).[1] The first Thomas Hastings, aside from serving as physician to Hatfield and surrounding communities, was also the town's first schoolteacher.[2] He authored a contemporary account of the devastating Indian attack on nearby Deerfield in 1704.
Hatfield was also the birthplace and hometown of Sophia Smith, the founder of both Smith Academy (the Hatfield Public High School), and Smith College, the famous women's college.
Hatfield is located on the west bank of the Connecticut River at the mouth of the Mill River, 25 miles north of Springfield and about 100 miles west of Boston. It is bordered to the west by Horse Mountain (a typical New England granite glacial remnant), to the north by the Town of Whately, Massachusetts and to the south by a bend in the Connecticut River, and Northampton, Massachusetts.
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