Brimfield Timeline - Plantation Period (1620

Plantation Period (1620 - 1675)

Settlement Patterns

The impact on the native American population of settlement by the Europeans in the Connecticut River Valley region was significant during the Plantation Period. it was however, less immediate for the Quabaugs than for other native American groups, as the thrust of European settlement followed the river valley until the early 18th century rather than moving east to Brimfield. The European impact on native American groups as a whole took economic, and physical forms. Within ten years of the beginning of the Plantation Period, native Americans had entered into the European economythrough the fur trade, and this meant that as they bought and traded for European goods they depended less on their own subsistence traditions. When the fur trade declined they had fewer resources to remain part of the European economy. A second direct impact was that disease organisms carried by the settles spread to the native Americans and caused their population to decline. While this is generally known to have occurred, the scale of disease related deaths is not well understood for the Connecticut River Valley.

During this period native American groups also shrank in size as they dispersed to avoid warfare with, or were killed by, other native American groups. in fact, many of the local native American groups at first welcomed the settlers as a source of protection against the attacks of groups from outside the territory.

The Quaboags remained in the Brimfield, Sturbridge, Wales, Brookfields, Warren area during the Plantation period, and there is evidence that numbers of them continued to locate in Brimfield north of Sherman Pond at a fortified village known during this period as "Ashquoach" and later known as Indian Hill centering on Marsh Hill Road. The Quabaugs were relatively independent of the Europeans during this time and had perhaps less direct contact with the settlers than others among the Nipmucks who were directly in the settlers' path as they spread out from their base in Springfield in the 1630s and 1640sw, and moved north and south along the Connecticut River from the 1650s through the 1670s.

Among the Europeans, there were four land transactions which could have led to settlement in brimfield, but only one actually did, and it lasted for just two years. The first of these transactions was in 1644 when Governor Winthrop was granted 10,240 acres of land with mineral rights to an area which included Brimfield. Title to the land remained with the Winthrops until the 1720s which meant that it remained unsettled until the town fixed its boundaries with Winthrop's heirs.

The next documented land transaction in the town took place in 1655 when ewv. John Eliot, known as the "Apostle to the Indians", bought a thousand acres in the northeast corner of town from two native Americans. His plans for settlement are not known, but Eliot died in 1690 before any settlement of the acreage took place. His grandson John in 1715 divided it up for sale and settlement.

Two years later in 1657 two hundred acres of land at the Chicopee River was granted by the General Court to Richard Fellows to build a tavern. While the tavern was built, it was only in use for about two years until trouble with the Indians caused Fellows to abandon it. Finally, in 1668 three hundred acres of land, partially in Brimfield, was granted by the General Court to Captain John pierce, a London sea captain, who was rewarded for having successfully transported a shipment of lumber for ships masts to the King as a present from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1670 Pierce sold the farm to Peter Tufts who lived in Charleston. As was the case with the Winthrops, the land was passed down to succeeding generations of Tufts but never was occupied by them, nor sold to others. One of the family members later founded Tufts College.