Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1S86. 565
in these forests, which then covered these plains, they hunted their game, and
in these rivers they caught their fish. Their agricultural industry was limited
to the gathering of such grains as grew spontaneously or M'ith little cultivation.
Their mechanic arts went no further than the manufacture of bows and arrows,
or the construction of their canoes and the rude stone vessels in which they
cooked or kept their food. Such relics of the Indian as these have been found
all through this valley within a few years past, and probably may still be
found by any who will search for them.
How changed is the valley now ! And how has this great change been
effected? By what agencies has this, that was once a wilderness, been con-
Terted into the abode of civilized man? Let us look back two hundred and
fifty years and discover, if we can, the causes and trace the progress of this
change from its beginning to the present time.
Two hundred and fifty years ago the Old World, weary of the burden of forms
that had been the growtli of centuries of ignorance and oppression, began to
reach forth toward a new and better state of things. The discoveries of voy-
agers had revealed to Europe this continent in the west as an open field for
its enterprise, and the Old "World began at once to seek a better home in the
New. Old systems of government began to be distrusted, and old forms of re-
ligion began to be discarded. The minds of men craved a change which should
give them better and more hopeful conditions of living. The New World opened
to the Old just such a field as it aspired to possess. As a consequence of this,
everywhere through England a spirit of emigration arose, and men who had
chafed under the oppressions of an arbitrary government, and desired greater
freedom of conscience in religion, and greater security in their persons and
property, determined to seek a new home west of the Atlantic.
With this object in view, several influential gentlemen in England sohcited
and obtained from King Charles I. a charter which created them a corpora-
tion by the name of the " Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in
New England." This charter granted all the lands in New England from a line
running westerly three miles north of the Merrimac river to a line runuing
westerly three miles south of the Charles river, and three miles south of every
part of it. The grant to extend from the Atlantic ocean to the South Sea.
The charter designated by name all the members of the corporation, and
prescribed that the officers of the Company should consist of a governor, a
deputy governor, and eighteen assistants, who should be elected annually from
the freemen of the Company. As it was the purpose of the Company to send
out a colony to settle in New England, the question early arose whether the
charter of the Company should be transferred with this colony to New England,