In this episode of Stan Svec’s commemoration of the 350th Anniversary of King Philip’s War, he investigates the dark days of October, 1675 when Springfield, the greatest English settlement on the Connecticut River, was attacked and burned. Click here to join him as he explores the attack and burning of the central community of the River Colony and the subsequent Battle of Hatfield, where the forces of Metacom were checked for a time, during this October of War in Southern New England!

Svec (above, left), of Fishing Historic Places, describes the growth of Springfield, MA from its beginning as a trading post established by William Pynchon, centered around the fair treatment of the surrounding tribes, into today’s downtown commercial center. There he established a church (above, center) around which the community of today was built.

For two generations the tribes and the settlers got along well, but familiarity had bred contempt between the peoples, and when Metacom’s rising spread to the Nipmuc lands and then to the Northern Pioneer Valley, the “Pynchon Experiment” was be sorely tested.

Svec described the attack on October 5, 1675 in which Thomas Miller and Thomas Cooper were ambushed and shot as they attempted to approach the Native settlement at Agawam. The wounded Cooper rode his horse to Springfield where he warned of an impending attack. About thirty dwelling houses were burned down, and some twenty-five barns, with the hay and grain which had been laid up for the Winter’s stores, as the War continued.