NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
It is recorded of the first settlers of Northampton, that in the tenth year of their establishment in the wilderness, in 1663, they paid for the support of a clergyman one hundred and twenty pounds sterling. According to the change in the value of money, and the circumstances of the persons who formed the congregation, this sum was equal to at least six times the amount of the present valuation. In this one fact is to be found a leaven which has pervaded the town ever since, preserving for its inhabitants the rigid morality, the religious feeling, and almost the stern manners of the Puritan pilgrims.
The inflexible justice practised among such men had its effect on the Indians among whom they settled; and Northampton, in consequence, was one of the last towns affected by the general hostilities of Philip’s war.
In their first purchases, they secured no less their own rights than the rights of the natives; and the latter were always considered as having a right to dwell and hunt in the lands they had sold. In the year 1664, they requested leave of the settlers to build themselves a fort within the town; and leave was granted on the following conditions:—
“That the Indians do not work, game, or carry burdens within the town on the Sabbath; nor powow here, or anywhere else;
“Nor get liquor, nor cider, nor get drunk;
“Nor admit Indians from without the town;