Discover Hampden: History, News, Travel, and Stories

Add History/News/Story

• 1741 - Hampden / South Wilbraham is settled
  
  Massachusetts City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates
  
• 1854 - South Wilbraham
  South Wilbbaham, a post-village of Hampden co., Massachusetts, has 2 churches.
  A New and Complete Gazetteer of the United States: Giving a Full and Comprehensive Review of the Present Condition, Industry, and Resources of the American Confederacy ... Thomas Baldwin (of Philadelphia.) Joseph Thomas January 1, 1854 Philadelphia : Lippincott, Grambo & Company 1854.
  
• 1878 - Hampden is incorporated
  
  Massachusetts City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates
  
• Hampden Massachusetts, 1890
  Hampden is a new and thriving agricultural and manufacturing town in the eastern section of Hampden County, bordering on Connecticut, and about 90 miles west by southwest of Boston. The Boston and Albany, the New London and Northern and the Connecticut River railroads pass through, the adjoining towns on the north, east and west. Wilbraham bounds it on the north, Monson on the east, Long-meadow on the west, and the town of Somers, in Connecticut, on the south.
  
  The territory is nearly square; having an assessed area of 11,751 acres. Of this, 5,472 acres are forests, consisting of chestnut, oak and birch, chiefly. The scenery is rather wild, but beautiful. Rattlesnake Hill rises grandly at the Connecticut line to a height of 1,077 feet; and a range of hills extends from this northerly and. medially through the town. Scantic Brook, rising in Wilbraham and Monson, flows through the central village westward through the town, furnishing power at several points on its course. The... Read MORE...
  
  
• 1895 - Hampden
  Hampden, formerly South Wil’braham, a post village of Hampden co, Mass., in a £ of the same name, 10 or 11 miles E.S.E. of Springfield. It has 3 churches and 3 woollen-factories.
  Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer Or Geographical Dictionary of the World Containing Notices of Over One Hundred and Twenty-five Thousand Places ... Joseph Thomas January 1, 1895 J.B. Lippincott
  
• 1916
  Hampden, formerly South Wilbraham, a post- village of Hampden co., Mass., in Hampden township (town), 10 miles ESE. of Springfield. Pop. of the town in 1900, 782.
  Lippincotts New Gazetteer: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer Or Geographical Dictionary of the World, Containing the Most Recent and Authentic Information Respecting the Countries, Cities, Towns, Resorts, Islands, Rivers, Mountains, Seas, Lakes, Etc., in Every Portion of the Globe, Part 1 Angelo Heilprin Louis Heilprin - January 1, 1916 J.B. Lippincott - Publisher
  
• 1938 - "Long Island Express" - HURRICANE, FLOODS SWEEP NEW ENGLAND. 296 WERE KILLED IN STORM ALONG ATLANTIC COAST; PROPERTY DAMAGE ENORMOUS.
  ...At Hampden, Mass., 200 inmates of the county jail rioted when water rose in the streets. Riot squads from Springfield subdued them...
  
  Dunkirk Evening Observer
  New York
  September 22, 1938
  
  The "Long Island Express" was first detected over the tropical Atlantic on September 13, although it may have formed a few days earlier. Moving generally west-northwestward, it passed to the north of Puerto Rico on the 18th and 19th, likely as a category 5 hurricane. It turned northward on September 20 and by the morning of the 21st it was 100 to 150 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. At that point, the hurricane accelerated to a forward motion of 60 to 70 mph, making landfall over Long Island and Connecticut that afternoon as a Category 3 hurricane. The storm became extratropical after landfall and dissipated over southeastern Canada on September 22.
  
  Blue Hill Observatory, Massachusetts measured sustained winds of 121 mph with gusts to 183 mph (likely influenced by terrain). ... Read MORE...
  
  
• 
  
•