Northampton, Massachusetts, USA (Florence)
1845 - NORTHAMPTON. [Pop. 3,750. Inc. 1654.]

Northampton, whose Indian name was Nonotuck, formerly included East, West, and Southampton, and is the county town as well as the largest in the county.

The chief village is about a mile from Connecticut River, on the banks of which are some of the richest meadows in New England.

The foot-prints of immense birds in the rocks of this town and the towns south of it are exceedingly curious, as no such birds are now known to exist.

The scenery is beautiful, and the public and private buildings ornamental.

The Farmington Canal connects New Haven, on Long Island Sound, with Northampton, on the Connecticut.

Mill River, which runs through the town, affords excellent sites for factories of woollen cloth, silk, paper, &c, before it joins the Connecticut-Northampton, though long in the wilderness, was not disturbed by the Indians until Philip's War, when a few houses were burned. In the subsequent French and Indian wars, the whole town was fortified with a trench and palisades.

During the Shays' Rebellion, the holding of courts of law in this town was entirely prevented by the rebels.

Northampton was the birth-place of Caleb Strong, one of the most popular governors of the State; and among its ministers, besides other distinguished men, was Jonathan Edwards, much celebrated for his theological and metaphysical writings.

Distance from Boston, 92 miles.

An Elementary Geography for Massachusetts Children by William Bentley Fowle and Asa Fitz, 1845
Get it HERE!

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