EARLY HISTORY

of

SIXTEEN ACRES

Springfield, Massachusetts

Issued by SIXTEEN ACRES GARDEN CLUB

EARLY HISTORY of SIXTEEN ACRES

On the easterly outskirts of Springfield is a section known since 1652 as Sixteen Acres. The circumstance is unique, for there is no other community in America where such an appellative has persisted. Adjoining territory was designated by other unusual place-names, names reminiscent of the Elizabethan era. Northward was Peggy's Dipping Hole; to the east was World's End. At the south was Necessity, with The Plumtrees westward. In the center was Bask Pond, a sand-bottom pool still used exclusively for bathing. Springfield people were literal folk and their place-names had meaning. Another bathing pool, whose bubbling waters were impregnated with sulphide of iron, was with real reason called Stinking Hole Bask. In 1802 the main highway through the Sixteen Acres hamlet was called "the road to Dartmouth College," the Indian School at Hanover, New Hampshire.

Whence came the name of Sixteen Acres?

East of the arable meadows by the Connecticut River and extending ten miles to the Wilbraham Mountains, the ground was so sterile as to be of little value. In 1758 Sir Jeffrey Amherst attested to its worthlessness, and in 1789 Washington called it "eight miles of almost uninhabited pine plain much mixed with sand." On the 1795 map it is designated as "pine barrens interspersed with unimprovable swamps." This condition was due to the Indian custom of burning over the land each year and so continuous were such fires that eventually even the humus and organic matter of the soil were consumed, exposing the glacial sand. The natives spared only ground too damp for fire to run over.

Flowing into the Connecticut River from the east were several small streams such as Mill River and Pecousic Brook; where numberless beaver dams produced ponds and swamps that protected those valleys from fire. When such dams were destroyed by the settlers, the waters flowed out, leaving the silted-up pond floors that provided those much desired "beaver meadows," highly fertilized and ready for the plow. After all of the alluvial meadows contiguous to the town had been allocated to the earlier settlers, later arrivals eagerly sought those outlying valley fields. Hence, Rowland Thomas petitioned for such an allotment and in January, 1652, he was granted "six acres of meadow lying remote from the town, upon the Mill River, in a parcel of meadow judged to be sixteen or seventeen acres." There was also granted "to Francis Pepper, four acres of meadow adjoining Rowland's; also to Thomas and John Stebbins, each of them three acres." Here, then, were sixteen acres at the exact spot where the name as been perpetuated.

There is nothing in the phrasing of that order to indicate that this grant differed from any other. However, when, later in that same month, there was granted to twenty-two individuals, forty-seven acres "on the Mill River, going up to the sixteen acres," the inclusion of the definite article is rather provocative. Suspicion is further whetted by a conveyance of 1653 whereby the Indians sold land for the site of Northampton. As partial consideration, the purchasers agreed to "cause to be plowed up for the Indians, sixteen acres of land on the east side of the Connecticut River," for the exclusive use of the natives. But why sixteen acres? Why not fifteen? Or twenty? It suggests the possibility that sixteen acres represented a unit of land measure in common use at that time and that it was just as distinctive and familiar as were the now obsolete rood or pole or perch.

In the nineteenth century that great expanse in the western United States, known as the Public Lands, was organized into townships that became grouped into territories and eventually into states of the Union. Those townships comprised thirty-six sections, each of which contained six hundred and forty acres. As a section was a mile square and a quarter-section contained one hundred and sixty acres, sixteen acres equalled one-tenth of a quarter section or one-fortieth of a square mile.

In 1656 Rowland Thomas received an additional grant of "meadow on Mill River above the falls which are above the sixteen acres." In 1667 John Clark was appointed overseer "for the way to the sixteen acres." In 1680 liberty was granted for a sawmill "at the falls at sixteen acres." In 1700 land was granted on "Sixteen Acre plain, on the south side of the path that goeth to Sixteen Acres." It is apparent that by the end of the century Sixteen Acres had definitely become a place-name.

The Sixteen Acre plot allocated to Rowland Thomas and his associates was in the valley of the South Branch of the Mill River directly west of the present Parker Street. The adjacent millpond is an artificial body created by a dam, but in its natural state, there was and still is, west of the street, a fall that quite early was utilized for supplying power for a sawmill and up to quite recent years it continued in use for one enterprise after another, such as a gin distillery and lastly a gristmill.

As one drives about the community time rolls back for many generations. Going northward on Parker Street, on the right is Hillcrest Park Cemetery, with which is incorporated Maplewood Cemetery first used in 1816. The projectors of the modern cemetery found it more feasible to secure a permit to enlarge an existing cemetery than to acquire permission for a wholly new and independent affair.

Continuing north, Parker Street crosses the North Branch of Mill River, where, east of the road and north of the stream, was the home of Zenas Parker, for whom the road was named.

At the intersection of the next road is a marker giving the name of Fern Bank Road to the thoroughfare, as part of an ill-advised attempt to modernize the district. For generations, the way was known as Dipping Hole Road, commemorating an episode of an earlier century, and the alteration is regrettable. After crossing the Wilbraham town line, Peggy's Dipping Hole is encountered. Quite recently this came to be used as a dumping place for rubbish, but when the condition came to the notice of the town fathers, it was promptly corrected. At the end of the road, where it enters Stony Hill Road, is another example of the good judgment of the Wil-braham authorities, for the street marker reads, "Dipping Hole Road."

At first thought, the name of Stony Hill Road would seem to be a misnomer, for neither stones nor hills are apparent. Actually, it was so named because it led to the Stony Hill district of Ludlow.

Circling around World's End and back into Sixteen Acres the Tinkham Road is on the left, with the home of David Tinkham still standing on the easterly side of the road bearing his name.

Southerly from the center, Parker Street crosses Mill River South Branch on a bridge west of the Mill Pond Dam, but in colonial days, the crossing was at the head of Rowland Thomas' meadow, and below the natural fall in the stream. There, as early as 1667, was Warriner's Bridge.

South of the center is Bask Pond, a reminder that in the days of Queen Elizabeth and of Shakespeare, people basked both in the sun and in the water. When the ice went out in the Spring, the neighbors gathered there for the annual spring cleaning of the person; hence, the name.

Continuing on, the road rises to the highest altitude within the city limits. Necessity, the settlers called it, but today it is Markham's Hill, a poor substitute for a name with which George Washington honored a fort in the Old French War.

The Plumtree Road runs westerly from the center. Each spring the damp, low grounds south of the road were bright with the plum blossoms. The wild plum was! no rarity in the vicinity. Where the road crosses the South Branch, just before the stream enters Watershop Pond, more than a century ago there was a dam creating a pond for power purposes, the long narrow pond extending easterly toward the Sixteen Acre center.

North of Plumtree Road was Venturer's Pond, probably the scene of some speculative "adventure," the details of which were long since lost.

In the 1870 period, when "McKnightville," the Armory Hill section of Springfield, was being developed, especially the Lake Como section north of Winchester Square, the farmers of Sixteen Acres had a dream. In 1871 the Springfield Republican said:

"Sixteen Acres is chiefly a farming community and is six miles east of City Hall and two miles south of Indian Orchard station on the railroad. There are perhaps not more than a dozen houses clustered together with a grist mill, blacksmith shop, ward building for voters and a school house near by. Two freestone quarries are in the vicinity. The people expect our horse railroad will be extended there and then when the vicinity of Lake Como becomes too thickly settled, their land will be wanted for city lots and suburban villas."

But the street cars were never thus "extended" and it was another half-century before the automobile brought a realization of the dream.

November 1964