Page 24 - BusinessWest Macrh 6, 2023
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HOLYOKE HISTORY TIMELINE >>
  1684
John Riley purchases 16 acres of land on what would become known as Ireland Parish.
1786
Ireland Parish is made a separate parish of West Springfield.
1832
The Hadley Falls Company, which will play a major role in Holyoke’s industrialization, is incorporated.
1842
The Connecticut River Railroad receives a charter to build a railroad line from Chicopee to Northampton by way of South Hadley Falls to meet the Hartford and Springfield Railroad.
1846
George Ewing of the Fairbanks & Company scalemakers of St. Johnsbury, Vt. receives the commission to acquire land and water rights at Ireland Parish for a group of Boston financiers.
1847
George Ewing purchases his first 37 acres of land in Ireland Parish. He will eventually purchase 1,100 acres, as well as a stone quarry at the foot of Mount Tom.
1847
The Hadley Falls Company, which had been incorporated in 1832 to build a cotton mill, releases its name for the new company that will develop at Ireland Parish.
1847
Water surveys of the river at South Hadley Falls show the flow to be the equivalent of 30,000 horsepower — the greatest potential for mill development in New England.
1847
The first stone is laid for the canals of the Hadley Falls Company at Ireland Parish.
Continued on page 26 >>
Going with the Flow
Holyoke’s History Is One of Adaptation, Evolution, and Water
BY JOSEPH BEDNAR
bednar@ BusinessWest.com
The city of Holyoke’s website details a series of telegrams sent by one James Mills on Nov. 6, 1848 to a group of industrialists in Boston who had invested in the first dam at South Hadley Falls and were eager to hear of its performance.
“The gates were closed and the water filling behind the dam,” Mills reported at 10 a.m. It would be his only happy missive.
Noon: “Dam leaking badly.”
1 p.m.: “Leaks cannot be stopped.”
2 p.m.: “Bulkheads are giving way.” 3:20 p.m.: “Dam gone to hell by way of
Willimansett.”
So, it wasn’t the most auspicious way to begin
Holyoke’s new direction as a planned industrial city that harnessed the power of the Connecticut River.
But the builders learned from their mistakes — and built a replacement dam. Like the first, it was also made of wood and completed the following summer. This dam still stands, 150 feet underwater, behind the current, modern stone dam that was put into service in 1900.
This bit of history is just one example of Holyoke not only overcoming challenges, but evolving with them along a winding, intriguing, still-evolving story.
The story actually begins much earlier, with the Indigenous tribes who settled there on the rich, allu- vial plain, including the Nonotucks, from whom early European settlers eventually purchased the land that would be incorporated into the future boundaries of Holyoke.
Captain Elizur Holyoke is believed to be the first European to explore the future city. In 1633, he led an expedition up the Connecticut River to explore the potential for settlement. Two years later, based upon
A river, a dam, and a series of canals powered Holyoke into industrial prominence.
  24 MARCH 6, 2023
<< HOLYOKE’S 150TH >>
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his report, European agriculture settlement began in the region. Initially concentrated in Springfield, set- tlers soon began to migrate to the surrounding areas that would later become West Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke. Holyoke was then known as Ireland Parish, a name that would remain in common use until 1850.
When Boston investors saw in the parish indus- trial potential similar to Lawrence and Lowell — and the energy potential of the river — they set out to cre- ate an industrial city on a large scale.
In 1847, taking advantage of the broad plain and the 57-foot drop in the Connecticut River at South Hadley Falls, work began on the planned industrial city. Canals, mills, boarding houses, offices, and a dam were all built by pick and shovel. And on March 4, 1850, Holyoke — with its working dam — was final- ly separated from West Springfield and designated its own town.
“There was some resistance from the farmers
who initially didn’t want to sell their land,” said Penni Martorell, Holyoke’s city historian and curator of Wis- tariahurst. “But eventually [the investors] won out. They just bought the land and then laid out the plan for the city. The flats area was definitely the working man’s area. The middle area around the canals was where the factories were built, and then the highlands were set aside for retail businesses and homes of the wealthier families.”
Strength in Paper
Before the planned-city idea got rolling, Holyoke was mainly an agricultural community with a sprin- kling of industry, including a lumber mill on the river.
“The investors had had success in Lawrence, in
  Did you know?
1908: The University of Notre Dame’s fight song, the Victory March, is first publicly played in the Second Congregational Church of Holyoke. Father Michael Shea, organist of New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, was home visiting his brother, John Shea, to compose the song, when he ran into his former music teacher and the church’s music director, Professor William Hammond, who suggested he try the new song on the church’s organ.
 History
Continued on page 26
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