File:A history of Hatfield, Massachusetts, in three parts - I. An account of the development of the social and industrial life of the town from its first settlement. II. The houses and homes of Hatfield, (14597740137).jpg

Identifier: historyofhatfiel00well_0 (find matches)
Title: A history of Hatfield, Massachusetts, in three parts : I. An account of the development of the social and industrial life of the town from its first settlement. II. The houses and homes of Hatfield, with personal reminiscences of the men and women who have lived there during the last one hundred years; brief historical accounts of the religious societies and of Smith Academy; statistical tables, etc. III. Genealogies of the families of the first settlers
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Wells, Daniel White, b. 1842 Wells, Reuben Field, b. 1880, joint author
Subjects:
Publisher: Springfield, Mass. : Pub. under the direction of F.C.H. Gibbons
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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their homes in Eng-land to escape the tyranny of the Stuart kings and thepersecution of ecclesiastical authorities and who protestedagainst the unrestrained license of the Restoration, therewas a love of the beautiful no less strong than a love of thegood. An American art was slow of development, butone does not have to look far to discover an aesthetic senseamong the early settlers. It found its chief expression inthe colonial architecture. While no houses remain inHatfield that date back to the seventeenth century, prob-ably there was no great difference between them and those 142 HISTORY OF HATFIELD. erected a little later. Some of the colonial houses have asimple and dignified beauty of line lacking in many morepretentious structures of a later period and not a few wereadorned with hand carved portals and interior moldingsof great beauty of design and workmanship. The curvesof the Hatfield streets, whose original layouts have beenpreserved, show that those who surveyed them had an
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The Curve of the Hatfield Street. eye to the artistic possibilities. The picturesque Indiannames are preserved in the designations of localities, andnames chosen by the settlers, like Bashan, indicate anappreciation of the natural beauties of the surroundings.The noble trees which have always been an attraction ofthe Connecticut valley were allowed to grow unmolested.There is a record that an oak tree standing near the CowBridge was to be preserved for shade and a heavy penaltywas ordained for any one who should fell it or even lop itsbranches. The busy housewives found time amid their householdduties to tend and care for some of the flowers they hadloved in their English homes and many unfamiliar onesthat blossomed in profusion in the new land. Josselyn HISTORY OF HATFIELD. 143 in his account of his travels, published in 1672, mentionedthe gardens in the dooryards of the colonists. He says:Fever-few prospereth exceedingly; white sattin growethpretty well, and so doth lavender cotton;

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