The history of Springfield, Massachusetts, (est. 1636,) has been
shaped in large part by favorable geography, which has enabled this mid-sized
city to contribute in an outsized capacity to various aspects of American
History and culture. Sitting atop bluffs at the confluence of four rivers, at
the nexus of trade routes to Boston, Albany, New York City, and Montreal, and
with some of the northeastern United States' most fertile soil, the settlement
was founded in 1636 by English Puritan William Pynchon as Agawam Plantation under the
administration of the
