[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 75 (Friday, May 27, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E966-E968]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     375TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, 
                             MASSACHUSETTS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. RICHARD E. NEAL

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 2011

  Mr. NEAL. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to enter into the Congressional 
Record an article that appeared in The Reminder newspaper last week 
commemorating the 375 anniversary of the founding of the City of 
Springfield, Massachusetts.
  This was truly a joyous occasion, and this article does an excellent 
job of recording what a wonderful event this was. Congratulations 
Springfield!

                   [From The Reminder, May 18, 2011]

            City Celebrates 375 Years of History, Innovation

                         (By G. Michael Dobbs)

       Sringfield.--For Congressman Richard Neal, Saturday's 
     events to acknowledge the 375th anniversary of the founding 
     of Springfield had a d j vu quality.
       Speaking on the steps of City Hall, Neal recalled that he 
     stood on the small spot 25 years ago as Springfield's mayor 
     during the 350th celebrations.
       Neal was part of the thousands of people who attended the 
     day's activities, from the annual pancake breakfast, to the 
     kick-off event at City Hall with the chorus comprised of 
     Springfield school children to the parade that went through 
     downtown to the fireworks that ended the day at Blunt Park.
       Neal, whose fondness for history is well known, noted, 
     ``The city has given great moments to the country and to the 
     world.''
       He read a letter of congratulations from President Barack 
     Obama that said in part, ``You've written your own chapter in 
     the narrative of the United States.''
       Mayor Domenic Sarno told the crowd, ``You know, we are a 
     good city.''
       He then said, ``We need each and every one of you to be 
     ambassadors for the city of Springfield.'' The children's 
     chorus clearly moved the audience with its rendition of ``The 
     Springfield Song,'' written by Springfield School music 
     teacher Diane Rodriguez.
       Even after the ceremony at City Hall concluded, the pancake 
     breakfast was still being served to hundreds of people.
       Sarno and his family led the parade, which started at the 
     Springfield Technical Community College campus and went down 
     State Street to Main Street and concluded at Mill Street in 
     the South End neighborhood. Organizations, businesses and 
     representatives all marched in the parade, which was a little 
     more than an hour in length.
       Although the weather didn't give the giant Cat in the Hat 
     baloon any difficulty, the new

[[Page E967]]

     traffic lights along the route had the balloon skimming the 
     street.
       For many people, ``Springfield'' is the name of the 
     Simpson's hometown in the popular animated series.
       For those who know a little about the history of this 
     country, ``Springfield'' has a different meaning.
       Springfield, Mass., the oldest and the largest city with 
     that name, is known as the ``City of Firsts'' for a reason--
     actually many reasons. Springfield is where basketball was 
     invented. It's where the Duryea Brothers built and tested the 
     first American gasoline powered car. It's the community where 
     the first and perhaps most beloved American motocycle--they 
     spelled it without the ``r''--the Indian was developed and 
     manufactured.
       It is the city where the first American armory was built 
     and where the Springfield Rifle was made.
       And it was the insurrection by Revolutionary War veterans 
     led by Daniel Shays on that armory that led to the creation 
     of the United States Constitution.
       Clarence Birdseye chose Springfield as his test market in 
     the 1930s for something truly radical: frozen vegetables.
       A group of brothers, the Granvilles, literally off of the 
     farm picked Springfield to be their headquarters in the 1920s 
     and '30s where they would design and build the GeeBee racing 
     planes that still awe aviation enthusiasts.
       The city was the home of Milton Bradley, who revolutionized 
     the toy industry with board games. The city's streets, 
     schools and parks gave hometown boy Theodor Gelsel, better 
     known as Dr. Seuss inspiration for later books and 
     illustrations.
       All of these accomplishments happened at a place where an 
     English businessman named William Pynchon, the founder of 
     Springfield, sensed potential in the mid-1600s.
       According to historian Ernest Newton Bagg, Pynchon, who was 
     a patentee and magistrate to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
     was attracted to the Connecticut River Valley as a place rich 
     with fur animals, especially beaver.
       After a long voyage from England in 1630, Pynchon began 
     trading goods he had brought from England with native people 
     for furs. What attracted him to Western Massachusetts was the 
     possible encroachment of Dutch traders who had established a 
     trading post along the Connecticut River in what is now 
     Hartford, Conn.
       Some of the Dutch traders even came to Springfield, but 
     disease and hunger compelled them back to the relative safety 
     of the Hartford establishment.
       Pynchon wanted to succeed where the Dutch had failed and 
     began planning an effort to build a settlement in what is now 
     Springfield in 1635. Using a ``shallop,'' a light single-mast 
     vessel, Pynchon and his expedition sailed up the Connecticut 
     River. He made a camp in what is now West Springfield and his 
     men used the boat's lumber for their new home.
       The native people seemed friendly and Pynchon was impressed 
     with the virgin forests with large and small game, a river 
     teeming with shad and salmon and lands ready for agriculture.
       Pynchon left his men and returned to the settlement of 
     Roxbury by foot. When he returned the next spring, he was 
     told the relationship between the natives and Pynchon's men 
     had deteriorated and Pynchon was forced to move his operation 
     to the eastern side of the river.
       Despite the problems, caused in part by the damage to the 
     natives' cornfields by the settlers' free-range hogs, Pynchon 
     was able to come to an agreement on July 15, 1636, to acquire 
     the desired Agawam land. Further negotiations gave him the 
     control of an area from the Chicopee River to the Mill River.
       Trouble with crops, a narrowly averted war with the native 
     people and even an earthquake were some of the challenges 
     early settlers faced. Pynchon was right, though, about the 
     richness of the area for furs.
       Bagg noted in his 1936 history of Springfield that although 
     there was no record of just how well Pynchon fared during his 
     15 years of trading furs in the area, his son John continued 
     the business after his father returned to England and 
     regularly shipped 2,000 beaver skins annually to merchants in 
     his native country.
       Pynchon has the additional distinction of being the author 
     of the first book ``banned in Boston.'' His 1650 book, ``The 
     Meritorious Price of a Man's Redemption,'' took exception to 
     Puritan theology. The colony's General Court condemned the 
     book and copies were burned on Boston Common.
       Pynchon was under great pressure to recant and after one 
     appearance before the Court, he decided to transfer all of 
     his holdings to his son John and return to England before he 
     was forced to appear before the General Court once more. He 
     left the colony in 1652. His death at age 72 in 1662 closed 
     the first chapter in the city's history.
       Pynchon's legacy was that his purchase of land just didn't 
     create one community, Springfield, but the following towns 
     and cities as well: Agawam, Chicopee, East Longmeadow, 
     Hampden, Holyoke, Longmeadow, Ludlow, Southwick, Westfield, 
     West Springfield, Wilbraham and Enfield, and Suffield, Conn.
       No less a person than General George Washington had a hand 
     in the next major development of the community. In February 
     1777, Washington authorized an ``establishment of the 
     laboratory at Springfield.''
       The armory became known as a center for technological 
     innovation in manufacturing and undoubtedly led to 
     Springfield becoming a center for skilled manufacturing.
       Another famous gun maker, Smith & Wesson, made the city its 
     home and is still in business today.
       Early in its history, the Armory attracted the attention of 
     a group of farmers enraged at the taxation tactics of the 
     Massachusetts state government. In February 1787 as part of a 
     series of armed protests, Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War 
     veteran and farmer from Pelham, led a group of men to capture 
     the armory. Although Shays failed at the armory, his protest 
     succeeded in showing the weakness of the Articles of 
     Confederation and in May 1787 the Constitutional Convention 
     was convened to re-shape federal government.
       Thomas Jefferson expressed his reaction to Shay's Rebellion 
     previous to the attack on the Armory in a letter to James 
     Madison on Jan. 30, 1787. Jefferson wrote, ``I hold it that a 
     little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as 
     necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. 
     Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the 
     encroachments on the rights of the people, which have 
     produced them. An observation of this truth should render 
     honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of 
     rebellions as not to discourage them too much. It is a 
     medicine necessary for the sound health of government.''
       The armory inspired another kind of reaction from American 
     poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow and his second 
     wife Frances visited Springfield and the Armory in 1845. The 
     tour inspired what was considered to be Longfellow's most 
     effective anti-war poem, ``The Arsenal at Springfield.''
       The first two stanzas are:

     ``This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
     Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
     But from their silent pipes no anthem, pealing
     Startles the villages with strange alarms.

     ``Ah! What a sound will rise, how wild and drear,
     When the death-angel touches those swift keys!
     What a loud lament and dismal Miserere
     Will mingle with their awful symphonies!''

       In the book ``Springfield Memories,'' published in 1876, 
     Mason Green wrote about the development of the city: ``Modern 
     Springfield was born with the peace of the War of 1812. In 
     the re-action from embargoes and war from 1814 to 1825 there 
     was a general housecleaning and business re-adjustment. The 
     old tavern site was cleared off for a Common, a church and 
     court-house was built by the side of it and another church 
     (Unitarian) down Main Street, Union and Court Streets were 
     opened, the river bridge, that was swept away by a flood was 
     restored (1818), a line of boats was established between the 
     village and Hartford, connecting with Boston and New York 
     schooners, neighboring water powers were utilized, many 
     mechanics and artisans were called in, who became residents, 
     and the Weekly Springfield Republican was started, which 
     insured the place a future.''
       In 1936 when the city was celebrating its 300th 
     anniversary, the unaccredited author of one of the 
     commemorative booklets wrote, ``Varied are the products of 
     Greater Springfield: Intricate machines, radios and 
     electrical appliances, tires, motorcycles, garments, arms, 
     games and school materials, books and magazines, newspapers, 
     wire, chains, machine tools, cigars, chemicals and medicines, 
     valves, oil pumps, fine paper, jute boxes, clocks and leather 
     goods. Here once were the pioneers in the manufacture of 
     automobiles. Across the river are the railroad shops.''
       The first American-made gasoline powered car was built and 
     tested in Springfield by Charles and Frank Duryea on Sept. 
     20, 1893. The city would later be the site for a factory 
     producing Duryea cars. The Knox Automobile Company produced 
     cars from 1900 to 1914 in Springfield and stayed in business 
     with tractors until 1924. And the city was picked by Rolls 
     Royce as the site for its only American automobile 28 
     manufacturing plant. The Springfield Rolls Royce facility 
     opened in 1920 and closed in 1931 and the cars made there 
     are sought after by collectors.
       Also still highly prized are the Indian Motocycles made in 
     the city from 1901 to 1954. The brainchild of engineer Oscar 
     Hedstrom, the ``motocycles'' were the first ones made in this 
     country and were well-known for their power and durability.
       Brought to the city by bicycle racer George Hendee, 
     Hedstrom developed a motorcycle that he tested publicly on 
     May 25, 1901 on Cross Street hill. Newspaper reporter R.D. 
     Pepin wrote about the test on its 25th anniversary.
       ``Hedstrom bravely climbed the old hill and forcefully 
     demonstrated to the residents of Springfield the first step 
     towards an industry destined to fill a long place in the 
     field of industry, utility and sport.''
       Pepin noted that Hendee had featured motor-drive bicycles 
     made in Europe at his bicycle-racing track. ``The uncertainty 
     of these motors was a source of great anxiety to the 
     management and of dissatisfaction to the patrons of the 
     track,'' Pepin wrote.
       With Springfield a growing center of transportation 
     technology, it's little wonder that a group of brothers came 
     off of the family farm to Springfield to pursue their dream 
     of developing faster and more powerful airplanes. Although 
     the Granville brothers were

[[Page E968]]

     in business for only five years from 1929 to 1934 and built 
     just 24 aircraft, their revolutionary designs created a 
     legend among aviators.
       Springfield was also a city of ideas as well as industry 
     and technology. Abolitionist John Brown made the city his 
     headquarters in 1846 when he established a business to 
     represent wool producers to the New England mill owners. 
     Later, the city was a stop on the Underground Railroad.
       G & C Merriam, Company, was founded In 1831 as printers and 
     booksellers and the pair of brothers--George and Charles--
     purchased the rights to the name and all copyrights to the 
     best-seller dictionary written by Noah Webster in 1843. Since 
     that time, the nation's best-known reference book has been 
     written and published in Springfield.
       When stumped about how to excite his winter physical 
     fitness class, a young Canadian attending the International 
     Y.M.C.A. Training School remembered Duck on a Rock, a game 
     from his youth. Taking a soccer ball and a peach basket, 
     James Naismith developed the game of basketball in 1891, 
     quite possible the most popular indoor sport.
       The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame draws more 
     than 250,000 visitors a year to its Springfield shrine to the 
     game.
       A number of people prominent in show business and the arts 
     are natives of the city. During the 1920s and 30s, Broadway 
     and radio star Julia Sanderson was a popular performer.
       The classic movie musicals ``Born to Dance'' and ``Broadway 
     Melody of 1940'' feature another Springfield native Eleanor 
     Powell. The beautiful and athletic dancer was a star at MGM. 
     She was married to actor Glenn Ford for a number of years and 
     by the end of her life she turned her energies to religion.
       Lawrence O'Brien, Kennedy family supporter, postmaster 
     general, head of the Democratic Party and commissioner of the 
     National Basketball Association, was another well known 
     Springfield resident. His father had a tavern where the 
     MassMutual Center now stands and he received his law degree 
     from Western New England College.
       Perhaps the most interesting favorite daughter is June 
     Foray, whose family left their home on Orange Street and 
     traveled to California where she eventually became one of the 
     most highly regarded voice actresses in animation providing 
     the voice for Rocky in ``Rocky and Bullwinkle,'' Granny in 
     the Tweety cartoons and many other characters.
       Students at the former Classical High School could still 
     find evidence of that school's most controversial graduate, 
     Dr. Timothy Leary. His name could be seen carved into at 
     least one desk. Leary was one of the prominent leaders of the 
     counter culture in the 1960s who urged people to ``turn on, 
     tune in and drop out.''
       Springfield's most beloved native was Theodore Geisel 
     better known to generations of American as Dr. Seuss. The 
     author and illustrator took inspiration from the city of his 
     birth from the names of streets--``And to Think that I Saw it 
     on Mulberry Street''--to his father's position as 
     superintendent of the city's parks--``If I Ran the Zoo.''
       The Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden at the 
     Springfield Museum complex pays tribute to the innovative 
     storyteller.
       Springfield's latest burst of national publicity came in 
     2007 with a contest that asked fans of ``The Simpsons'' to 
     pick the Springfield that is actually home to the best known 
     dysfunctional family. Although Springfield Mass., didn't win 
     in a surprising upset to Springfield, Vt., the producers of 
     the animated series and film knew better. They had prepared a 
     special poster before the contest's final results that 
     declared the movie was filmed in Springfield, Mass.
       A community of rich diversity and history, Springfield 
     today is the home of national companies, three colleges and a 
     law school. It was named the fourth ``greenest'' city in the 
     nation and was recognized as one of the greatest centers of 
     small business and entrepeurneurship in the country. Its best 
     days are not behind it.

                          ____________________