Belchertown, Massachusetts

Belchertown (previously known as Cold Spring and Belcher's Town) is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 15,350 at the 2020 census. The town includes the census-designated place of Belchertown. Belchertown was formerly the home of the Belchertown State School. The land on which the school sat is, as of 2016, being redeveloped for mixed uses including residential, commercial and recreational. This includes the 385-acre (156 ha) Lampson Brook Farm, used for community and sustainable agriculture, outdoor recreation, and wildlife preservation.

The area encompassing the Town is part of a crossroads of Native trails in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts that indigenous people traveled including the Nipmuc and Norwottuck, or Nonotuck and Nolwotogg, among others. Artifacts found in the early 20th century just south of Dwight, near Lake Metacomet, suggest, "evidence of Native American occupations in Belchertown" that began some 7,000 years ago.

In 1658, land in present-day Belchertown (and other Towns) was negotiated between the Nonotuck Sachem named Chickwalloppe, other Sachems and John Pynchon, son of Springfield founder William Pynchon. In August 1662, land in present-day Belchertown (including South Hadley and Granby) was negotiated by Awonunsk, a Nonotuck, with her husband Wequagon and son Squomp, in a deed with Pynchon. "They reserved continued Native rights to freely hunt, fish, set up wigwams, harvest wood etc. on these lands."

Few interactions between people, both the indigenous and non-indigenous, were recorded within the modern-day boundaries though on July 29, 1704, Thomas Battis, of Brookfield, "coming to Hadley as a post, was killed in the present Belchertown," by Native Americans.

In 1716, the Equivalent Lands were sold by Connecticut Colony to residents who reside in present-day Connecticut and Massachusetts. Some of these lands were granted to Jonathan Belcher, the future Royal Governor of Massachusetts who served between 1730 and 1741.

Belchertown was said to be settled by non-indigenous people in about 1727, with several families recorded there by July 1731, and was known variously as Cold Spring, Cold Spring plantation and Cold Spring township. It was named for "a large fountain" that indigenous people used before it became a popular watering hole for non-indigenous travelers on the Hadley Trail section of the Old Bay Path.

For a number of years, there was no house between Hadley and Brookfield and a traveler, from Hatfield, named "Cowles" was said to have discovered the spring, and it was named "Cowles Spring," according to an early 20th century newspaper article without primary sourcing.

The earliest mention of "Cold Spring" found to date is denoted on a map accompanying a deed to Benjamin Stebbins dated 1719. The Equivalent Lands, from Hadley to Brookfield, became known as "Cold Spring Township" before Amherst, Belchertown, Pelham, Prescott, Ware and parts of Enfield were incorporated as towns.