When King Charles the First had dissolved his third parliament, thus putting his head on the bleeding heart of puritanism, there lived in Springfield, England, a warden of the established church. "He was thirty-nine years of age, of gentle birth, acute, restive, and singularly self-assertive. He had seen some of the stoutest men of the realm break into tears when the King had cut off free speech in the Commons; he had seen ritualism, like an iron collar, clasped upon the neck of the church, while a young jewelled courtier, the Duke of Buckingham, dangled the reputation of sober England at his waistcoat. A colonial enterprise, pushed by some Lincolnshire gentlemen, had been noised abroad, and the warden joined his fortunes with them, and thus became one of the original incorporators mentioned in the Royal Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company in America. This was William Pinchon." After reaching this country he became treasurer of the colony, and a member of the general court. He formed plans for a coast trade, and for a trade with the Indians. Such was the man of mark, who in 1636, with a colony of friends, made a settlement on the fertile meadows of the Indian Agawam. The spot was obtained by a deed signed by thirteen Indians, and Pinchon, in loving remembrance of his old English home, christened the new settlement Springfield. From the little we can glean of them, the ancient inhabitants of the village must have been a grim old race. Hugh Parsons, and Mary, his wife, were tried for witchcraft. Goodwife Hunter was gagged and made to stand in the stocks for "Sundry exhorbitance of ye toung." Men were fined for not attending town meeting and voting. In August, 1734, the Rev. Robert Breck was called to the church in Springfield. Shortly before that he had used the following words in one of his sermons: "What will become of the heathen who never heard of the gospel, I do not pretend to say, but I cannot but indulge a hope that God, in his boundless benevolence, will find out a way whereby those heathen who act up to the light they have may be saved." The news of this alarming hope came to Springfield, and a few other so-called unorthodox utterances were attributed to him. "In the minds of the River Gods heterodoxy was his crime. For this the Rev. gentleman was not only tried by a council of the church, but a sheriff and his posse appeared and arrested Mr. Breck in his Majesty's name, and the prisoner was taken first to the town-house, and afterward to New London for trial." [Illustration: A MASSACHUSETTS MILL STREAM.] The early Springfield settlers had few of the articles which we consider the commonest comforts of life. Hon. John Worthington, "One of the Gods of the Connecticut Valley," owned the first umbrella in Springfield. He never profaned the article by carrying it in the rain, but used it as a sun-shade only.