In the tumultuous landscape of seventeenth-century New England, a pervasive belief in the existence of witches gripped the minds of virtually every inhabitant. The era bore witness to a grim chapter in history where hundreds of individuals found themselves ensnared in the web of accusations surrounding the practice of witchcraft. The accused were predominantly women, and occasionally men, who were alleged to have “signed the Devil’s Book” and were purportedly carrying out nef

In the years following the American Revolution, South Wilbraham was a small but growing rural parish where farms, scattered workshops, and the steady rhythm of Congregational worship shaped daily life. Into that setting came Reverend Moses Warren, a Harvard-educated minister whose life would become closely connected with the spiritual and educational development of the community for more than four decades. Moses Warren was born in 1758 in Upton, Massachusetts, the son of De

Near the Center Bridge in South Wilbraham, an area that later became the town of Hampden, the Scantic River supported a small but active industrial village during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Along both banks of the river, modest workshops emerged, drawing on waterpower to sustain the local economy during the formative years of southern Wilbraham. 1855 Map of South Wilbraham. Digital Commonwealth One of the earliest known shops in the Center Village sto