Less than forty years ago, when the railroad was still a novelty in the
Connecticut Valley, a party of capitalists came to view the water-power
along the rocky bed of the Connecticut River at the point called the
Great Rapids, or Falls of South Hadley, which extended over a mile and
a half and had a total fall of 60 feet. The volume of water was gauged
and found to aggregate a power equal to 30,000 horse-power. This was in
1847. The next Legislature was petitioned by Thomas H. Perkins, Geo.
W. Lyman, Edmund Dwight and others for an act of incorporation as the
Hadley Falls Company, "for the purpose of constructing and maintaining
a dam across the Connecticut River, and one or more locks and canals
in connection with said dam; and of creating a water power to be used
by the said corporation for manufacturing articles from cotton, wood,
iron, wool and other materials, and to be sold to other persons and
corporations, to be used for manufacturing or mechanical purposes and
also for the purposes of navigation." The capital stock was fixed
at $4,000.000. The Hadley Falls Company purchased the property and
franchise of the South Hadley Falls Locks and Canal Company, and
extinguished the fishing rights existing above the location of the dam.

In the year 1847, this territory embraced by the river-curve had
fourteen houses, a grist-mill and one little shop. There was also a
small cotton-mill. From the river, the land rises to the westward,
and a mile or more back, on the highway leading from Northampton to
Springfield, were two hamlets of farmhouses. Many of these are still
standing and are all that this very modern city can show as memorials
of a past generation. From the year 1786 the section had been known as
"Ireland or Third Parish of West Springfield." It had its two little
white meeting-houses, Baptist and Congregational, a modest academy of
learning, a country tavern, and its full quota of New England customs,
traditions and ideas. Nine daily stages passed over this highway.