Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE HISTORY ANTE-LUDLOW "ho constitute a town—The red man—Indian names—Relics of a departed race—An ancient armor—Legend of camp fires—Of the Leap—Of the alleged Facing Hills murder—The tenure of soil—Springfield of old— Charles IL—A Yankee trick—The commons—Sections of commons—Line of commons—Allotments—The river—Early settlers—The tar business—Joseph Miller—Others—A wooing—Glimpse at the region—Church service—Proposition for district—Will they get an organization? A COUNTRY, a state, a town, consists of the inhabitants thereof. Whatever the place is, or fails to be, depends not upon the conditions of its soil or weather, so much as on the people enjoying or braving the same. Spain, in the most favored of latitudes, may fail to influence its nearest neighbors, while a band of hardy colonists among the frozen seas, singing their sagas while reefing the sails of rude smacks, may make the name of Iceland famous. Our first acquaintance, then, will be with the earlier inhabitants of the territory now known as Ludlow. The history of the region before the paleface had appropriated these lands is preserved only in tradition. Some portions of these broad acres were, evidently, favorite haunts of the red man. The names Mineachogue and Wallamanumps preserve the flavor of the aboriginal. The former name seems to have been applicable to the whole eastern region of Wilbraham and Ludlow, and signifies "Berry land." The latter word seems to have been applied to falls of the "Chicuepe," now at Ludlow Mills and Indian Orchard. Places are pointed out in the town which the red man made his favorite resorts. At one spot the discoloration of the rocks is alleged to have come from the frequent camp fires of the Indians. At other places, both in the extreme north and all the plain region, th...