When Springfield was carved out of the wilderness 375 years ago
it began as a business venture and ever since then what people
do for work has defined the community. In the beginning the
little settlement was about fur trading with the Native
Americans and subsistence farming on the fertile meadows along
the Connecticut River. The Puritan settlers had strict rules for
conducting commerce in 1636. They set out regulations for
“workmen and labourers” that specified wages, adjusted by the
season. How long the workday would be and also capped how much
“carpenters, joyners, sawers, wheelwrights, or such like
artificers,” could earn. It was specified that a teamsters and
his four cattle could not earn above six shillings for an eight-
hour day. Borders where set up where “candlewood” could not be
gathered for the making of “Tarr, Pitch or Coale” for sale, but
inhabitants could gather candlewood for their own family “where
he pleaseth.” Within two years of his founding of Springfield,
William Pynchon was involved in