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Burgoyne's entertainment
Hadley is noted not only as the birthplace of General Hooker and other important men, but, as already related, was an important seat of warfare and defense against the Indians. Even natives of the present time can hardly realize that the whole of the great "front" or West street was once palisaded eight feet high. This was in 1675 and it thus continued for many years thereafter, the inhabitants being forbidden to go outside the stockade except with regularly organized bands, and then rarely but for any other purpose than work in the fields.
This remarkable West street, so great in history as well as area, was the scene of many imposing old-time musters, and General Ebenezer Mattoon, an officer at the battle of Saratoga, once ordered out and brought here all the militia of western Massachusetts, then over 10,000 in number. The first and second churches of the town were built here and the exercises of the successful 200th anniversary celebration of the settlement of the town were held on this ground in 1859.
