A New Frontier System in New England

As fur trading in the Northeast began, fur traders began building "trucking houses" at Springfield, Northampton and other more distant points.  In the 1640s, they began invading the Hudson River Valley, settled by the Dutch in 1624.  The Dutch had ousted the Swedes in 1654 who tried to settle in nearby Delaware.  They tried the same with the New Englanders who began trading in the Mohawk Valley with the Iroquois.  The New Englanders retaliated by seizing New Amsterdam in 1664 and renaming it New York.

New England farmers came close behind the fur traders.  Unlike their fellow frontiersmen in Virginia,
New Englanders moved in groups under the guidance of leaders rather than as individuals scattered about as their future western pioneer would do.  Areas adjacent to settled areas came first. The building lots were laid out, fields were plowed for farming, then a village green, around which was church, parish, house and school were built. 

The New England frontiers advanced in orderly sections adjacent to each other, assuring pioneer "safety, Christian communities, schools, civility and other good ends."  The system encouraged community enterprise, fields cleared by joint labor, cattle watched over by herdsmen, and the common effort aided in marketing the small agricultural surpluses. 

Now you know where the idea of the village square came from in many towns and cities today!

Next time..Appalachian Country
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Today in Pioneer History:  On this day, August 27, 1875, the powerful western capitalist William Ralston is found drowned in San Francisco Bay, hours after being asked to resign as president of the Bank of California. Ralston was one of the first men to build a major financial empire in the Far West.