History of Springfield, Massachusetts the first American motorcycle company (1901, "Indian"), an early commercial radio station (1921, WBZ, and most famously, the world's third-most-popular sport of basketball (1891, Dr. James Naismith). Puritan fur trader William Pynchon was an original settler of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a magistrate, and then assistant treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1635, he commissioned a scouting expedition led by John Cable and John Woodcock to find the Connecticut River Valley's most suitable site for the dual purposes of agriculture and trading. The expedition traveled either across the inland Bay Path from Boston to Albany via Springfield or, equally likely, along
The Massachusetts Game Fair Grounds, to see the Unions defeat the Winthrops, 100-71. By 1860, 59 New England teams were reportedly playing the Massachusetts Game, while at least 18 had gone over to New York style. Two "longest game" records are held by Massachusetts rules contests. During the American Civil War, soldiers from Massachusetts often played their brand of baseball when competing among themselves, but sometimes switched to New York rules when playing men from that state. Kirsch tells of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment encamped in Falmouth in early 1863 when a “base ball fever broke out.” Later that year the "Clipper" reported