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
James Naismith could help its track athletes to keep in shape and explicitly emphasized to "make it fair for all players and not too rough." In his attempt to think up a new game, Naismith was guided by three main thoughts. Firstly, he analyzed the most popular games of those times (rugby, lacrosse, soccer, football, hockey, and baseball); Naismith noticed the hazards of a ball and concluded that the big soft soccer ball was safest. Secondly, he saw that most physical contact occurred while running with the ball, dribbling or hitting it, so he decided that passing was the only legal option.