The Suffield Border Wars
One thing that I have enjoyed about living in Suffield is my wonderful neighbors. They are there to lend a helping hand whether it’s borrowing a tool, helping bring brush to the dump, or calling each other to get our pets and kids in because a bear is in the neighborhood. On top of that, they are considerate and we always air on the side of caution and consult each other when someone is having work done near our property lines. I think this is an example of how good fences make good neighbors, but what happens when the lines of demarcation are not clear? It was in just this situation that the citizens of Suffield, Windsor, and Simsbury found themselves over 300 years ago and this resulted in a series of violent clashes that I call the Suffield Border Wars.
An English musket circa 1640s: Credit National Trust UK
Before we go any further, a 17th/18th century geography lesson is in order. At the time, East Granby and Granby were part of Simsbury, Southwick was part of Westfield, Windsor Locks was part of Windsor, Agawam was part of Springfield and both Enfield and Suffield were part of Massachusetts.
The root cause of the dispute lay in an errant survey conducted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1642 which placed its border with the Connecticut Colony 7 miles further south than its charter permitted. Connecticut believed the survey to be inaccurate, but did not conduct its own survey until 1695. It was during that 53 year period that Suffield, Simsbury, and Westfield were established with borders that were poorly defined by our modern standards.
Map showing Connecticut’s various border disputes with its neighbors: Credit William F. Keegan via Wikipedia
To understand how this could happen, I think it’s important to understand how hard it was to survey land at this time. This video produced by Colonial Williamsburg does a great job of describing the process. On top of surveying being an error prone laborious task, a lack of searchable, indexed and centrally located information made cross checking for discrepancies all but impossible. These two factors led to the creation of disputed frontiers for Suffield and its neighbors.
The trouble began in 1686 when Westfield and Suffield got into a civil dispute about their western borders. The Massachusetts General Court ruled that Westfield was entitled to the land in dispute, but it planned to compensate Suffield by providing it land to its southwest that was unclaimed in the eyes of Massachusetts and well within its borders.
The problem was that the residents of Simsbury and Windsor believed that the land was theirs and they did not appreciate people they saw as invaders. Violent clashes ensued in the disputed territory with ad hoc militias being formed for each town patrolling the disputed territory. After an exchange of letters, the governments of Massachusetts and Connecticut were able to get both groups to stand down with the promise that they would work to resolve the disputed borders between the colonies. Unfortunately for everyone in these border areas, that resolution was not going to come quickly.
A Ballock Knife and its sheath. This is a type of knife that may have been used in the conflict: Credit The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A decade later very little progress had been made towards resolving the land disputes and as a result tensions flared again, this time between Windsor and Suffield. By this time, Windsor residents had heard that the original Massachusetts survey was flawed and began to push the boundaries of their town. At first, the government of Massachusetts protested this encroachment by sending a letter to Connecticut which was ignored. After a second more indignant letter, the government in Boston decided to cut their losses as not to push the issue and risk calling into question if Suffield was rightfully part of Massachusetts.
Progress on resolving the border question continued to be slow and the lack of clarity led to further violence, this time over who owned what pine trees. Now why pine trees? These trees were used to make turpentine which was used mostly for its water repellent properties and was critical for sealing wood that was used on everything from ships to shingles.
A photo showing the tapping of pine trees for turpentine: Credit Ragesoss, Keystone View Company / Wikimedia Commons.
In 1703, the disputes over who owned the pine trees had escalated to the point that the Massachusetts legislature passed an act banning the drilling of pine trees for turpentine in Suffield until the border situation had been resolved. This act seems to have been ignored because in 1704 a Samuel Partridge of Hatfield, MA sent a letter to Hartford as agent for the government of Massachusetts to secure the release of Suffield men that were arrested by Windsor men for drilling for turpentine in an area that both colonies claimed. These types of clashes and arrests continued into the next decade.
The violence finally ended when both colonies came to an agreement where Massachusetts admitted that the original survey it conducted in 1642 was wrong and it agreed to pay Connecticut for the towns of Suffield, Enfield, Somers and Woodstock. In exchange, Connecticut relinquished its claims to those towns, but was able to claim the other areas above the old survey line as her own. With the boundaries seemingly settled, the Suffield border wars finally came to an end.
Works cited
Alcorn, Robert Hayden. The biography of a town: Suffield, Connecticut, 1670-1970. Hartford, CT: 300th Anniversary Committee of the Town of Suffield, 1970.
Connecticut State Archives, and Mary E Smith, Colonial and state boundaries, series I 1662-1827,series II 1664-1820, index §. 1, 2 (1921).
Gluck, Emily. “Yankee Tarheels: Remembering the Pitch Pine Industry of Colonial America.” Northern Woodlands, June 2015.
Kaye, Theodore P. “Pine Tar; History and Uses.” San Francisco National Maritime Park Association , July 7, 1997. https://maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.php.
Sheldon, Hezekiah Spencer. Documentary history of Suffield: In the Colony and province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, 1660-1749. Springfield, MA: Hezekiah Spencer Sheldon, 1879.
