look for the Connecticut River Valley's best site for both conducting trade and farming. The first 16 years of the history of the European settlement of the Pioneer Valley, before 1652, when Northampton, Massachusetts was established, are coterminous with the history of Springfield, Massachusetts, as it was Pioneer Valley's only settlement. From 1633 to 1635, there had been three English settlements in the Connecticut River Valley: Wethersfield, Connecticut; Windsor, Connecticut; and the best situated of the three (because of its two rivers), Hartford, Connecticut. Cable and Woodcock continued northward until they came upon a spot that they agreed was the best situated of them all: modern-day Springfield, Massachusetts. Springfield sits at a natural crossroads, at the confluence of four rivers: to the west, the 78.1 mile Westfield River, (the Connecticut River's longest tributary river in Massachusetts); in the middle, the 418.0 mile Connecticut River, then known as "The Great River"; and to the east two smaller rivers: the 18.0 mile Chicopee River, which featured the fast moving and the Connecticut River's largest water basin; and also, the Mill River, which would become very important approximately 150 years later after George Washington's foundation of the U.S. Armory at Springfield. First settlement At that time, on the western bank of the Connecticut River, the explorers found the Pocomtuc (or perhaps Nipmuck) Indian village of Agawam. Just south of the Westfield River, the colonists constructed a pre-fabricated house in what is present-day Agawam, Massachusetts. In 1636, Pynchon led a settlement expedition with a larger group, including Henry Smith (Pynchon's son-in-law), Jehu Burr, William Blake, Matthew Mitchell, Edmund Wood, Thomas Ufford, and John Cable. Springfield was Massachusetts' first settlement for non-religious reasons, although many of its settlers were very religious, as indicated by their first article of incorporation, "Wee intend by God's grace, as soon as we can, with all convenient speede to procure some Godly and faithfull minister we purpose to joyne in church covenant, to walk in all the ways of Christ" In scouting Springfield, Cable, Woodcock, and Pynchon selected a spot just north of Enfield Falls, the first spot on the Connecticut River where all travelers must stop to negotiate a waterfall, in height, and then transship their cargoes from ocean-going vessels to smaller shallops. Pynchon's party purchased land on both sides of Connecticut River from 18 tribesman who lived at a palisade fort at the current site of Springfield's Longhill