Editing Brookfield, Massachusetts (section)

==History==
[[Image:Brookfield1.jpg|thumb|left|Capture of Brookfield by [[Nipmuck]]s in 1675]]

Brookfield was first settled by Europeans in 1660 and was officially incorporated in 1718. The town was settled by men from [[Ipswich, Massachusetts|Ipswich]] as part of the [[Quaboag Plantation]] lands.

In August 1675, [[King Philip's War]] reached central Massachusetts. Brookfield, one of the most isolated settlements in the colony, was attacked by Nipmuck forces. After an ambush, the town was besieged. For two days the townsfolk, consisting of 80 people, sought shelter in the garrison house while the rest of the town was completely destroyed. The settlement lay abandoned for twelve years.<ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Mayflower-Story-Courage-Community-War/dp/0143111973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430785422&sr=8-1&keywords=mayflower Philbrick, Nathaniel,''Mayflower: A story of Courage, Community, and War'',Penguin (New York), 2006.]</ref>

During the winter of 1776, [[Henry Knox|General Henry Knox]] passed through the town with cannon from [[Fort Ticonderoga]] to end the [[Siege of Boston]]. A marker along [[Massachusetts Route 9|Route 9]] commemorates his route.<ref>[http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/services/KnoxTrail/ktsignm13.html The Knox Trail Monument Number 13 - Brookfield.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517015850/http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/services/KnoxTrail/ktsignm13.html |date=May 17, 2008 }}</ref>

===Bathsheba Spooner===
In March 1778, Joshua Spooner, a [[gentleman farmer|wealthy farmer]] in Brookfield, was beaten to death and his body stuffed down a well. Four people were hanged for the crime: two [[British people|British]] soldiers, a young [[Continental Army|Continental]] soldier, and Spooner's wife, [[Bathsheba Spooner|Bathsheba]], who was charged with instigating the [[murder]]. She was 32 years old and five months pregnant when executed. Newspapers described the case as "the most extraordinary crime ever perpetrated in New England."

Bathsheba was the mother of three young children, and in her own words felt "an utter aversion" for her husband, who was known to be an abusive drunk.

A year before the murder, she took in and nursed a sixteen-year-old Continental soldier who was returning from a year's enlistment under [[George Washington]]. The two became lovers and conceived a child.

[[Divorce]]s were all but impossible for women at that time, and [[adulteress]]es were stripped to the waist and publicly whipped. Bathsheba's pregnancy occasioned a series of desperate plots to murder her husband, finally brought to fruition with the aid of two British [[deserter]]s from [[John Burgoyne|General John Burgoyne]]'s defeated army.

As the daughter of the state's most prominent and despised [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]], Bathsheba bore the brunt of the political, cultural, and gender prejudices of her day. When she sought a stay of execution to deliver her baby, the Massachusetts Council rejected her petition, and she was promptly hanged before a crowd of 5,000 spectators.<ref>Deborah Navas, ''Murdered by His Wife'', [[University of Massachusetts Press]], 1999</ref>

===Washington's visit===
Across from the former Brookfield Inn on West Main Street (Route 9) is a memorial that designates this part of the road as the George Washington Memorial Highway. In 1789, the first president of the United States traveled through five of the [[New England]] states. This tour has become the basis for all of the "George Washington slept here" claims—and although Washington watered his horses here, he never slept in Brookfield. It seems his party would have spent the night in Brookfield except that the innkeeper, Mrs. Bannister, was in bed with a terrible [[headache]]. When awakened, she mistook him for a [[college president]] and sent him on to the neighboring town of [[Spencer, Massachusetts|Spencer]]. On learning of her mistake, she supposedly said: "Bless me! One look at that good man would have cured my aching head."{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}}

===Other Brookfields===
Lands of the town have given rise to three others—[[North Brookfield, Massachusetts|North Brookfield]] in 1812, [[West Brookfield, Massachusetts|West Brookfield]] in 1848, and [[East Brookfield, Massachusetts|East Brookfield]] in 1920.