Editing Leyden, Massachusetts (section)

==History==
Immediately prior to English settlement, the area was occupied by the Wabanaki people.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Native Land Digital |url=https://native-land.ca/ |access-date=December 31, 2023 |website=Native-Land.ca |language=en}}</ref> English colonists first settled in Leyden in 1737 as part of "Fall Town", which also included [[Bernardston, Massachusetts|Bernardston]] and [[Colrain, Massachusetts|Colrain]].  The town was set off from Bernardston in 1784, but it was not incorporated as a town until February 22, 1809.  The town was named for the city of [[Leiden]], [[Netherlands]], refuge of the [[Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)|Pilgrims]] before colonizing the Americas.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gannett|first=Henry|title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9V1IAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA186|year=1905|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|page=186}}</ref>  Leyden had several small industries in the eighteenth century, including grist mills, wood product mills, and dairying, but today the largest industry is [[maple sugar]] production. The town also has a reservoir which supplies the town of [[Greenfield, Massachusetts|Greenfield]].<ref>[http://www.co.franklin.ma.us/leyden.html Town of Leyden - Franklin County Chamber of Commerce]{{Dead link|date=March 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The Dorrellites, a utopian sect founded and led by [[William Dorrell (vegetarian)|William Dorrell]], was active in Leyden in the 1790s. The [[Renaissance Community|Brotherhood of the Spirit]] commune was founded in Leyden in 1968.