Editing Northampton, Massachusetts (section)

=== After the Revolution ===
Members of the Northampton community were present at the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]] in [[Philadelphia]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historic-northampton.org/highlights/strong.html |website=Historic Northampton |title=Caleb Strong |access-date=May 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090311051327/http://www.historic-northampton.org/highlights/strong.html |archive-date=March 11, 2009}}</ref>

On August 29, 1786, [[Daniel Shays]] and a group of Revolutionary War veterans (who called themselves Shaysites) stopped the civil court from sitting in Northampton, in an uprising known as [[Shays' Rebellion]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.historic-northampton.org/highlights/shays.html |website=Historic Northampton |title=Shays' Rebellion |access-date=May 26, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091213153020/http://www.historic-northampton.org/highlights/shays.html |archive-date=December 13, 2009}}</ref>

In 1805 a crowd of 15,000 gathered in Northampton to watch the executions of two Irishmen convicted of murder: [[Dominic Daley]], 34, and [[James Halligan (1778–1806)|James Halligan]], 27. The crowd, composed largely of New England [[White Anglo-Saxon Protestants]], lit bonfires and expressed virulently anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiments. The trial evidence against Daley and Halligan was sparse, circumstantial, contrived, and perjurious.<ref name="Historic-northampton.org">{{cite web |url=http://www.historic-northampton.org/daleyandhalligan/daleyandhalligan.html |title=Daley & Halligan – Historic Northampton Museum and Education Center |publisher=Historic-northampton.org |date=November 20, 2005 |access-date=November 20, 2011}}</ref> The men were hanged on June 5, 1806, on Pancake Plain. Their bodies were denied a burial; they were [[dissection|destroyed]] in the local slaughterhouse. This trial "later came to be seen as epitomizing the anti-Irish sentiment that was widespread in New England in the early 19th century."{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} Daley and Halligan were exonerated of all crimes by governor [[Michael Dukakis]] in 1984. Today a simple stone landmark stands marking the site of Daley and Halligan's executions.

In 1835 Northampton was linked to the ocean by the [[Hampshire and Hampden Canal|New Haven and Northampton Canal]], but the canal enterprise foundered and after about a decade was replaced by a railroad running along the same route.<ref name=copeland>Copeland, Alfred M. ''"Our County and Its People": A History of Hampden County, Massachusetts''. Century Memorial Publishing (1902), pp. 174–75.</ref> A flood on the [[Mill River (Northampton, Massachusetts)|Mill River]] on May 16, 1874, obliterated almost the entire Northampton [[Leeds, Massachusetts|neighborhood of Leeds]],  killing 139 people in Leeds and areas of neighboring towns.<ref>Andrews, E. Benjamin. ''The United States in Our Own Time: A History from Reconstruction to Expansion''. C. Scribner's Sons (1903), pp. 183–84.</ref>