Canal Towns: Easthampton

As early as April 1825, citizens from Easthampton attended a meeting in Westfield alongside residents from Northampton, Southampton, and Southwick to promote the canal's construction. When subscription books for the canal stock were opened in March 1826, Easthampton was a designated location, with subscriptions taken at the house of Thaddeus Clapp. Initial engineer estimates from 1826 projected the cost for the Easthampton section to be $28,675, which included excavation, embankments, bridges, and $1,404 specifically for aqueducts and culverts.

By January 1833, the company was actively seeking proposals for significant construction work within the town. These proposals included the creation of stone culverts for section No. 45 in Easthampton and, notably, the wooden trunk for the aqueduct designed to carry the canal over the west branch of the Manhan River. Thaddeus Clapp, mentioned earlier during the subscription phase, was listed as the local contact for these proposals.

Once completed, the canal became an active waterway through Easthampton. A passenger traveling the full length of the canal from Northampton to New Haven in September 1835 recounted the voyage passing "through Easthampton, quiet, old Southampton, the rather important town of Westfield...". The town was also a site of canal-related commerce; in 1835, it was reported that a new canal boat was being built in Easthampton. By 1839, Easthampton was a scheduled stop on the daily packet boat line, listed on the timetable as "E. Hampt'n (Clapps)". The fare for passage between New Haven and Easthampton on this line was $3.50.

Like much of the canal, the Easthampton section was vulnerable to the elements. The area was particularly susceptible to damage from freshets, or severe floods. In October 1843, one newspaper reported that a "Great Freshet" had damaged the aqueduct and injured the embankments "near the locks in Easthampton". A separate report from that same period noted that severe floods had caused thirty distinct breaks along the canal, with Easthampton being one of the towns explicitly listed as having reported breaches. The damage from this one storm was so extensive that it was believed the canal would have to close for the rest of the season, requiring the hiring of 500 men to conduct repairs along the line.