The few rich meadows of Leyden were originally settled by members of the Pocumtuck nation, but by the late 17th century the area was essentially unoccupied. It became part of Fall Town Plantation when that was established in 1735. The Massachusetts General Court established Fall Town plantation to compensate militiamen’s service in the Falls Fight of 1676, an English attack during Metacom’s (King Philip’s) War (1675-1676) on a Native encampment at Peskeompskut (a site at a falls on the Connecticut River). Europeans began settling the area that would become Leyden about 1740. It remained sparsely settled, though, until after King George’s War in the 1740s and the French and Indian War (1754-1763). Its population then started to grow. After 1780 the population had tripled, reaching 989. The area was by then a district of Bernardston, which was incorporated in 1762. In 1809 Leyden was incorporated as a separate town. For the next sixty years its population slowly declined, until by 1871 it was only half what it had been in 1800. Unlike many western Massachusetts towns that developed small industries in the 19th century, Leyden remained largely agricultural.