In 1673, the European-descended inhabitants of Hadley, Massachusetts, fast running out of room, petitioned the General Court for a new plantation. The request was granted and settlement of Swampfield, which would become Sunderland, began the next year. As with many frontier towns, this first attempt was abandoned during Metacom’s (King Philip’s) War (1675-1676). In 1714, thirty-nine families and a minister resettled Swampfield and it was incorporated as a town. Its name was changed to Sunderland in 1718. The town’s original boundaries included present-day Montague, Leverett, and parts of Wendell. Sunderland’s location in the fertile Connecticut River Valley has made agriculture a mainstay of its economy, with its farms yielding a variety of abundant crops over the years, including broomcorn, onions, and tobacco.