On the right, a few yards south of the Dominican Nuns Monastery property on Riverdale Street is a small burying ground known as the Ashleyville Cemetery.
The land on which the cemetery sits was once part of the vast land holdings of the Ashley family in “Chicopee Field”. Around 1770 the site was donated, to the “Inhabitants of the First Parish of West Springfield”, by the same John Ashley who, in 1800, donated the money to build the “White Church” on Elm Street. The earliest burial in the cemetery is that of 3 year old Urany Todd who died in 1771. The cemetery is still accepting burials in 2003.
Although it is difficult to see now, for over 300 years the Riverdale section of West Springfield was known as the “garden spot of the Connecticut River Valley”. In the 1830’s Richard Bagg established the first market garden in the region. The success of this venture encouraged other Riverdale Street farmers to enter the market garden business as well. Completion of the railroad, between Boston and Albany in the early 1840’s, opened additional markets for the town’s farmers and enabled market gardens to flourish in West Springfield for the next 100 years.
When market gardens were first established, finding men to work the fields was a relatively easy task as wave after wave of immigrants flooded into the country but by the 1950’s farm hands were becoming scarce and, one by one, the Riverdale market gardens closed.
It is difficult to imagine that as recently as the 1960’s some of the property along Riverdale Street was still being farmed.