There have been discussions in other threads concerning families with branches that migrated from the Bridgewater area to Hampshire Co. I have been studying those "Old Bridgewater" (i.e., pre-1800) families for many years, and have explored many branches that moved west. Principal among those are the Packard families who settled in the Swift River Valley and surrounding towns such as Pelham, as well as in Cummington and Plainfield. If you have questions concerning Bridgewater families who moved to western MA please feel free to ask them, especially if you have had to rely upon the unreliable "History of the Early Settlement of Bridgewater" by Nahum Mitchell in your research. I am the editor of the online edition of Mitchell, and am thoroughly familiar with that work's strengths and weaknesses.

To get things started, there has been discussion in another thread of John Packard. He was part of the large late-1700s migration of Bridgewater residents to Cummington. John and his two brothers Abel and Barnabas, along with their families, moved to Cummington (part of which later became Plainfield) in the early 1770s. Their three sisters married Bridgewater men. Two of the sisters stayed in Bridgewater while sister Abiah and husband Edward Southworth moved their family to Pelham and it spread out from there. Note that Mitchell confused Abiah with her sister Lydia.

If you have any questions about the brothers (children of John and Lydia (Tomson) Packard) or Abiah or any of their families ask away. Chime in if you have any questions about any familes that moved (or that you suspect moved) from the Bridgewater area to the four western counties.

Dale H. Cook, Member, NEHGS and MA Society of Mayflower Descendants;
Plymouth Co. MA Coordinator for the USGenWeb Project
Administrator of http://plymouthcolony.net