Thomas Reeves

Thomas was a blacksmith as his father was

Springfield flourished for the decades after its founding, operating as a trading post surrounding by numerous colonial farmsteads. The nearby Indian tribes were gradually displaced by colonial settlement and by the late 17th century became gradually confined to a palisaded fort on Long Hill. During King Philip's War, a pan-tribal effort to expel the colonists from their settlements in New England, a successful Indian attack on Springfield destroyed the settlement.

Queens was established in 1683 as one of the original 12 counties of the Province of New York. The settlement was presumably named for the English Queen Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705).