My Hometown

[dunng]

Born and raised...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_H..._Massachusetts

The town is the home of the nation's first successful navigable canal as well as the oldest continuing institution of higher education for women.

The candlemaking of Yankee Candle Company founder Michael Kittredge originated in South Hadley in 1969 (my aunt went to school with him).

Notable residents

* Daniel T. Barry, retired NASA Astronaut; contestant on the CBS reality television program Survivor: Panama-Exile Island
* A. Bartlett Giamatti (1938-1989) was the seventh commissioner of Major League Baseball and former president of Yale University.
* Joseph E. O'Connor, Massachusetts State Police; Joseph O'Connor was the first state trooper in Massachusetts and therefore, the first state trooper in the United States. When Boston police riots broke out in 1921, Governor Calvin Coolidge called upon General Alfred Foote and Joseph O'Connor to form a state police force (then located in Framingham). Mr. O'Connor served as an assistant to General Foote in the first world war and on the Mexican border. Many relatives of O'Connor continue to live in South Hadley today.