Hampden has 2 communities, the center, or the "village", where the town hall, fire dept., police dept., Hampden Hardware, Grog Shoppe, Country Kitchen, Casa Bella, and other businesses are located, and the "west side", where the Village Mart, Monson Savings Bank, Hampden Nurseries, Bilton's Farm Market, Mountain View Restaurant, Shell gas station and other businesses are located.

The Hampden-Wilbraham region was once known as Minnechaug ("berry land" or "berry hill") to the Nipmuc Indians. They sold it to William Pynchon of Springfield in 1674, and the area then became known as Springfield Mountain, but it was not settled (as South Wilbraham) until about 1741. The first European settlers were the Stebbins and Hitchcock families. The first sawmill was erected on the Scantic in the vicinity of the V.F.W. building.

The "Rattlesnake Incident of 1761" is thought to have occurred on farmland in what is now Hampden on August 7 of that year, when 22-year-old Timothy Merrick was killed by a snakebite while mowing his father's field — an event immortalized by "On Springfield Mountain", among the earliest ballads ever written in North America, and the basis for the modern folk song "Rattlesnake Mountain".

The settlement was built on the banks of the Scantic River. The first grist and saw mills required the waters of the Scantic to provide them with power. Since their businesses had to be near the river, so also did the owners need to be close to their mills. So many of the earliest homes were built bordering the river or its tributaries.

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Wikipedia