The Christian faith has a long history in Hadley, all the way back to the town's founding, in fact.

Hadley was first settled in 1659 and was officially incorporated in 1661.
Its settlers were primarily a discontented group of families from the Puritan colonies of Hartford and Wethersfield, CT, who petitioned to start a new colony "up north"

The Congregational Church in Hadley was founded in 1659 by these two groups of “withdrawers” from organized Churches in Connecticut. They had joined with others in forming a Company which pledged on April 18, 1659: “If God permit, to transplant ourselves and families to the plantation purchased on the East side of the river Connecticut.” 

The settlement group was led by John Russell. The first settler to actually move inside of the Hadley settlement was Nathaniel Dickinson who surveyed the streets of what are now Hadley, Hatfield, and Amherst. At the time, Hadley encompassed a wide radius of land on both sides of the Connecticut River (but mostly on the eastern shore). In the following century, these were broken off into precincts and eventually became the separate towns of Hatfield, Amherst, South Hadley, Granby and Belchertown.

By the late 1790s and first decades of the 1800s there was a small community of Catholic farmers in Hadley. The numbers increased markedly with an immigration of Polish farmers and laborers in the 1880s.

The first Catholic Church was established in 1915 on Russell Street, named St. John's.
Polish speaking Catholics attended St. John Cantius Church in Northampton, or were ministered to by a Polish priest who was the assistant at St. Brigid's Church, Amherst. A Polish priest was soon appointed for a new parish, and by 1917 Holy Rosary Church was established on Russell Street.

In 1998, the two Catholic parishes in Hadley were merged, to form Most Holy Redeemer Church. The parish logo shows St. John and Mary standing at the foot of the Cross, a reminder that both previous parishes -- St. John and Holy Rosary -- together now stand before the Redeemer, and in the mystery of His Death and Resurrection are called in His service in this new parish.