When elderly Henry Jordan of Otis, Massachusetts, went to the Gilmore home in nearby Tolland on Friday, September 29, 1916, to see about retrieving a borrowed gun, he found the bodies of the Widow Gilmore, her son Edward, and her daughter Anna, in a small bedroom on the first floor, along with three empty shells from a double-barrel shotgun. Mr. Martin had lent the gun to Edward, but his frequent knocks at the Gilmore door for its return went unanswered, so he enlisted the help of Mr. Jordan, who had known the Gilmores for quite some time. Authorities believed that the twenty-seven-year-old Edward went temporarily insane and shot and killed his mother and sister on Thursday, September 28, before taking his own life. Edward shot his mother, the Widow Gilmore, in the head and shot his sister Anna through her left eye. Because authorities found Edward's mother and sister undressed and in bed, they concluded they were asleep when he came home.  Clad only in trousers, Edward, on the flo...

Frank Winoski Jr. graduated in 1955 from the local high school in his hometown of Holyoke, Mass. He then served in the Navy and attended Springfield College to pursue his love for teaching, something he was naturally good at, according to some folks who worked with him later in life. Frank Winoski Jr. (Yearbook photo - 1955) Frank's wife and neighbors believed him to be a grammar school teacher in Southwick before getting hired to teach at Suffield Academy. They watched as he left home each schoolday morning and returned home later in the evening. (Most likely, his wife was a stay-at-home mom caring for their infant son.) Frank and his wife married on July 2, 1960. He put a large down payment on a newly constructed house in Holyoke and, along with his wife and their son, moved into the modest, $14,000+ ranch-style home sometime around July 1963. Frank was prompt in his mortgage payments to People's Savings Bank. (The house sold for $209,000 in 2012). Frank was involved in a car...

It was not the henhouse itself, so to speak, that sparked much curiosity among some Southwick residents in 1922, but more so the placement of it; and the fact that it had something other henhouses were lacking: a chimney. Local carpenter Thomas Adamowitz was no stranger to authorities. He lived on Southwick Road in Westfield and had constructed the cute little henhouse about three-fourths of a mile away on a property in Southwick, not far from the Southwick-Westfield town line. He also set it back in the woods, roughly three-fourths of a mile from the newly constructed state highway. (College Highway was officially dedicated on May 22, 1923.) Nearby, a small brook that once trickled into the valley had been dammed-up using large boards buried deep in the sand. Perhaps it was the chimney, or rather the smoke coming out of it, or maybe it was the townsfolk's gossip that eventually caught the attention of a suspicious deputy sheriff, who then filed a complaint with federal authorities...

Howard M. Maynard, of East Hartford, Connecticut, and Raymond J. Welch, of Southwick, Massachusetts, met Walter Oliver and William Smith of New York City on January 7, 1947, in Florida, after answering an ad for a ride back to the Northeast. Welch met Oliver again during a planned meeting held at the Sunnyside Tavern in East Hartford on August 4, 1949. On August 11, Welch, Smith, and Oliver did a drive-by of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in East Hartford, where Maynard and Welch worked. COLD FEET? Old Town Hall Restaurant With his conscience getting the best of him, Welch backed out of the group's plan, and so they brought Maynard on board. The foursome parked behind the Old Town Hall Restaurant on August 12. Welch, who backed out of the plan, stayed with the getaway car.  Oliver and Smith pried open a ground-level window at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. The plant had closed at 1:30 a.m., so they waited a solid 15 minutes to ensure a burglar alarm didn't sound. Determining the ...

James Varley was well-known in boxing circles. The ambitious lightweight prizefighter fought out of Westfield under the name Tommy Belmont, and with Westfield nicknamed the Whip City, his moniker was: Whip City Boy. Varley's short-lived marriage to local sweetheart, Miss Myrtle Fannie Robinson of Southwick, started when the couple wed on June 27, 1917, and moved to Springfield. Myrtle was attractive, and she caught the attention of many men, which caused her relationship with the boxer to quickly sour. The pair had a child together before separating sometime in 1919 or 1920. James filed for custody of their baby boy, and soon after, thanks in part to a postcard, a melodramatic trial unfolded.  The cause of the November 1920 trial was the affection of Marshal J. Shear. Myrtle admitted that Marshal professed his love to her, but she denied accepting his advances. Witnesses, however, painted a much different story. They said that Myrtle and Marshal were together multiple times while h...

David Churchill of New Britain, Connecticut, went swimming with some companions at Congamond Lake in early August of 1908 when he suddenly sank out of sight. He was subject to fainting fits, and authorities believed that he may have fainted or had gotten cramps before drowning. His body was found several hours later. Two days before his death, his mother received a souvenir postcard from him in which he wrote about how much of a good time he was having at the Lake. David's two older siblings died at a young age too. David Fowler Churchill: 1884 - August 4, 1908. Louise (Motak) Bilek's body was found floating in Congamond Lake at about 9:30 AM on July 3, 1942, by two boys: Theodore and Edward Sygnator.  A woman said she had seen Bilek on the ground near a cottage. She figured she stumbled because she picked herself up and carried on.  Bilek was John Clark's housekeeper. A search of the Clark cottage showed it was in disarray, leading police to suspect foul play. Exiting th...

Names of some of the victims of what lies in wait in the dark waters of Congamond Lake... Mary Langdon: d. 7/15/1809. Julana "Julia" Stratton: d. 7/15/1809. Charlotte Cannon: 1793 - 7/15/1809.  Orpha Cannon: 1798 - 7/15/1809.  Unknown O'Neal: d. 5/22/1846 (horse he was riding stepped off the side of a bridge) Nellie Barry: abt. 1863 - 8/14/1886. Newell Edwards: abt. 1843 - 3/18/1891. Fred Morand: abt. 1869 - 7/4/1894.  George W. Curtis (drowned Sept. 10, 1921) Terrence Monaghan: abt. 1868 - 7/4/1896. Thomas Toohey: abt. 1868 - 7/4/1896. John Rennie: body found 6/13/1901.  (had been dead a few weeks) Robert M. DeGarmo: 12/24/1865 - abt. 8/3/1907. John Kapre: abt. 1873 - 8/1907. David Fowler Churchill: 1884 - 8/4/1908. Unknown Ice Cutter: Missing 1/1911. (body found May 18) Arthur E. Brown: 9/28/1883 - 3/1/1913. (body found Mar. 2) Unknown Ice Cutter: d. 3/1/1913. (body found Apr. 20)   Unknown Ice Cutter: d. 3/1/1913. (body found in 1914)   Matthew N. Malone...

(Originally published in 2018) In an ever-changing world, having a sense of familiarity is nice, and coming home to Southwick provides such. While a lot has changed in town during the 20+ years I have been away (living in Myrtle Beach, SC ), just as much stayed the same (thankfully).  I suspect many, like myself, didn't know at the time just how blessed we were for growing up in Southwick (technically, I was born in Springfield, but my parents moved back to Southwick when I was two).  Let's rewind…  Frank Wood Painting & Decorating My great-grandparents lived in Springfield. They would drive to the "country" and pick me up in their big green boat of a Cadillac to take me to the city to go shopping at the department stores of the day: Steiger's, Filene's, G. Fox. My great-grandfather owned a successful painting and decorating business, and my great-grandmother worked at the Indian "Motocycle" Company's plant in Springfield. Over the years, my ...

Upon hearing the noise of an approaching carriage, some men and boys working in a field catch sight of it as it traveled down South Longyard Road on September 11, 1908. Focused on their work, they paid little mind to the single-horse-drawn carriage nor the two men in it except to notice that at least one man appeared quite intoxicated. Several minutes later, the fieldworkers see the younger of the two men chasing the horse up the road. When the nearly out-of-breath man finally overtook the horse, he got in the carriage and sped away. It was late in the day, so the fieldworkers wrapped up and headed home. Along the way, they see a piece of torn vest hanging on a branch not far off the road and decide to take a closer look, and in doing so, they find a body in the brush between the Longyard and Southwick Ponds. The body belonged to 77-year-old David Moran, a well-respected Southwick farmer and Civil War pensioner. At first glance, it looked like Moran had gotten thrown from a carriag...

Talk of consolidating Southwick's rural schoolhouses dates back to 1897 when the superintendent briefly mentioned it in his report; the superintendent in 1911 did the same. There was a lot of opposition to consolidating; however, the vote to build a centralized school passed on March 31, 1924. After much debate, voters officially chose the five-acre Goddard property along the college highway as the site for the new consolidated school. (It was selected in a vote, 152 to 55, during a special town meeting on April 9, 1928.) Other sites, including the Healy lot and the Jackson farm on Depot Street, were previously voted down because they needed to be deemed centrally located, a key requirement. Additionally, the Healy property required extensive grading, which would have driven up costs considerably. And the Jackson farm, priced at $12,000.00, was $5,000.00 more than the Town of Southwick was willing to pay for a site. Architect Malcolm B. Harding, born in Southwick, designed Consolid...