Log Cabin Grove
The Log Cabin Grove at Southwick Ponds was very popular as a day resort. The original structure was expanded before it burned down. It was rebuilt with sixteen rooms, 13 of which were guest rooms. It also had a ballroom and a dining room.
Guests could look forward to clambakes, dancing, live music, a "beautiful lawn, and grove … swings, steamboats, rowboats, fishing tackle, etc." (Roundtrip bus fare from Springfield to Southwick Ponds costs .50¢.)
The Log Cabin Grove
1823: John Milton Hatheway is born in Suffield, Connecticut, on March 12.
1846: The Mexican-American War starts on April 25.
1847: During the Battle of Chapultepec (September 12-13), Lieutenant Hatheway picks up a dead sergeant's musket and fires several shots, effectively killing a Mexican sharpshooter who had picked off several men and was taking aim at him from up in a tree. (Author's Note: This is one of several heroic deeds done by Hatheway.)
1848: The Mexican-American War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2.
c. 1850: John Hatheway is married.
1852: Major Hatheway breaks his leg after falling off his horse.
1853: Hatheway's wife dies on August 31.
c. 1854: Major Hatheway is discharged from the regular army as first lieutenant; Ulysses S. Grant, who holds the same rank, is also released.
1858: John Hatheway weds for the second time on January 21.
1860: Connecticut Governor William Alfred Buckingham (R) appoints John M. Hatheway as quartermaster general. (Author's Note: There are some inconsistencies in the year - it may have been 1858.)
1861: Wife number two dies on January 26; Hatheway remarries on July 16. Major Hatheway resigns as the quartermaster general in September.
1864: As a deputy sheriff in Suffield, Connecticut, J. M. Hatheway protects a suspected murderer from a mob of angry Irishmen seeking revenge for beating a man in the head with a club. (The deceased was struck several times, almost turning his head to jelly.)
1865: John M. Hatheway and three other men organize an event in Suffield celebrating Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant. The event is held on April 14 and includes a 30-gun salute that residents in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, hear echoing. (Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War.)
1869: Ulysses S. Grant is inaugurated 18th president of the United States of America on March 4.
1872: Major Hatheway files a $7,000 claim against the State of Connecticut dating back to his time as quartermaster general (1861).
1874: Major Hatheway ends up in debtor's court.
1875: Major Hatheway's sawmill goes up in flames on September 27. (The structure is a total loss, estimated at $3,000, not insured.)
c. 1878: Major Hatheway opens the Log Cabin Grove at Southwick Ponds. (Located on the Suffield side, the central part of the eastern shore.)
1879: Hatheway expands his hotel at the Log Cabin Grove; the thirteen sleeping rooms can accommodate thirty overnight guests when the construction is complete. Fannie Rumrill (74) suffers a seizure while attending a picnic at Log Cabin Grove on July 26; she dies an hour later. William Keenan* of Southwick is arrested for assault and drunkenness at the Log Cabin Grove on July 27; authorities charge him on four counts, and a judge fines him $5 (and court costs) and sentences him to 40 days in jail (10 days for each count). The Log Cabin Grove closes for the season on October 3 with a clambake, turkey dinner, and dancing, the latter taking place aboard the resort's new steamer and in the dance hall.
1881: The State of Connecticut pays Hatheway $9,350 to settle his claim. (The state repeatedly denied his claim each time it went before the legislature, about every year since 1872.)
1882: Several hundred people purchase tickets to an enormous clambake held at the Log Cabin Grove in August. For $2, ticketholders attend the clambake and enter a raffle to win prizes, including Hatheway's steamboat "Pinafore." (Jerry Noonan eventually buys the Log Cabin Grove.)
1884: The popular Log Cabin Hotel burns to the ground around 4:00 a.m. on August 5; a temporary structure is quickly rebuilt and opens by August 16. An assigner's sale for J. T. Noonan's saloon, fixtures, and chattels takes place on November 13.
1885: A second auction takes place on February 27. Items up for grabs include Jerry Noonan's steamboat, "Pinafore," which he moored at Southwick Ponds, jewelry, clothing, and other miscellaneous property.
1886: A loaded wagon runs over Major Hatheway, breaking one of his legs below the knee after being thrown to the ground while attending to his horse on August 4.
1887: Major Hatheway breaks his wrist when he falls off a ladder picking peaches. Police raid Timothy Noonan's saloon in Springfield; they find nothing.
1890: Major Hatheway dies on January 18. The local Freemasons are in charge of his largely attended funeral held at his late residence on January 21. Buried with Hatheway in his casket at sunset: the musket he killed the Mexican sharpshooter with during the Battle of Chapultepec.
*William Keenan had multiple run-ins with the law, including being arrested for breaking into the Southwick Train Depot and the infamous Lake House; he stole liquor from the latter in 1888 (captured weeks later in West Granville).
Noonan Fire - 1881
Timothy Noonan's large, two-story home in Springfield, Massachusetts, burned in an early morning fire in March 1881. The fire claimed most of the family's furnishings, including a fine piano.
The fire was suspicious, for it had started in a section of the home that went unoccupied by the family, so the fireplace went unused for quite some time.
The family escaped without injury. However, one of Timothy's sons, J.T., a spectacle maker, said the smoke woke him up in a locked room. Interestingly, another child reported a mysterious male figure locking a door with a key in the hall.
Hotel Fire and Robbery - 1884
Although Sadie Brown had a bad stammer, folks said she had more than passably good-looking; she also received high remarks for her work as a seasonal housekeeper at J.T. Noonan's Log Cabin Hotel at Southwick Ponds.
Sadie was about 25 when the Log Cabin Hotel burned on August 5, 1884. Woken by a sounding alarm to the hotel engulfed in flames, she escaped unharmed, wearing only her nightgown.
The hotel burned to the ground, claiming all of Sadie's possessions, including her silk and velvet dresses and jewelry.
With the hotel destroyed, Sadie moved into one of the rooms above the saloon Noonan owned at 515 Main Street in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts, and she went to work keeping the house at her employer's private residence.
When Noonan returned home, about 7 o'clock on the evening of Friday, September 26, 1884, he found that someone had broken into one of his trunks and taken $750 in cash; Sadie was also gone.
Noonan contacted the Springfield Police Department.
Authorities later discovered that Sadie's 17-year-old lover, George Maher, had also disappeared. (It was no secret that Sadie was very interested in her boylover.)
Mr. Noonan had a string of bad luck. Shortly after his hotel in Southwick burned, he was sued and almost killed while driving.
Believing the pair headed north, the police telegraphed messages and telephoned surrounding areas.
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| Besse, Mills & Co. Ad |
A police officer went to the Hotel Windsor, missing the couple by a matter of minutes. Next, he went to the local depot. There he spotted Sadie, wearing a black dress and a gray hat with a white feather, boarding a train as it was leaving the station.
When authorities arrested the couple, they remarked that Sadie looked "neatly and becomingly," and George looked dapper in a new suit.
Sadie admitted to stealing the money and turned over $701 to authorities, having spent $49 the night prior. Police brought the pair back to Springfield, where they appeared in Police Court on Monday morning, and the case continued on Tuesday.
Being held on a larceny charge, Sadie was released on $500 bail in October. The stolen money remained with the assistant marshal as a judge issued a temporary injunction forbidding the return of the alleged stolen money to Noonan until the claim against him by Kalmbach and Geisel (1876 – 1894) was resolved.
Kalmbach and Geisel, nicknamed "Comeback and Guzzle," was a brewery on Boston Road in Springfield (where MassMutual's corporate headquarters is today).
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| Kalmbach and Geisel |
George and Mary went before a grand jury in late November, and the case was continued after December 7.
J.T. Noonan was locked up for perjury in 1898. The following year, he petitioned the court for early release saying he served six months in jail, but his most significant punishment was not being able to vote.
Noonan died on June 20, 1939. He left his estate, not valued at more than $6,500, to his wife, Catherine.
Author's Notes:
The Windsor Hotel burned for hours in 1899. Around 12:15 a.m., the hotel's big tower at the corner of Dwight and Front streets came crashing down. Today, a parking garage sits on the site of the former hotel. Besse, Mills & Co. lost an estimated $30,000 - $40,000 worth of inventory.
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| Hotel Windsor circa 1891 |