Patrick Leonard was born in Ireland. He came to America and eventually settled in New Haven, Connecticut, where he worked for ice company Upson & Granniss.   In 1891, he traveled to Southwick, Massachusetts, to work on a new ice house his company was building. On July 26, Patrick was drinking heavily, as he was known to do. His son Thomas locked him in a hotel's shed, as he had done before, to stop him from drinking. About two hours later, the shed went up in flames. When the fire was out, folks found Patrick's charred remains among the glowing ruins of the shed. It is unclear how the fire started. Investigators first suspected Patrick's pipe caused the fire, but they found it some distance away from his body. The medical examiner ordered an inquest into Patrick's death. At a hearing on August 12, witness testimony removed all suspicion of foul play. The judge determined that smoking was more than likely the cause of the blaze. If you enjoyed this story, plea...

Walter Dobbins bought the Southwick Hotel (today's Southwick Inn) in 1884. Authorities arrested him on at least two occasions for illegal liquor sales.  Walter fell severely ill sometime around 1887-8. His recovery was slow, possibly prompting him to sell the Southwick Hotel to Henry Smith in February 1888. The $5,400 sale included the hotel, farm, outbuildings, and furnishings. Walter fully recovered and bought the Lake House, at Southwick Ponds, later that same year.   The Lake House The Lake House was located on Lake Road (today's Congamond Road), across from Saunders Boat Livery, about where the now-closed Franklin House is today. It was about a two-minute walk from the Congamond Station, eliminating the need to hire a carriage. The Lake House dates back to the late 1800s and was a charming and popular venue for its grand clambakes and other family-friendly events in its grove, which had a dance floor. However, the Lake House underwent a dramatic transformation. It was...

 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...

A. Waldron Miller 1895: A. Waldron Miller is born to Henry and Ida Miller in Suffield, Connecticut, on October 9. (Born Alvin "Allie" Waldron Miller). 1923: Henry Alvin Miller dies. (He was a charter member of Southwick Grange and had one of the finest collections of Indian relics in Connecticut.) c. 1924: A. Waldron Miller radically transforms his family's massive lakefront property into a popular tourist destination, Miller's Beach.  1926: Miller's Beach starts a new advertising campaign announcing the opening of their new water toboggan and bathing pavilion; the campaign also touts Miller's as the safest of all Congamond beaches. Florence Luke of Thompsonville, Connecticut, is struck when a rider in a toboggan behind her crashes into her while riding down the popular incline water coaster off Miller's Beach in August. (Luke obtains prominent lawyer Samuel Sisisky to represent her in her $10,000 suit against Miller's Beach, which accuses slide owner ...

The ice in 1913 was of excellent quality and unusually clear. But, the harvest could have been better, and, when combined with increased shrinkage due to warmer weather that summer, the price of ice jumped. This caused Berkshire Ice to consider moving their operation to someplace with extended cold weather - like Maine.  The ice proved far better at the start of the cutting season in January 1914, when it measured 10 to 12 inches thick. The season, however, was cut short when unseasonably warm weather forced Berkshire Ice to temporarily suspend operations on January 29.  Berkshire Ice bought electric ice cutters for the 1916 ice harvesting season. The company expected the machines to maximize production while reducing costs; however, when they tested them in January, they found that their men cut much faster, so they returned them. That same month, about 40 unorganized workers - demanding a twenty-five cent per day increase - went on strike. Fearing trouble, Berkshire Ice call...

After harvesting a meager 57,000 tons of ice in 1906, Berkshire Ice was desperate to get ice wherever it could. Allowing for shrinkage, they could only offer about 33,000 tons for sale, which caused the wholesale price of ice to jump from $1.50 a ton to a staggering $4. The low supply of ice, expected to run out in mid-September, combined with warm weather temperatures, forced Berkshire Ice to turn away new customers. That same year the Congamond Ice Company of Suffield, Connecticut, deeded land to Berkshire Ice, who built a new ice house.  The following year was no picnic for Berkshire Ice, whose newly built Congamond ice house, the largest of its kind in New England, burned on July 1. In addition to destroying the mammoth ice house, the fire consumed a large quantity of machinery, 75,000 tons of ice, and around forty train cars, the latter owned by Consolidated Railroad. Southwick lacked a fire apparatus, so a bucket brigade formed, which saved a cottage, a couple of boarding hou...

The Knickerbocker Ice Company of New York sent a gang of men to Southwick Ponds in January 1871 to harvest ice for the New York market, primarily New York City. Workers loaded the ice directly into train cars on the Canal Railroad's New Haven line, which had recently added a new turnout to the ponds. Knickerbocker paid the railroad $900 per week for freight service, the ice crop being so good it was worth the expense. Once the ice arrived in New Haven, laborers placed it on the company's barges for transport to New York City. Knickerbocker took some 400 tons of ice from Southwick Ponds daily, equivalent to roughly 40 train cars per day. (Previously, Knickerbocker utilized the Boston and Albany Railroad and transported ice to the City via the Hudson River.) Knickerbocker built an ice house with the capacity of storing 50,000 tons of ice on a 15-acre tract at the south end of Southwick Ponds in 1874. It was called the Railroad Ice House. (The New Haven and Northampton Railroad pu...