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...

Sixteen-year-old Anna "Annie" Rossetti was playing the piano in the dance hall inside the Pine Tree Inn when she heard sounds resembling gunshots just after 6:00 PM on August 27, 1940. She went outside and found Joseph Guisepee Fasoli moaning in pain as he lay face down in the chicken yard behind the inn. Thinking Joseph had taken ill, Annie went and summoned Dr. Samuel Finsen.  Pine Tree Inn Advertisement (1955) Joseph Fasoli owned the Pine Tree Inn with Annie's father, Angelo Rosetti.  The two men had immigrated to the United States from Italy. Angelo, who served in World War I, was recovering from a recent operation at a veteran's hospital. Upon Dr. Finsen's arrival, Joseph Fasoli was dead. Seeing gunshot wounds, Dr. Finsen called for the medical examiner, who concluded that the death resulted from being shot twice in the back (under the left shoulder) at close range.  Since they had a murder on their hands, Constable Joseph Morehouse contacted the Massachusett...

 "1800 House" Edward Harris of Brooklyn, New York, was a chauffeur for noted New York City interior designer David Laurence Roth who owned a country home in Granville, Massachusetts. The home, which Roth used on the weekends, was known as the "1800 House." He purchased it on September 9, 1963, and furnished it in its original 19th-century style. In the sloping backyard was an in-ground pool hidden behind some bushes and trees. Roth also owned the antique shop in the barn next door. Edward, his fiancée, Mrs. Carolyn Agnew, and her two children, Raymond and Roland, were at the estate on hot, steamy July 19, 1977. They reportedly stopped there on their way back to New York City from vacation. Trying to escape the soaring mercury, the two boys, who could not swim, were in the shallow end of the pool along with an unidentified boy, believed to be nine years old. Sometime between 3:30 p.m. and 4:45 p.m., Roland slipped into the deep end, and seeing he was in trouble, his ...

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...