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 ...

1901: Harmon A. Smith is born in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 12.  1932: Miller's Beach encourages Connecticut swimmers to enter its aquatic meet being held on June 19. Participants should send entries to John Pollard or Harmon Smith, c/o Miller's Beach, or call Southwick 77 and reverse the call.  1935 Ad 1935: The Young Democratic Club of South Windsor, Connecticut, holds its July meeting at Smith's Beach in Southwick, Massachusetts.  1936: Harmon Smith, the athletic coach at Agawam High School, purchases Smith's Beach. He previously rented the property for several years, containing about 38 acres of land and 1,500 feet of lakefront. (Smith started coaching in Agawam in 1924. He worked at Miller's Beach in Southwick and at the pool at Riverside Park.) 1937: Seven-year-old Evelyn Fennelly sustains severe injuries after being struck by an automobile while at Smith's Beach on June 13. She is taken to Noble Hospital for emergency treatment before being transfe...

A Brief History of Southwick Road Names Note:  When Southwick's Town Hall burned in 1868, it claimed most of its records; only a few survived. Berkshire Avenue -  Berkshire Avenue was named for the Berkshire Ice Company, which once owned all the lakefront property on the west shore of Congamond Lake from Point Grove Road to Congamond Road and down into South Pond. The renaming of a portion of Berkshire Avenue to "Curve Street" was approved during the annual town meeting on March 22, 1955. However, the change was short-lived when the town changed the name back to Berkshire Avenue during a special town meeting held on October 11, 1955.  College Highway -  College Highway was officially dedicated on May 22, 1923. Before it was College Highway, it was probably "Simsbury Road," as it was referenced on a deed of land dated 1824 that the Southwick Congregational Church sits on. It was also called Main Road. North of the village center, it was Westfield Road. South of t...

Originating from Boston's Logan Airport, Eastern Airlines Flight 663 provided regular domestic passenger service to Atlanta, Georgia, with scheduled stops in New York; Richmond, Virginia; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Greenville, South Carolina.  The Douglas DC-7B aircraft servicing the flight departed New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) on runway 31L at 6:20 p.m. with continuing service to Richmond's Byrd Field (today's Richmond International Airport) on Monday, February 8, 1965, with 79 passengers and five crew members aboard. (It was an otherwise perfect night for flying, the moon was blocked by a few clouds, temperature 46F.) The routine departure from JFK required the aircraft to complete a "Dutch Seven Instrument Departure," a standard takeoff procedure requiring a series of turns over the Atlantic Ocean to avoid flying over New York City. As it was preparing to hand Flight 663 over to the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (AR...

The South Longyard Plant  A federal Prohibition agent and two Massachusetts State Police officers descended on Luther Hosmer's farmhouse in the desolate part of the South Longyard section of Southwick at about 10:00 p.m. on April 27, 1928.  There, authorities smashed their way in and found a large-scale liquor operation, but not a soul around.  The manufacturing setup was so extensive that they dubbed it "The South Longyard Plant."  F. B. Arnold & Sons Tobacco Luther Hosmer had rented the property to others, perhaps tricked into thinking they would operate the farm. Instead, the so-called renters installed equipment, creating a plant capable of producing large amounts of alcohol, presumably for wholesale.  The plant was so complete that it took workers until late the next day to dismantle the equipment, which included: a 1000-gallon still, two 300-gallon and six 1200-gallon galvanized iron tanks, seventy-five tanks filled with the finished product, a large b...