From the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal, selected and lightly annotated by Lester Smith, Historian of the Town and the Suffield Historical Society.
June 1
With the opening of Riverside Park, the trouble with the Springfield end of the trolley service begins. Wednesday afternoon the service was very erratic and uncertain. At times there would be two or three cars from the Hartford end waiting at the terminus at Spencer’s corner [Main and Kent] and one car would come from Springfield [and vice versa. The two trolley companies had not yet merged.]
For the first time in several years the town of Suffield is out of debt, or will be on June 8, when the town notes will be paid. Town Treasurer Samuel R. Spencer says the town has money enough on hand to meet the expenses of the town until the close of the year, excepting the new concrete road from Dunn’s corner [on Mapleton Avenue] to the Thompsonville bridge, which was recently voted in a special town meeting. This will cost about $25,000 and if paid before the close of the year will show that much indebtedness.
Under a new law passed by the recent General Assembly, all highway bridges in the state must be made to sustain a load of eight tons.
The [Suffield] Chautauqua meetings will be held June 25 to 29, probably on the public school playgrounds.
June 12
The progress in tobacco transplanting is rather slow this season on account of the continued rainy weather. Some of the farmers have finished, but the farmers who grow the larger crops are still hustling when the sun does shine.
George M. Hendee has recently purchased three parcels of pasture land in what is known as the Buck Hill district. It consists of one piece of thirty-five acres belonging to Geo. Clark, one of twenty-two acres from Fred Clark and one of eleven acres from Will Clark.
June 22
The selectmen of Suffield and several of the surrounding towns in a recent conference have voted to request dealers in fireworks not to sell firecrackers and other explosives this year. . . . Many are of the opinion that this is not the year for public jollifications.
The bridges of the town have been put into shape in order to comply with the new law which goes into effect July 1. Many of the small bridges have been reinforced with concrete slabs from six to sixteen inches in thickness, which will be more durable than planking.
June 29
The West Suffield ladies, under the leadership of Mrs. Clinton Nelson, were the earliest to start the [war] relief work and have raised by various methods and personal gifts money enough to buy the materials and make some eight thousand surgical dressings, which have been sent to the front, and almost one thousand more, to go this week.
In Suffield Center the Red Cross work has been going on for several months under the supervision of Mrs. Samuel R. Spencer, who has opened her house one day each week for the Red Cross sewing and has transported the material and completed work from and to Hartford, the center of the work for Hartford county. Almost two thousand garments . . . have been made and returned to the central depot.
The milk dealers about town have decided to raise the price of milk July 1 and from that time the price will be ten cents per quart. This raise is said to be due to the continued high price of grain and feed and everything else that is used in the business.