Selected from the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal and
lightly annotated by Wendy Taylor of Kent Memorial Library.
February 6
One of the sixty present at the [annual] meeting [of the stock-holders of the Suffield-Berlin Trap Rock Company] said that the company has spent $800,000 since 1913 without producing any apparent profit, and [a] stockholders’ circular, besides furnishing the information that the stockholders’ committee had been denied access to the company’s books because it was inconvenient, hinted that the directors had paid dividends out of the capital stock of the company.
The home of States Attorney H. M. Alcorn on South Main street was damaged by fire… The roof was burned off and the interior badly damaged by chemicals and water used to quench the flames. The fire was discovered while the family was at dinner and a still alarm was immediately telephoned to the fire headquarters…The firemen had a hard fight to save the house…
Mrs. C. C. Bissell, who is spending the winter in Hartford, offered her home across the street from the Alcorn place, to the family for the winter. Mr. Alcorn and family are at present at The Heublein, Hartford.
William J. Jones, who left Suffield in 1914 to join the regular army, arrived in town this week, for the first time since leaving…He was with the Fifteenth Infantry Regulars, and has seen three and one-half years’ service in China.
Ford’s Wabeek Springs of this place has been incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, for the manufacture and sale of soft drinks and beverages…The company will specialize on Wabeek ginger ale and do business on a national scale.
February 13
The [recent] snow storm… proved to be the most severe for a number of years. Roads in some sections of the town were filled with drifts six or eight feet deep and trolley and steam trains were hampered and put out of business all over the state…To make matters worse, teams and trucks were obliged to use the trolley tracks and packed snow and ice about the rails so that it had to be loosened with pickaxes the entire length of the line…
The main town roads have been pretty well broken out…The state secured the teams of the American Sumatra Tobacco Co., which cleared out the trunk line from Windsor to the state line.
H. M. Alcorn, prosecuting attorney for Hartford county, has been selected by Attorney-General Palmer to conduct the government prosecution in the case of Dr. Edward A. Rumely and others, accused of concealing their purchase of the New York Evening Mail for the alleged purpose of aiding Germany in the war…It is probable that the trial will last several weeks, and is likely to involve prominent people in all parts of this country, as well as high officials in the former Imperial German government.
The epidemic of grip in this town does not seem to be abating.
Upon complaint of the state board of education, five Polish residents of the town were summoned to appear in court Wednesday to answer to the charge of neglecting to send their children, between the ages of 6 and 10 years, to school…The state board of education is determined to have the law in regard to school attendance enforced and more prosecutions are liable to follow.
Two tobacco sheds belonging to Edwin S. Seymour of Boston Neck were crushed in by the weight of snow and ice on the roof this week.
February 20
William L. Finley, state biologist of Oregon, will lecture under the auspices of the Suffield Fish and Game Association and the Windsor Locks Gun Club.
The Suffield fire department will give an old-fashioned dance in the Town Hall Wednesday evening.