Selected from the pages of the Windsor Locks Journal and lightly annotated by Wendy Taylor, Kent Memorial Library
April 7
Andrew Wiedke has bought the Edwin Sheldon farm in West Suffield consisting of over two hundred acres, partly in this town and partly in East Granby.
April 14
The state police paid a flying visit to this town last Friday and cleaned up all the illicit distilleries – that they visited. Henry Phillips of Mapleton was visited and a 30-gallon still and a quantity of the manufactured product and a quantity of mash seized.
Stanley Mitazek and Stanley Badnalz, who own a grocery store on Depot street, were also raided and a quart bottle and two jugs of moonshine were seized.
They were brought before Justice Howard D. Sikes Monday and Phillips pleaded guilty and was fined $200 and costs, a total of $248.48, and a jail sentence of thirty days. The jail sentence was suspended on the promise that he would make moonshine no more.
Mitazek and Badnalz were fined $100 each. A jail sentence of thirty days was suspended. The total fines amounted to $739.05.
It is rumored that there are one or two more stills left in town yet, in fact it has been claimed that the mild winter has been due to the vapor from the stills.
It was voted that from now on no building shall be built within 100 feet of any highway in the town of Suffield, without first applying for permission to the town plan committee.
Dr. Albert B. Meredith, state commissioner of education, will speak at the Town hall…Dr. Meredith will speak on “What kind of an education should boys and girls have after completing the first six grades of the elementary school.”
The uncompleted hotel building on the corner of Main and Depot streets was sold at auction last Saturday afternoon to Thomas C. McKone of Hartford for $15,000.
April 21
The thermometer… registered 26 above zero, and ice formed during the night to the thickness of a quarter of an inch. It is feared that some of the early fruit buds have been damaged and many of the growers who have their tobacco beds made were wondering this morning whether or not the work would have to be done over again. A minstrel show for the benefit of the Emergency Aid Association has been arranged and will probably be given some time next month.
The Woman’s Reading Club will entertain their husbands and those who have assisted at the musicals, at a supper to be given in the vestry of the Second Baptist church.
Dog taxes are due and payable on or before May 1, and delinquents will be assessed $1 extra for failure to pay before the first.
April 28
A few bottles of liquor belonging to the estate of the late Seymour Loomis of New Haven were stolen from the cellar of the Norton place on Main street last Friday night. Entrance was gained by boring holes in the south door of the house large enough to admit the hand of the burglar and the lock turned. The break was discovered by Andrew Patterson and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Paterson when they went into their cellar Saturday morning and found the door between the cellars broken down.
Daylight saving time, so called, will go into effect Sunday in the surrounding towns to conform to railroad time tables and mails. This town, however, will run on standard time.
The Suffield Masonic Club will observe “Ladies’ Night” Saturday evening. Charles R. Latham will give a short talk, illustrated by pictures taken on a recent fishing trip.