USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Holyoke > Holyoke old and new : a chronological history together with an account of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the incorporation of Holyoke, Massachusetts as a city : 1873-1923 > Part 3
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At the beginning the Ashley Reservoir alone was sufficient to provide for all demands; the Whiting Street, Manhan, High Service and White Reservoirs being later constructed as necessity required until now there is a storage capacity in all the reservoirs of about three billion gallons.
The total drainage area of land surfaces con- tributing to the reservoirs is 17.52 square miles and the area of water surfaces of all the reservoirs is 93/100 of a square mile.
All the land immediately surrounding the reser- voirs and a large part of the drainage area, amount- ing to about 3,500 acres, has been purchased and is held by the department to preserve the purity of the supply.
A policy of reforestation has been adopted and several hundred thousand pine and spruce trees have been planted. The underbrush has been cut away and roadways constructed so that the reservoirs and surroundings present the appearance of a series of parks which are open to citizens of Holyoke and used by them for pleasure driving.
The Whiting Street Reservoir, with its pictur- esque setting, hemmed in by green trees, nestled at the foot of stately Mount Tom, has often been com- pared with the renowned lakes of Switzerland.
From a village of ten thousand inhabitants fifty years ago Holyoke has grown to be a city of over sixty five thousand to-day with its greatest rate of growth in the earlier years. So great was the rate of growth between 1880 and 1890 that although a new 16-inch Main had been laid from the Whiting Street
HOLYOKE?
OLD and NEW
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
Reservoir in 1884 a new additional 16-inch Main was required to be laid in 1886. The capacity of these main feeders was sufficient until the year 1900 when a 24-inch Main was laid from Ashley Reservoir to the corner of Maple and Dwight Streets.
The continued growth of the city together with the large increase in the quantity of water used for industrial purposes requires now that another main feeder be laid from the reservoirs and the Department is this year laying a 24-inch Main from Ashley Res- ervoir to Hitchcock Street.
When the High Service Reservoir was put in oper- ation in 1906 the Distribution System was divided into the High Service and Low Service Districts thereby furnishing satisfactory pressure to the high- er sections of the city in Elmwood and the Highlands.
The Distribution Mains of the Gridiron System are of good size and well arranged and the average pressure throughout the city is 79 lbs. The reser- voirs, supply and distribution mains, hydrants and other appurtenances of the Department are so sat- isfactory to the Insurance Underwriters that it is given as one of the principal reasons why Holyoke ranks with few cities in the State having the lowest rates for insurance.
In the early days of the Department the charges for water averaged about the same as the rates in other cities and towns in this vicinity but in recent years they have been greatly reduced, so that now Holyoke has the lowest water rates in the State and lower rates can be found in only a few places in the whole of the country.
The Department is managed by an unpaid Commission of three members, one of whom is elect- ed by the Board of Aldermen each year for a term of three years. In the past fifty years twenty three citizens have served as members of the Board of Water Commissioners, and their tenure of office has ranged from one to six terms. The average length of service on the Board for each member elected is over seven yars.
The total cost of the water works to date is $1,- 996,000 and the system could probably not be dupli- cated for less than three and one half million dol- lars. The net debt at the present time is about $183,- 000 which is only 9% of its total cost. This small debt is one of the main reasons why The Holyoke Water Department is able to sell water at such low rates, because, while it has always kept in advance of the needs of its consumers, it is not staggering under the burden of debt contracted for unwise de- velopments as so often happens.
The water supply of Holyoke is now a model one. There is an abundance of pure, wholesome water for all the needs of the present, and plans have been definitely made to met the requirements of the future.
Skillful handling of the department's finances have made it practically free from debt. While Nature has been kind to the Water Department in providing such excellent sources of supply, so conviently located, yet it should generally be admitted that it stands to- day a lasting monument to the wisdom, energy, in- tegrity and skill of those who have had it in charge.
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF WATERS COMMISSIONERS AND OFFICERS OF THE HOLYOKE WORKS FROM THE COMMENCEMENT WATER COMMISSIONERS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WORKS W. B. C. Pearsons, John Delaney, John E. Chase, Dennis Higgins, Joel Russell, L. P. Bosworth.
WATER COMMISSIONERS ELECTED BY CITY GOVERNMENT
J. P. Buckland, 1874 to 1877; Dennis Higgins, 1874 to 1876; James G. Smith, 1874 to 1878; Jeremiah A. Sullivan, 1876 to 1891; James F. Allyn, 1877 to 1886; C. H. Heywood, 1878 to 1880; Timothy Merrick, 1881 to 1887; Maurice Lynch, 1886 to 1892; and 1901 to 1902; Moses Newton 1887 to 1893; James J. Curran, 1891 to 1896; Martin P. Conway, 1892 to 1898;
Charles D. Colson, 1893 to 1900; John J. Sullivan, 1896 to 1905; Thomas F. Greaney, 1898 to 1901; Joseph A. Skinner, 1900 to 1903; Arthur M. French, 1902 to 1907; Michael J. Doyle, 1905 to 1911; Jesse E. Sheldon, 1909 to 1918; Thomas J. Lynch, 1911 to 1914; Joseph F. Ranger, 1916 to 1919; Hugh McLean, 1903 to 1909 and 1914 to date; Thomas J. Carmody, 1907 to 1916 and 1919 to date; James H. Dillon 1918 to date.
OFFICERS OF THE HOLYOKE WATER WORKS
SUPERINTENDENTS MOSES STEVENS JOHN D. HARDY JOHN J. KIRKPATRICK PATRICK GEAR
ENGINEERS SHEDD AND SAWYER E. C. DAVIS E. A. ELLSWORTH JAMES L. TIGHE PATRICK J. LUCEY
HOLYOKEEROLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
The Farr Alpaca Company
H OLYOKE'S largest industry, the Farr Alpaca Company, came into existance in 1873-the same year that the city was incorporated, and so the two organizations, which for half a century have meant so much to each other, celebrate their Golden Anni- versary together.
While the Farr Alpaca produces about 70 miles of lining and dress goods each day, employs several thousand people and pays the highest wages of any textile factory in the world, any adequate conception of it must view it as an institution rather than a mere mill. From a textile standpoint it gained dis- tinction early. When but two years old (1875), it was awarded first prize in competition against exhib- itors from all parts of the world for the finest goods in its line at the Centennial Exposition. Incidentally it is worthy of mention that the judge was a Bradford, England, man, and his city was, and is yet, the home of the Farr's most active competition.
The fifty years just passed has been a period of continued and rapid growth of the concert . It has been expanding all the time. This year it is complet- ing a 75,000 spindle cotton plant, which is two or three times the size of the ordinary new cotton mill, and is also replacing its power plant at a cost of a million dollars. The Farr Alpaca can hardly be described in statistics for there is a spirit of accom- plishment and of human interest interwoven with all its affairs that cannot fail to grip and hold the atten- tion of an observer, even though he may be a mere casual one.
It has often been said that the history of the Farr Alpaca Company reads like a romance. The reason is that from the beginning, the owners have aimed to give everyone connected with them all the opportunity the business could stand. Everyone so connected has caught the same spirit and in turn has done his or her best to make the Farr the great success it has been.
This policy was part of the original plans of Herbert M. Farr and Joseph Metcalf as they talked over the advisability of removing Mr. Farr's small factory from Hespeler, Ontario, to some live American town and expanding. It was the good fortune of Holyoke that the Farr came here and vice versa. Mutuality in all dealings has, in fact, been the great secret of the concern's progress.
All of the original officers of the company who met and held the first election, in what is now the Hotel Hamilton on November 3, 1873, have passed away, but the policies formulated at that time were so intrinsically sound that there has never been any deviation from them, except as added emphasis has made them stand out more prominently.
Joseph Metcalf lived to see many of his theories, far in advance of his generation, prove true. His outstanding idea was that the one who contributed capital to an industry and the one who contributed labor and effort to the same enterprise had a like financial interest in the earnings. Such a proposi- tion was almost revolutionary fifty years ago but Joseph Metcalf finally put it in practical operation
HOLYOKE
OLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
THE FOUNDERS OF THE FARR ALPACA COMPANY
HERBERT M. FARR
JOSEPH METCALF
THE FIRST MILL OF THE FARR ALPACA COMPANY
with such success that the workers on January 27, 1915, wrote him as follows: "The employees of the company believe this is one of the most important steps which has ever been taken in this country to solve the relations between capital and labor." That
letter was written after a year's trial and adopted at a formal meeting of the workers. The plan has always been continued and is so simple that it may be explained in a moment -- a man who contributes a hundred dollars in labor has aided the firm to the
HOLYOKEKROLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
A COMPOSITE PICTURE OF THE MILLS OF THE FARR ALPACA COMPANY
same extent as has the one who has put in one hun- dred dollars in capital and, so, is entitled to a divi- dend at the same rate.
The second generation of Farr Alpaca managers has not been content to simply keep up the innova- tions of its predecessors who have passed on. They have applied similar principles to new situations which the advance of the times have brought about.
No detail is too small to be overlooked. In the new mill just being outfitted even the color of paint for the machines is selected after a careful study of what shade will best give the operator correct light and least eye strain. It is little wonder that it has gained the reputation of being one of the best con- cerns in the country for a worker to be associated with.
"We have the finest group of working people in the country right here at the Farr," said Frank H. Metcalf, General Manager and Treasurer, when the auditorium which the company has provided for re- creational purposes was opened up with a great family party of all the executives, employees and their fam-
ilies .. The mutual regard is striking.
It is the most natural thing that 4000 people making 750 kinds of cloth, with some times as high as 100 shades in each kind, and using 142 different processes in the making represent a great variety of tastes, inclinations and abilities, which has develop- ed into a social structure centered about the industry in which all in common gain a livelihood. Common needs could not fail to arise among such a large mass of people.
Careful study of the conditions has been made to see where the greatest amount of encouragement could be given to this social feeling. Whenever a practical means of gaining a common advantage has been found it has been placed in operation regardless of the expense.
The greatest source of loss to the wage worker is ill health. This is a matter in which prevention is the most practical factor. Most of the serious sickness arises from neglect of simple ailments which if treated in time are generally curable and leave no serious results. For this reason the Farr Alpaca
HOLYOKE BAOLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
has established its dispensary work with a physician, a dentist, a number of nurses and a thoroughly equip- ped hospital so that any employee can secure prompt medical aid at any moment during the hours of employment.
One of the largest insurance companies in the country was asked to plan the Farr hospital arrange- ments and given a free hand to put in every feature which their experience with sickness and accident cases would dictate. The only restriction, if it be a restriction, placed on the installation was that the outfit must be a model and so complete that no detai; would be found lacking.
The arrangements here exceed in completeness that of any industrial plant in the Eastern States. As a matter of fact, only one other plant in the United States can match it.
As the mills are separated on different streets two hospitals were provided instead of one. Each was made complete with waiting room, operating and examination rooms, doctor's office, nurses' office, den- tist's office with full equipment and its own waiting room, and all the smaller rooms fitted with all the equipment which a high grade hospital would have.
A visiting nurse is also employed to call upon employees in their homes and recommend medical attention when necessary. By this system the period of disability is greatly reduced.
The treatment in these offices is not confined to emergency but to general prevention of sickness and the avoidance of the spread of contagion. A special interest is taking in fighting tuberculosis from the inception of the trouble.
What is good enough for the directors of the company is good enough for the operatives in the mills, so when a school was first organized for the benefit of any of the employees who were handicapped
by a poor knowledge of the English language the directors' room was used for the purpose.
For the purely social side of life, the employees have a meeting place provided in the auditorium capable of seating an audience of 2000. It has a stage with extremely effective scenery for dramatics. Basketball is a favorite winter pastime with the Alpaca people and the auditorium floor has seen some of the best games ever played in the city. There has also been a great variety of entertainments put on by the mill talent. Everything has been of the highest grade. Of course, the auditorium floor is used for dancing and used often.
It is always the employees of the Farr Alpaca who conduct these affairs. The word employee means everyone from the president to the yard hands. There is no social distinction or patronizing of anyone or of any group.
While all the expenses of fitting up and main- taining the building are met by the company, the actual charge of the structure is in the hands of the Falco Athletic Association which has one director from each department in the mills. These directors elect an executive committee of five who have the responsibility of seeing that all get every proper opportunity to use and enjoy the auditorium for entertainments planned by any group of the employes. One night perhaps the weavers may have a dance, the next night the girls will play basketball, while a concert is held another evening by the spinners. An excellent band has been developed from the musical talent among the Farr people.
Athletic sports are encouraged and the company maintains a splendid out-of-door field for the events. This gives their organization an advantage which no other plant in the city enjoys, but there has been no selfishness about the field and others have often been given opportunity to make use of it.
HOLYOKE
BOLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
FRANK H. METCALF Treasurer & General Manager
A rest room and community house, fitted out equally as well as many clubs, is open each day from eight o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night for all employed at the plant.
Joseph Lofthouse of Greystone, R. I., an expert on general textile conditions recently wrote as fol- lows: "This company (The Farr Alpaca) has done more for the city of Holyoke than any other firm in many ways. Its wage rate is the highest in the world. Its general treatment of its help has been exceptionally good, and its interest in the welfare of its three thousand employees is one of the best. I
have yet to hear of a single complaint of ill-treatment of any textile worker in this great plant." This concise opinion from an expert tells a great story in a few words.
The Farr Alpaca Company has an authorized capital of $14,400,000. Its officers are E. W. Chapin, president ; Edward P. Bagg, vice-president; Edward J. Meacham, clerk; Frank H. Metcalf, treasurer ; Addison L. Green, assistant treasurer ; Howard F. Metcalf, agent. Directors : Edward W. Chapin, Edward P. Bagg, Frank H. Metcalf, Addison L. Green, Henry C. Martin, Joseph A. Skinner and Dr. Frank A. Woods.
HOLYOKE BROLD and NEW
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
INTRODUCTION TO CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY
MAYOR CRONIN (RIGHT) AND GEORGE F. PEARSONS, SON OF HOLYOKE'S FIRST MAYOR.
Holyoke, the busy industrial city of today, is the result of natural facilities combined with far-sighted plans originated by its founders. Probably this could be said of many American cities, but at the same time it is not altogether the expression of a generality.
The Connecticut River has played an important part in the development of Holyoke, even before the white man came here. The Indians had for untold generations taken advantage of the unique location where the "Great Falls" made quantity fishing an easy matter and the meadows, kept treeless by the annual rise of the river, offered fertile soil and sun- shine to grow the crops of maize. It was nothing less than the Indians' invitation to share these ad- vantage that brought the first white visitors from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
From the day they arrived the modern history of Holyoke began to be written. It has all been woven about the river. Gradually the interests of the com- munity have entirely changed. At least four distinet periods in development, each stage to a certain extent overlapping the other, have passed. The fishing set- tlement, the farming community, the mill village and the busy city have each followed in line.
A work of this scope cannot go into the details of such vast changes. Even the public records fail to reveal anything like a true picture of the life of an era gone by. The writing merely notes the result of formal action of the mass of the early community but the individual habits, hopes and fears, loves and hates, ambitions and despairs, of the men and women who toiled and builded for the generation of today can only be brought back in the imagination. Their conditions of life seem hard and comfortless to us but that cannot in the least dimminish the enjoyment of those who found the past satisfactory. It should, however, make us more apreciative of the heritage those who went before handed down as a result of their labors.
Changes once made can never be undone. This natural principle is as fixed in conditions of life as it is in material objects, but it often requires expen- sive experiments to prove it. There was an example of this after the City of Holyoke was incorporated and many thought all that was necessary to still have the primitive fishing village exist besides the modern mills was to have a "fish way" in the dam. The state expended many thousands of dollars in the construc- tion. The dedication of the way was a most formal
HOLYOKE
AOLD and NEW
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
WINDARE NOTEL
DWIGHT STREET AS OF OLD SHOWING WINDSOR HALL IN FOREGROUND.
affair. But the fish failed to come. A past era and the present cannot mix. They may overlap for a time which is marked by fierce opposition to the new in most cases.
Far seeing pioneers often fail to reap the reward of their foresight, and their own day is quite apt to use force, or at least force of law, to prevent inno- vations. Holyoke has its enecdotes of this kind and some seem almost beyond belief now. The first man to actually believe in the industrial future of the city served a long term of imprisonment for obstructing the river to the damage of the fisheries by building a dam.
The rapid changes made in the development of the American States staggers comprehension when the short time in which it has been accomplished is considered.
Holyoke's steady growth is not apparently unique until the fact is brought to mind that hundreds of New England Communities, once prosperous and promising, have faded away before the march of time.
As the early natural advantages failed to longer serve new needs no way of fitting them to conditions unforeseen were found.
The period following the Civil War made a great change in New England. Transportation facilities became the key to future progress. Many commun- ities possessing excellent water powers saw their in- dustries close and move to points more convenient to the world market. Not so with Holyoke, for that period was one of growth and prosperity for her. It was the time when the country village became the city. The reason was in no small part its location, convenient for getting in touch with markets for both supply and distribution.
The bold plan of the Hadley Falls Company which included buying 1100 acres of land where the city now stands, building a dam and locating the canal system, a work begun in 1848, has been an influence too great to be calculated. Probably no locality in this country had seen a scheme to build a city involving so much engineering and far reach-
HOLYOKEKROLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
ing possibilities undertaken. It worked out to almost perfection from the standpoint of the community for it produced the compact city, provided it with the sinews of industry and so knit together the varied interests that the whole could act almost as a unit when occasion required. At the same time it left all free and independent while following natural inclinations in intellectual and spiritual undertak- ings, which have built up a great number of institu- tions to serve the general needs.
It is fitting to recall these former times but any detail about them must be left to the specialist- that man in the community whose hobby is collecting data regarding the past of institutions he is interested in. Every locality has its scholars of this kind, learn- ed in the lore of that community-Holyoke has several such persons who have done their work with pains- taking care.
Holyoke of today, the city producing a large share of the world's fine writing paper, various fabrics,
PARFITT FURNITURE CO.
FRAZIER'S BATTERY SERVICE
Repairing
New Batteries
Decharges of dl wakes
DWIGHT STREET OF 1923-LOOKING WEST.
HOLYOKE PUBLIC LIBRARY
HOLYOKE EROLD and NEW FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
AWILLARDEUY
LOOKING NORTHEAST FROM CITY HALL TOWER IN THE OLD DAYS.
machinery and hundreds of articles used in everyday life, is the principal consideration of a work of this kind. The various manufacturers and dealers in every kind of commodities can tell their own story better than any author for they know their subject better. A large part of this work is devoted to narra- tives of this kind. Call them advertisements if you will and no objection will be made. They do seek
to sell goods as the story is told but that is very proper-for they intend Holyoke shall continue to grow and to do that it must seek new markets and further develop old ones. Nothing in literature em- bodies such an amount of life as a well written adver- tisement-it deals with facts only, displays ambitions and aims to connect the material interests of the author and reader.
and NEW
HOLYOKEKROLD FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
1873 1923
CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY
Nestling 'neath the sheltering shoulder of the Mt. Tom Range, in a fertile valley through which courses the Connecticut River, lies the picturesque city of Holyoke, "The Hub of the Paper Industry." Situated on the west bank of the river with its tre- mendous water power, Holyoke has utilized this nat- ural resource to rise from a practically unknown town to the premier paper city and a marvel of the indus- trial world, within the short span of seventy-three years.
Looking backward through the years, previous to 1850 when Holyoke became a town, few of the incidents which add color to a historical review, are to be gleaned. The retrospective glance of the delver of far years reaches to the portal, slightly ajar, of the tomb of early history. By peering closely through the aperture, it is possible to pierce the heavy veil
of obscurity and percieve, not the colorful or roman- tic life which we would associate with these early years, but rather the rugged, plodding life of the hardy pioneer who went dogmaticaly about his work of laying the foundation for the Holyoke of today, the while he was harrassed from ambush by the red- skin. Crafts Tavern, formerly Miller's Inn, on Northampton Street, which served as the post office for Ireland Parish in the settlement days is the sole landmark and was recently purchased by the city to be preserved as a museum.
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