USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Warwick > Warwick, Massachusetts; biography of a town, 1763-1963 > Part 16
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It was soon after their arrival that the old Inn had a hair- breadth escape from destruction. No one knows the cause of the fire that broke out in the barn before dawn. A tramp had been seen around the village in the evening, and many suspected he had spent the night in the barn. Be that as it may, the Ford Model-T State fire truck performed at its best under the hands of the town volunteers. It succeeded in retarding the advance of the fire, as first the barn and then the dance hall adjoining the Inn were consumed. Help was summoned from both the Orange and Athol fire departments, and their opportune arrival saved the old Inn when many had abandoned hope.
The Malouins rebuilt the dance hall, and a costume ball was held as a dedication. The old Inn now settled down to the most
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tranquil period in its long life. Mr. and Mrs. Malouin proved to be extremely well qualified to conduct the Inn in a manner that won the approval of all. Mrs. Malouin was gifted with a pleasing personality that made her a popular hostess. After a few years they were joined by her daughter Violet with her young son, Albert Milne. Together with the occasional help of Mrs. Mal- ouin's sisters, affectionately known by the town as Aunt Martha Campbell and Aunt Barbara Sackett, the Inn became a decided asset to the town.
After the death of Mrs. Malouin in 1945 her daughter, then Mrs. Violet Edson, continued to operate the Inn until her death in 1960. Today her son Albert, his wife Letitia and their children carry on. Thus the old tavern has enjoyed one family ownership for 35 years.
Now the country was entering upon a period of years that was heralded by the stock market crash of 1929. The Depression of the 1930's had little immediate effect on the town. Most of the inhabitants still earned their livelihood within the town. With the coming of the Roosevelt administration and the New Deal, the agencies created to solve or relieve the unemployment situation extended to Warwick.
Orville W. Cole was appointed Works Progress Administrator and with the cooperation of the selectmen a number of projects were created to provide three days' work per week for those unemployed who were qualified. The projects consisted mainly of road work and the cutting of brush along the roadsides. The town provided the necessary trucks, tools and materials, but the labor was paid by Federal funds. The W.P.A., as it was called, continued to provide work for a varying number of men as late as 1941. It was discontinued with the business revival brought on by the war.
One of the problems created by the Depression consisted of the ever-increasing number of unemployed men who had no legal residence and were therefore classed as vagrants. In order to provide subsistence for these men, and remove them from the streets and the ranks of the unemployed, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration conceived the plan of placing them in
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work camps. Warwick, with its acres of State land, was a logical site for such a camp.
When the town became aware of the plan to build a "Tran- sient Camp," as it was soon called, many expressed concern for the safety of the women and children. As a result Major Thomas Quinn, in whose charge the camp was placed, appeared before an open meeting of the Grange to allay their fears. He explained that the camp was to be built on the Richmond road, east of Richards reservoir. It would accommodate 200 men and would be staffed with army reserve officers. No criminals would be placed there, and the men would not be free to visit the village or to roam the countryside. They were not prisoners and would be free to leave. Transportation would be provided to give them occasional supervised liberty in Athol.
The camp was built in 1934 and it continued to operate for three years. It is true that the town did not experience any serious trouble with the men. However there was no evidence that the town, the State or the Federal Government ever received bene- ficial labor for the money expended. Apparently the government found some other method to cope with its transient unemployed because the camp closed down long before the Depression ended.
In 1937 a number of engineers engaged in revising the Federal Geodetic maps took over the camp as a base from which to operate. These engineers occupied what now was called the Geodetic Survey Camp for about one year.
In 1935, one year after the Transient Camp was established, the Federal Government located two Civilian Conservation Corps Camps within the borders of the town. These camps were de- signed to give employment to the thousands of young men and boys who had completed their education only to find there were no jobs available to them. These boys, placed in charge of army reserve officers and under the direction of foresters, were to work on many projects. Most of these were to conserve our natural resources, particularly our forests. Water holes were made and roads built to aid in fighting forest fires. Picnic areas were devel- oped and similar projects proved that in the C.C.C. Camps the nation reaped many benefits.
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The first Camp, officially numbered 1153 but better known as the Northfield Camp, was located on White Road where the old Stevens tannery had stood, about three-quarters of a mile east of the Northfield line.
Camp Number 1155 was commonly called the Beech Hill Camp and this one was located on both sides of Gale Road at the corner of the Beech Hill road.
The camps each had four barrack buildings to house 50 men, an officers' quarters, recreation building, a dining hall and kit- chen, a washroom and laundry, a small hospital, and garages with a repair shop. The camps were conducted on a semimilitary basis but no military training was allowed. No difficulties ever arose between the town and the camps, and their presence was welcomed by the townspeople.
Abnormal rains fell upon Warwick and the surrounding towns in March, 1936. The Federal recording station in Warwick measured the total rainfall from March 12 to March 21 at 8.66 inches, of which 2.92 inches fell in one day. In addition to this rainfall nearly three feet of snow lay on the frozen ground. Brooks became raging rivers, roads and bridges were swept away and rivers rose over their banks to flood the low-lying sections of the towns causing tremendous property damage. The Millers River was nine and three-quarters feet above its normal height at the fire station in Orange. Athol, Orange and Winchester, New Hampshire, were all badly flooded. All highway travel between Warwick and the surrounding towns was stopped for two days until temporary repairs could be made where bridges were dam- aged.
The C.C.C. Camps were of great assistance in bringing con- ditions back to normal, and gradually the town recovered. Plans were discussed as to steps that the Government should take to prevent a recurrence of the disaster but time soon dulled the memory, funds were not made available and so actually nothing was done.
By 1938 the Federal Government found that two C.C.C. Camps with another in Erving were more than were necessary, and the Beech Hill Camp was closed down. The boys scarcely
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had left when disaster struck again in a manner undreamed of that was to eclipse all previous disasters.
Starting Saturday night, September 17, with a heavy shower and following it up Sunday afternoon with more rain, there developed what appeared to be a line storm. This storm con- tinued through Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. At 4:30 P.M. Wednesday, September 21, the hurricane broke with no warning, and continued until after eight o'clock. Winds reached a velocity of 100 miles an hour, and the official rainfall measured at Warwick's station was 10.76 inches. This tremen- dous rainfall had saturated and softened the ground to such an extent that, when the winds struck, the trees were easily uprooted. The high water experienced in the flood of 1936 was surpassed when the Millers River reached a height of 12 feet six inches above normal, exceeding the previous flood by three feet.
Warwick's loss was confined mostly to wind damage from the hurricane. A tremendous amount of work had to be done first to clear the roads of fallen trees. Crews of electric power and telephone companies from New York and New Jersey rushed into the area to help the local companies restore service. The fal- len timber placed a tremendous problem on the Federal Govern- ment because of the brief time the timber would be on the ground before worms and decay would make it worthless. Both the loss of this timber and the financial loss to the owner must be kept to a minimum, so the government created the New England Timber Salvage Administration to take charge of the situation.
Sawmills were induced to come into the area and five were set up in Warwick. Two of these came from New Jersey and one from West Virginia. These mills were able to saw all the fal- len timber here, but in neighboring towns the logs that could not be sawed were bought by the government. These were dumped into ponds where the water would protect them from the worms that bored into them. Here they remained for several years until they could be salvaged and sold to lumber companies, when they were in a position to handle them in their normal operations.
During the years that followed the hurricane, one of the busiest
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men in this timber salvage business was Fred R. Lincoln of War- wick. Lincoln had come to Warwick with his father, Fred A., and his brothers Charles and Robert in 1911. At first Fred and Charles, with their father, drove teams hauling timber to the mills and lumber from the mills to the railroad. Then they began to buy and cut the timber and hire teamsters to drive for them. The father acquired the Wheelock house in the village in 1916, now the home of his son-in-law, Ralph Holbrook.
When World War I began both Charles and Fred went into the service. The war over, the two boys bought out their father's interest and together continued in the lumber business. Fred bought the home formerly owned by Charles Williams and Charles bought the adjacent house. About 1927 Charles went into operating a dairy farm with his father, and Fred carried on the timber operations alone.
Eventually horses gave way to trucks and tractors and Fred was operating on a large scale, principally supplying the New England Box Company with timber when the hurricane struck. Fred was in a position to reap the harvest. Within a month he had a 100 men chopping and cutting the fallen timber into logs. Timber cutting in Maine and New York practically came to a standstill to prevent the lumber market from being flooded by the hurricane timber. As a result choppers, swampers and woods- men generally, swarmed into the 50 mile belt flattened by the hurricane from Long Island Sound to Canada.
During 1939 Lincoln confined his operations to the fallen tim- ber in the town. He owned eight heavy trucks and the New England Box Company furnished him with 12 to 15 more. These trucks, with the aid of tractors and other equipment, he kept on the road hauling logs to the mill which ran 16 hours every day.
In 1940 he was ready to start fishing or bailing the logs out of the ponds in which they had been placed to preserve them. These logs were sold by the New England Timber Salvage Company to the lumber companies that bid the highest price. Equipped with a crane with a long boom mounted on a truck, Lincoln fished the logs from the ponds with ease and loaded them on the trucks. He estimates that under his direction over 30,000,000 feet of
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lumber was salvaged from the forests. By 1943 timber operations in the area had returned to normal.
The tremendous amount of damage sustained in the area now provided additional work for the boys of the C.C.C. The Beech Hill Camp which had just been evacuated was not in condition to be used immediately. The Transient Camp on the Richmond road however was empty, so an entire camp of boys from Pitts- field were moved here for a short time. The Northfield Camp remained in operation until 1940 when the Corps was discontin- ued. After the war was over, the C. C. C. camp buildings were sold to individuals who dismantled them for their materials. The Transient Camp, badly damaged by vandals and thieves, was dis- mantled by the State.
15 WORLD WAR II AND BEYOND, 1941-1962
WARWICK WITH THE REST of the country watched and listened to the steps that Nazi Germany, under the strident urging of Hitler, was taking to secure her demands. One step merely led to another as each conciliation met with a new demand. Finally on September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland and, two days later, France and England declared war on Germany. The United States declared her neutrality, but it was clear where her sympathies lay and soon we were helping England in her des- perate struggle for survival. Business began to boom as American factories began to manufacture the materials so desperately needed, and the Depression finally came to an end.
Then on December 7, 1941 Japan struck us at Pearl Harbor. Now we had no choice, we were in the war and it was either sink or swim. Those of us who are old enough will never forget those agonizing days as Japan advanced unmolested in her con- quest of Asia and the Pacific. Germany now apparently had defeated not only France but Russia also, and the future loomed black and forbidding. We exerted every effort to turn the tide.
Here in our little town our boys in the National Guard were called at once, and soon more and more of our youth were
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answering the summons. In the years that were to follow name after name was posted on the honor roll erected on the lawn in front of the town hall. Our boys were to scatter to the farthest places of the world as they served on land, on the sea and in the air. Fifty-nine names were to be placed on the wooden Honor Roll by Bendick Knudtson, a veteran of World War I who built, erected and cared for it. If a few of these names are found on other honor rolls, we can only say that Warwick claimed them as well.
Warwick's Honor Roll
Arthur L. Anderson
George J. Flagg
Charles V. Anderson
Arthur A. Flagg
Virginia Fellows Antonio
Herbert Gates
Harry Baker
Paul O. Hadsel
Ray Barber
William J. Harris
Roy A. Barber
Wallace F. Holbrook
Russell H. Barbour
Hollis Hubbard
Donald Barbour
Leland Jennings
William Barbour
Willard Johnson
Wilfred Benoit
Robert Kolka
Arthur Bowers
Donald P. Lincoln
Charles Brown, Jr.
Richard Lincoln
LeRoy Brown
Robert B. Lincoln, Jr.
Frederick A. Campbell
Arlington Matthews
James G. Campbell
Albert D. Morse
Robert Carson
Charles A. Morse Jr.
George A. Chaffee
Carl Nordstedt Arlan C. North
George Copeland
Thomas Copeland
Albert Ohlson
William H. Copeland, Jr.
Henry J. Pierce
Alfred Couchon
George F. Rost, Jr.
Arthur Cummings
Robert Smart
Medos Cummings
Warren E. Taylor, Jr.
George R. Elberfeld
Henry H. Thorn
Richard Elberfeld
Kenneth Truckey
Archie J. Fellows, Jr.
Erving Waite
Winfred C. Fellows
Leon Ware
Leroy Felton, Jr.
Henry A. White
Eugene Witham
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Joseph A. Stevens
Robert Chittick
Sergeant Winfred C. Fellows was to be the only man from the town who gave his life for his country. Winnie, as we all knew him, was extremely popular with everyone. When the call came in 1942 he entered the service and received his training at Camp Blanding, Georgia, in Florida, Tennessee, Indiana and at Fort George, Maryland, before going overseas in June, 1944. He was in the field artillery and saw service in France, Belgium and Ger- many. He was wounded September 17, 1944, in Krewinkle, Germany, and died the following day. After the close of the war his body was brought home and buried with military honors in Warwick's cemetery.
Many others, wherever they were called upon to go, served their country with honor in the performance of their duty. Per- haps the day may come when we can give them proper recogni- tion but limited space prevents us from attempting the impossible.
While the major and all important battles of the war took place outside of the country, nevertheless the home front was required to make many sacrifices and contributions for the coun- try's cause. These appeals were made by the nation, through the state and local governments, to appoint special committees or officers whose task it was to see that the government regulations deemed necessary were enforced.
The first request made to the selectmen was for the creation of a Rationing Board. The immediate shortage facing the nation was rubber, and the supply of automobile tires was critical. The selectmen then in office appointed Charles A. Morse as chairman of the Rationing Board, with Fred R. Lincoln and O. W. Cole as members. The government quickly added other items to the list of critical materials. These included gasoline, coffee, sugar, meat, fuel oil, butter, cheese, canned fish and edible oils. Oscar N. Ohlson was added to the board and Mrs. Grace C. Morse served as clerk. Later Mrs. Eleanor Morris succeeded Mrs. Morse as clerk, and Fred R. Lincoln replaced C. A. Morse as chairman in January, 1944.
To serve on such a board that dealt with and restricted the use of so many vital necessities of life was a very difficult task, and occasionally an unpleasant one. However as a general
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rule people showed that they were anxious to do their bit to help the nation and cooperated with the government's regulations.
Steps also had to be taken to protect the country against the possibility of air raid attacks. This meant establishing air raid observation posts in every town, in order to provide warning of the approach of hostile planes. Someone must be on watch 24 hours each day to telephone the presence of any aircraft and its course to central headquarters. The possibility that enemy bombs might be dropped, with disastrous results, had to be prepared for even in as unlikely a target as Warwick.
Under the direction of Lee J. Dresser, chairman of Civilian Defense, and his staff plans were made and steps taken to prepare us for any crisis that might occur. Many meetings were held to discuss these plans, at which instructions in first aid and the duties of Air Raid Wardens were given.
George D. Shepardson, Jr. was appointed Chief Air Raid Warden. He and his Deputy Wardens attended weekly meetings in Springfield for several months receiving instructions as to their duties. They in turn instructed the townspeople in the part they were to have in carrying out the proper steps to take in the event of a raid. Many practice raids were held in conjunction with the surrounding towns and the state to make these plans as effective as possible.
The air raid observation post was a small building placed on the schoolhouse grounds. The Reverend Samuel Elberfeld was the first Chief Observer, and his was the responsibility for seeing that the post was manned by some reliable observer at all times. Here, of course, the women more than did their part. Many always will remember after working many long hours in a defense plant or on the farm, being forced to climb out of a warm bed in the middle of the night to drive up to the post and watch in the bitter cold for planes that rarely came. But the job had to be done, and so it was done until all danger of air raids was over.
The vacant C.C.C. Camp on White Road was taken over for a few months by the Army in 1943 and designated Camp 706. Here a contingent of soldiers was given special training designed to prepare them to act as military police. When the training was
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(top) Congregational Church, about 1900 (bottom) Metcalf Memorial Chapel, formerly Preserved Smith house
SINHAIR OILS
(top) Store and Post Office, about 1920 (bottom) Blacksmith Shop, later the Town Barn, about 1920
completed they were sent to the North African theater of the war, and no more were brought here.
A few years after the close of the war, the Warwick Veterans' Association decided that they would like to perpetuate the mem- ory of their comrade, Sergeant Winfred Fellows, who had died as the result of wounds received on the battlefield in Germany. After weighing the merits of many suggestions, the members voted to ask the town for an appropriation to enlarge the school athletic field, place a woven wire backstop with a concrete founda- tion, erect benches for the baseball players and bring the field into first class shape. A bronze plaque with a suitable inscription was to be properly mounted on the field, to be thereafter called the Fellows Memorial Field.
The town accepted the plan and appropriated $800 on June 3, 1948. A committee of five veterans composed of Lee J. Dres- ser and Charles A. Morse, veterans of World War I, with Archie J. Fellows, Jr., Paul O. Hadsel and Wilfred Benoit, World War II veterans, were appointed to attend to the project.
They secured a large white quartz rock from the property of Harry C. Earle as a base for the bronze tablet and this, together with a metal flagpole, were placed on a plot of ground in one corner of the field. The athletic field was completed as had been planned and was dedicated on Old Home Day Sunday in 1950.
The education of the town's children had not caused any major problems for a long period of years. After the building of the new Center School in 1930 all seemed satisfied with the modern building. But the two-room school system, with each teacher responsible for four grades of from 30 to 40 pupils, soon began to be criticized as outmoded. Under these conditions it was difficult to hire good experienced teachers and retain them for any length of time.
This condition resulted in the town voting at the annual town meeting in 1945 to appoint a committee of three, to work with the school committee to study the possibility of adding a third teacher, or sending the seventh and eighth grades to a neighbor- ing town. The solution of this problem, together with school problems in other towns in the school union, was to be the major
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concern of the town for over ten years. This story is told in detail in the chapter on educational development.
The town hall, widely acclaimed when it was built in 1894 as a shining example of the last word in town hall architecture, was soon found falling behind the times. In 1922 a basement was excavated beneath the banquet hall and the wood-burning furnaces were placed there. Two years later electric lights replaced the kerosene lamps, but the power was furnished by what was called a Holt Light Plant until 1929.
Once again the hall was abreast of the times, at least by coun- try standards. To be sure, when suppers were served in the ban- quet hall water had to be carried in pails from neighboring homes, and no water meant, of course, primitive toilet facilities. An attempt was made in 1938 to install water and plumbing, but the money appropriated was insufficient to cover the bids received. The town increased the appropriation but nothing was accomplished. The war with its problems put all nonessential matters on the shelf, and so it was not until 1947, when the town transformed the banquet hall into a classroom, that the neces- sary alterations were made.
Twelve thousand dollars was appropriated to install water, flush toilets, an oil heating unit, and to make the necessary altera- tions to provide the schoolroom. The committee placed in charge was composed of Ralph F. Holbrook, chairman, Lee J. Dresser, Charles A. Morse, Bendick I. Knudtson and Ralph W. Witherell.
The year 1948 saw the purchase by the town of the so-called Allen property on the Winchester road. This was done to provide the town with gravel necessary to use in road construction. The property consisted of a small cottage and 50 acres of timberland where the road begins to descend through the "Gulf." Here Har- rison B. Allen, an old Civil War veteran, had lived. He had carried the flag proudly for many years in the Memorial Day parades. When the task finally exceeded his strength, his son took over the post and promised the old man he would continue to carry the flag. The old veteran died in 1930. The son, now living in Springfield, never failed to appear on the appointed day until about 1940.
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The purchase of this land was an important step because it provided the town not only a supply of sand and gravel, but later became the site of the present highway garage.
When the cold war with Russia threatened to become a hot war in 1950, the country began to be alarmed over the possibility of air raids. Now the danger of surprise attack was much greater due to Russia also having developed the hydrogen bomb. Once again it was all-important that we develop a system that would give the country as much warning of impending raids as possible.
Consequently the first step taken was to reactivate the air raid observation posts to observe and report all airplanes, as had been done during the war. Again George D. Shephardson, Jr. was appointed Civil Defense Director and Supervisor of the post. Beginning in January, 1951, practice or test raids were conducted and the posts were only manned when these were arranged. During these practice raids the fire station was used as an obser- vation post. When the authorities requested that the post be placed on a 24 hour daily watch, the town voted at a special town meeting on October 6, 1952 to continue the sky watch. The small building used previously was set up again in its old location beside the fire station. When the nation is actually engaged in war it is not difficult to arouse the people to the dangers confronting them and many are willing to volunteer their time and effort for its defense. But in times of peace, with no definite threat to their safety involved, people are much more reluctant to give their time or thoughts to watching friendly air- planes.
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