— A Southwick Time Machine   Original True Crime Reconstruction   Westfield, Massachusetts  — Winter 1857   For more than a week, the house on School Street stood silent. It was a modest tenement dwelling, just six rods from the village green—close enough to the center of Westfield that its stillness should have drawn notice sooner. No smoke rose from the family's chimney. No light flickered in their windows. The last confirmed activity in the household had occurred on the morning of Tuesday, December 15, 1857. At first, neighbors thought little of it. Winter was a season of illness and travel. Families went visiting. Absences were easily explained away. But as the days passed, the quiet grew harder to dismiss. An Uneasy Silence Albert J. Stoub, his young wife Mary, and their two small children occupied the basement and first floor on the west side of the tenement house owned by Stephen Spelman. The building was shared with other tenants. In the other ha...

— A Southwick Time Machine Original Biographical Account Richard W. Hardy was born in East Montpelier, Vermont, in 1936, but it was in the quiet hilltown of Tolland, Massachusetts, that his identity truly took shape. By his teens, music had already become the defining force of his life, not as a hobby, but as a vocation. Those who heard him play or studied his compositions recognized something uncommon: a depth of talent that seemed far beyond his years. From a young age, Hardy displayed extraordinary musical ability. Though he never attended a formal conservatory for advanced training, his skill was unmistakable. He became proficient in both piano and organ, composing original classical works and providing piano instruction, sharing his gift even as his own career was still in its formative stages. Music was not simply something he practiced; it was something he lived. Hardy spent approximately fourteen years in Tolland, living at his family’s Skyline Farm , where he worked steadily ...

 — A Southwick Time Machine Original   Jonathan Fassett Chapman was born in Champlain, New York, on Christmas Day in 1848. In his earlier years, he became captain of the "Whitehall," a steamer on Lake Champlain. In 1877, Captain Jonathan “John” Chapman came to Southwick, Massachusetts. That year, he purchased fifty acres of land at Congamond Lake from Henry H. Saunders. He also bought land from Saunders on Sheep Pasture Road, near where Our Lady of the Lake church stands today. At Congamond, where the North and Middle Ponds meet, he built a small shanty and boat house along the banks of the old canal. The bridge connecting the two ponds became known locally as Chapman’s Bridge. Captain Chapman rented flat-bottomed boats for pleasure by the hour or by the day. From his shanty, he sold soda and ice cream. In April 1889, he purchased two steamers, the "Josephine" and the stylish side-wheel "Ida Lee," which he operated on Middle Pond. An illustrative image of ...

— Part of the Southwick Time Machine Poetry Showcase Collection This story is presented ad-free for uninterrupted reading. Illustration inspired by Southwick, Massachusetts   Snowfall   by Edyth Jasmin of Southwick, Massachusetts (1940 Prize Poem)   I gaze through a frosted window pane; The west wind howls down the lane. The winding road is filled with drifts; Some snow inside the window sifts, As pastel flakes in heaven shape. Trees, like ghosts with rumpled hair, Shriek and moan as in despair. The self-same grass that winter died, Peeks through the snows with long-lost pride. The cumulus clouds above us hover, Tossing flakes the grim world over. The frozen brook runs no more. The distant pine make ceaseless roar. We hear the peal of the old church bell That sways on its moorings as if to tell That hearts are warm inside each home, And God has willed another poem.       Edyth Jasmin, circa 1942 Edyth Elizabeth (Jasmin) (Roberts) deForest: March 24, 1924 –...

⚠️ Content Advisory  ⚠️   This story involves a more modern incident from 1976.  It contains sensitive subject matter that some readers may find unsettling.  Reader discretion is advised.        — A Southwick Time Machine Reader-Requested Tragedy This story is presented ad-free for uninterrupted reading. On the afternoon of December 23, 1976, fifteen-year-old Michael J. Lefebvre of Southwick, Massachusetts, was waiting near the bus stop by his home located at 59 Summer Drive.  While Michael stood at Chapman Street and Point Grove Road near Soja’s Package Store—known today as Oak N’ Keg—a blue pickup truck approached the sharp turn at the corner of Point Grove Road and Chapman Street. The truck failed to negotiate the turn and struck Michael in front of the store. Michael was thrown approximately sixty feet into the air, landing on the opposite side of a five-foot-tall fence belonging to the store’s owner, Stanley Soja. Seconds later, t...