Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 11/16/2022
WEST SPRINGFIELD – To be precise, the town turns 250 on Feb. 23, 2024, but Carly Camossi wants to make it more than a date.
“Our goal here is to run events and do different things from January all the way through December,” Camossi said. “February is when our birthday is, [but] that’s not where we’re going to stop. That’s not the West Springfield way.”
Camossi, who works for the mayor as his chief of operations, is one of two co-chairs of the committee planning the 250th anniversary celebration, along with Sarah Calabrese.
During a Nov. 3 public forum on 250th anniversary plans, Camossi said she hopes the town will host at least one big event each month in 2024. She shared a tentative calendar with outdoor ice skating in January, a birthday gala in February, a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in March, a townwide cleanup day in April, a veterans history event in May, a downtown “block party” in June, fireworks in July, a golf tournament in August, something related to the Big E in September, a cemetery walk in October, a 5K run on the town’s cross-country trail in November and a Christmas jubilee or home tour in December — but she also emphasized that the planning is just beginning, and she wants to hear everyone’s ideas.
“These are all things I want to start talking about,” she said. “This is not where we’re stopping, it’s just where we’re starting.”
Forum attendee Linda Parent said West Springfield should bring back a feature from previous anniversary celebrations, a historical ball where each attendee has to wear a period costume.
Camossi said she’s also trying to track down the large “birthday cake” used by Westfield for its 350th anniversary in 2019, and repurposed for other towns’ anniversaries in subsequent years, so it can be redecorated for West Springfield in 2024. She is also looking into the possibility of hosting a big parade, producing a map of the town, as well as selling themed blankets, hats, apparel and souvenirs.
Local historian and teacher Stan Svec said the town has plenty to celebrate from the past two and a half centuries – and even before. He said it was the “Pynchon settlement,” on the west side of the Connecticut River, where the first English colonists in Western Massachusetts made their homes in the 1630s, though Native Americans had long called the area home. He pointed to a 3,000-year-old fish weir in the Westfield River across from Robinson State Park as evidence that the future West Springfield supported a residential population for centuries.
Svec said the William Pynchon group moved its settlement, later called Springfield, to the east side of the river after Native Americans complained that the colonists’ pigs were eating their corn crops. He said Pynchon tried to maintain good relations with the native tribes, with Springfield as a trade hub between the two civilizations.
For a while, most colonists lived on the east side of the river but maintained agricultural lands on the west. As time went on, more settlers moved to the west shore, and eventually there were more Springfield colonists living west of the river than east. West Springfield’s growing influence resulted in its being granted its own parish in 1697 – after a 1683 tragedy in which a family drowned on its way to mandatory church services – and finally, in 1774, being incorporated as its own town. The original West Springfield also included present-day Agawam, Feeding Hills and most of Holyoke.
In an energetic talk, Svec noted some other milestones from West Springfield’s pre-Civil War history, such as the visit by George Washington, the town’s role in Shays’ Rebellion, the birth of the first Morgan horse and the coming of the Western Railroad in 1841.
He said over the course of the past 25 years he had written plays about several chapters of West Springfield history, as a way of involving students. Camossi said she’d been in touch with the leaders of the Majestic Theater, on Elm Street, and they are willing to partner with local historians, actors and students on historical productions.
Mustafa Thompson also spoke in favor of both the historical costume ball and a town history play at the Majestic.
Responding to a question about interviewing senior citizens for their recollections from the past century, Camossi also noted that the Rotary Club has been filming “legacy stories” for the past five years, which could be another resource for 250th anniversary planners.
In addition to events, said Camossi, several town residents have already volunteered to support the 250th anniversary with logo designs, photography and writing a history book. Interns from West Springfield High School and Westfield State University will also help.
Camossi said the official 250th anniversary committee will be announced soon, and will likely host its next meeting in January. All town residents are invited to email celebrate250@tows.org with any ideas for the anniversary celebration, or if they wish to volunteer. Camossi can also be reached at Town Hall at 495-1844.