Granville Dams: Changing Lives and the Town Forever

Granville has a long history of small dams and ponds being constructed to supply power (via waterwheels) to local businesses, and water for agricultural purposes. Some of the ponds were also used for ice harvesting. Many of the small dams were built by and served a specific business, such as Noble & Cooley.

In 1897 events took a dramatic turn in terms of scope and size, when the nearby city of Westfield embarked on projects to create new reservoirs in Granville. This was necessitated by Westfield's rapid growth and need for water.

It's hard to appreciate the amount of land required for not just the reservoir, dam and spillway, but to establish a watershed area surrounding the reservoir. Many hundreds of acres would be needed. The consequence would be that a large number of family farms and businesses would be taken via eminent domain over a period of decades. These families would be faced with a difficult decision: whether to try and re-establish themselves in Granville, or follow the migration to the cities and leave. Either way they would be starting over.

It is reasonable to assume there was not enough land for sale in Granville for all to stay. The reservoir projects were shrinking the amount of land in private hands and what was left depended on finding someone willing to sell. With the industrial revolution in full swing a great many families moved to booming cities like Springfield and Hartford to pursue non-agricultural employment.

In 1998 the Granville Dams, Hampden County Archive Project identified a collection of files that were formerly housed by the Hampden County Engineer’s Office.  These records were transferred to the Hampden Deeds office, where they were digitized for Internet Access by the Register, Donald E Ashe. The collection provides a fascinating and poignant insight into how and when many families lost their land to make way for the reservoir projects.

"Protecting the Homestead"
Photo depicting three young gentlemen posing in presumably mock defiance of the land take-over.
The land surrounding this house was taken over and the family left Granville. The house itself still stands
but will eventually be taken over as part of the watershed area.

The take-over tended to be in phases, with a number of properties being taken over on a given date. Then months or years later another wave of take-overs would follow, until there was sufficient land to begin construction. One can easily imagine neighbors commiserating as these unhappy days approached. In fact properties are still being acquired and the structures on them being removed, a recent example being the Olsen property near the northern intersection of Old Westfield and Bruce Roads.

Former Olsen property (Clark House) on Old Westfield Road, about 2013 (Granville Assessor's Office Photo)

March 2017 NCCHP photo

 

Former Olsen (Clark) property after removal of structures (March 2017 NCCHP photo)

To access the Granville Dams archive project click on the link near the end of this paragraph. The first pages of the collection deal with a number of small dams. At the end of those pages you will come to the 1898 and later content, including land transfer deeds and property maps associated with the eminent domain take-overs. This is invaluable information if you are researching family histories from this period of time. CLICK HERE to view the Granville Dams archives. Note that you flip the pages by clicking on each page image in the collection.

Recently the Granville Reservoir has been off line due to the recent water shortage. For more CLICK HERE.