The story of Cedar Grove Park, a planned housing development, began shortly after the Smith’s Ferry annexation by Holyoke from Northampton on June 9, 1909.
On August 31, 1910, Joseph F. Smith of Boston purchased a 24-acre tract of land in Smith’s Ferry from Susan L. Clark, wife of Alvan S. Clark of Holyoke. The property ran about 1/10 of a mile along Northampton Highway and about 1/2 mile to the west toward Mt. Tom. Joseph F. Smith was the sole owner of the land, and James R. Gerrish financed the purchase and held the mortgage.
The property was bordered on the south by the Abbot (Soap makers) property, to the north by the Briggs property and to the west by land owned by the Holyoke Street Railway Company.
The following month, the Gerrish Smith Land Company, soon renamed Smith & Gerrish Land Company, began advertising the sale of building lots known as Cedar Grove Park in Holyoke’s Smith Ferry. The Smith and Gerrish Land Company had an office in Room 223 of the Phoenix building on Dwight and Maple streets and another at Cedar Hill Park.
The 1912 Cedar Hill Park plot plan shows Cedar Grove Avenue heading west on a line from Northampton Highway. The plan included three very short side streets: Cross Street, which heads north from the Holyoke Street Railway crossing, and Ridge and Western avenues, which head south off Cedar Grove Avenue. There would be 99 lots available for sale, 8 of which were on Northampton Highway.
It was initially intended to sell some of the lots for residential purposes and others as summer bungalows. The promoters advertised the majestic views, large lots, no taxes or interest for two years, Holyoke Street Railway Service, and water soon to come. From 1910 to 1912, 10 buyers purchased lots.
The main stumbling block in this unsuccessful endeavor dealt with water availability for the homeowners. Although in June 1912 the city of Holyoke authorized $40,000 to install water lines along the length of Northampton Highway (Route 5), the financial responsibility for extending the water lines into the development would lie with the Cedar Grove Park promoters. This was cost-prohibitive, and further developers’ attempts to have water lines installed at the city’s expense met with resistance and were rejected in June 1914.
In 1915, Smith’s Ferry residents protested the plan of building an isolation hospital adjacent to Cedar Grove Park. Due to the steep terrain on the west side of Northampton Highway, health officials who visited the property from Boston deemed the idea unworkable.
From 1913 to 1919, the number of buyers of Cedar Grove Park lots declined to 7, in part due to the lack of an available water source.
Mr. Smith continued to advertise the bungalows over the years and enjoyed modest success, selling about 20 lots in the 1920s. In 1939, the City of Holyoke advertised a tax taking of 6.61 acres of land on Cedar Grove Avenue. The property was auctioned for $200.
In June 1948, residents petitioned to have the nearby Cedar Hill Road accepted as a city street.
In the 1960s, land was taken for the construction of Interstate 91. In 1965, Dr. & Mrs. Philip Clarke were awarded $42,500 for the loss of their 2.5-story home and 4.18 acres of land on Cedar Hill for the highway. Additionally, the interstate cut off their access to 12 acres they owned on the west side of the highway.
It is interesting to note that the Holyoke City Assessors’ Office continues to identify three tax parcels on Cedar Grove Ave, two of which are not accessible by city streets on the west side of I-91.
Also, the current City Assessors’ MapGeo indicates that there are two and possibly three 1920-built homes on Northampton Street (previously Highway) and two 1920s-built homes on the formerly called Cedar Grove road or avenue. These four or five date back to the Cedar Grove Park days.
The current day federally owned I-91 property begins west of parcels 24 and 80, as shown on the Cedar Grove Park plot plan. I could not accurately determine where the property border of the west side of the highway. Some privately owned Cedar Grove Park lots exist on the west side of the highway.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican; publication dates and pages are shown.
Holyoke, Massachusetts, Tax Assessors' Office, Online MapGeo
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Price & Lee Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
Hampden County Registry of Deeds, Springfield, Massachusetts
Richard's Atlas of Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1911
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