by Marilyn Fish
Early each summer, Becket’s year-round population swells as hundreds of urban and suburban dwellers who own or rent vacation homes arrive in town. Despite what we may think, this is not a 21st century phenomenon. On June 11, 1878, the Hinsdale Cornet Band paraded merrily down Becket’s main street playing popular music for the crowds that turned out to celebrate the opening of a new summer resort, the Claflin House. Recently built for city boarders by Amos G. Cross, the hotel was located where the Becket Washington School now stands. After the parade, the cornets serenaded the crowds as they feasted, greeted honored guests, and danced until midnight. The party ended with three cheers for the proprietor and his success. According to the Berkshire Eagle, June 13, 1878, the Claflin House had much to recommend it. It was “within easy walking distance of the post office and the passenger [train] depot, yet back from the noise, dust and tumult of the main business street.” The Eagle went on to say that the guest rooms were airy, neatly furnished, and well-lighted and that the food was freshly supplied by local farmers.
Becket actually had been established as a resort community years earlier when families from Springfield and beyond began boarding with farmers during the summer. Traditionally, women and children remained for a month or more, while husbands visited periodically. The Claflin House also appealed to a city clientele, but advertised in far-flung newspapers to find new markets. By August 1884, the Holyoke Massachusetts Transcript-Telegram reported that Becket had become a favorite destination for visitors from New Orleans, St. Louis, Boston, New York and New Jersey. The owner enlarged the dining room, added a piazza, purchased a new surrey and placed a boat on the mill pond to satisfy his increasingly demanding guests. During the cold months, selectmen and others used the Claflin House as a location for meetings.
Becket, Massachusetts. The Claflin House (large building left of center) was across the street from the church and a short distance from the silk mill (foreground, right).
In January 1889, Cross sold the hotel to William A. Schlesinger, aged 26, who came with a long family tradition of hotel management. By June, the Eagle reported that Schlesinger had improved the premises to the delight of visitors. He also kept open year round, seeking the fox hunters, fishermen, hikers and other “rusticators,” who preferred boarding in comfort to huddling in tents. The Claflin also boasted a four-horse carriage capable of carrying a dozen passengers to the more sophisticated environs of Lenox or Stockbridge. Only a few years later Schlesinger added Claflin House Park (later called Dreamland), just a five-minute walk from the hotel. Described as “16 acres of beautiful woodland and open pastures, abounding in sparkling springs, picturesque rocks, and beautiful trees,” it was expected to add a bit of sedate adventure to the existing activities.
Schlesinger continued to run the Claflin House through the first years of Prohibition. During his tenure and that of Mr. Cross, the hotel provided employment to many Becket men and women, a reliable market for local produce, poultry and meats, and regular income to the Town. In July 1901, the Berkshire Eagle credited the Claflin House with reviving Becket’s sagging economy. Noting that larger towns with better employment opportunities had drawn away half the town’s population, they emphasized that many Claflin visitors had bought or built vacation homes thus making Becket “a most desirable summer colony.” The Eagle concluded that “Becket has been reclaimed, and the Claflin House did it.”
Only one month before his death in 1924, Schlesinger sold the Claflin House to Charles Maak of Fords, New Jersey. Apparently unsuited for the work, Maak soon sold to Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Eidam of New York City. However, by the late 1930s, travelers with cars were no longer restricted by train routes. Small-town hotels went out of fashion as more remote destinations became accessible. The Claflin House was eventually sold to the Town to make way for the new Becket Consolidated School, built in 1940. Despite this loss, Becket continues to welcome summer people, including second-home owners who readily support the local economy through taxes and patronage to local business, cultural and arts venues.
Sources: Newspapers cited in this article were accessed through Newspapers.com, an internet subscription service.
