Chester’s historic Inn to be restored

July 26, 2021 | Amy Porter
amyporter@thewestfieldnews.com

Emily Smith-Lee, new owner of Riverside Inn, hopes to restore it to its former glory.
Reminder Publishing photos by Amy Porter

CHESTER – Emily Smith-Lee, the new owner of the historic Riverside Inn at 20 Main St,. opened its doors during a guided walking tour of the town July 24 for visitors to check out the gutted late 1800’s building which Smith-Lee hopes to restore for AirBNB rentals and common venue/space on the first floor.

Originally built as a two-story house in 1850, it was initially occupied by Chester Railway station master E.D. Cook, who was once accused and tried for selling intoxicating beverages at the train station. Smith-Lee said Cook was acquitted after one of his patrons testified that, although the beverages were indeed served, they did not intoxicate him.

The building was purchased in 1881 by William R. White, who added a third story and opened it as White’s Hotel. Documentation from a Chester train wreck in 1893 talks about wounded passengers being treated at the hotel.

In 1904, new management assumed control and renamed it the Riverside Inn, which had the longest tenure in its colorful history, including surviving the great flood of 1927. The Inn was lauded in an old article in the Springfield Republican from March 1930 as being “one of the best country inns between Boston and Albany…and the last this side of Jacob’s Ladder.”

Among other stories associated with the Inn was a double murder in 1912, that began in the barroom where bartender Edward “Milt” Capron was shot and killed following a disagreement. The alleged perpetrator Charles Wilson was pursued by the hotel porter and several other young men until he reached the train yard down the street, where he was shot and killed. Smith-Lee, a lawyer, said the facts of the case are murky, especially considering that Wilson was African-American.

On the third floor of the Inn are remnants of small single rooms for one bed, which were used to house train workers on layovers, or possibly for a brothel, depending on the reliability of stories that are told.

Smith-Lee is interested in any old photos or stories of the Riverside Inn, especially interior shots. The Inn, which has been largely vacant for 30 years, had already been gutted when she purchased it this past year.

Smith-Lee also purchased the former Pease Market down the road from the hotel, also built in the 1800’s. She plans to open Hilltown Law, now occupying a rented space across the street, on the first floor of the building, and renovate two apartments upstairs to help pay for restoration of the Riverside Inn. She said she isn’t sure what she will do with the original 1850’s era feed store in the rear of the building, also opened as part of the tour.

The walking tour of Chester, sponsored by the Western Mass. Hilltown Hikers and narrated by Chester Foundation President David Pierce, began at the Chester Railway Station Museum and also stopped at the Chester Jail, the Historical Society, the old Chester Beckett Railroad trail and remains of the pink granite bridge over Walker Brook, among other sites.

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