The Federal Hill Club

The Ionic-columned mansion at 135 Cooper Street – formerly home of The Federal Hill Club and The Federal restaurant – has been an Agawam landmark since it was built in the mid-nineteenth century. 

An 1895 photo of the building attributes its construction to: “Samuel Converse about 1862,” though it is possible the house may actually have been built even earlier; the property, featuring a “large two-story dwelling house containing 14 rooms” was advertised for sale in November 1854.

Based on 1860 US census figures, the Converse estate was valued among the top two dozen in town. By the mid-1860s, Converse had doubled the acreage at his Agawam farm and was dabbling in real estate speculation. He purchased a South Hadley paper mill in 1865, which he sold at a profit less than six months later. In April 1866, “one of the largest transactions of the season” involved his purchase of a “valuable lot” on the corner of Main and Bridge Streets in Springfield for $30,000 (equal to about $560,000 today), which he sold, that November, to Hinsdale Smith (a prominent Agawam farmer in the tobacco trade) for $32,000.

That same year, the Converse estate was promoted as “The Mount Elliot Place – A Splendid Country Seat and Farm Property” and offered at auction, for reasons unknown. The 100-acre parcel consisted of a fifteen-room, “large, airy, modern style” house, a “large (40x60) and well-finished barn” – “one of the best in the region,” a 25 acre woodlot, and three acres of orchards. The results of the auction are unknown, as is whether the property changed hands at that time.

In 1870, Arthur I. Bemis, “of Bemis, Phillips & Co.,” which dealt in coal and iron, purchased the property for $12,000 (about $272,000 in 2025) with the intention of practicing “bonafide farming, according to Greeley’s tactics.”

Samuel Converse had apparently left the area: 1884-1885 and 1886-1887 Middletown, Connecticut city directories list him as a resident, and an 1886 notice in the Republican of a “Samuel Converse, 68, formerly of this vicinity” marks his death at Middletown, Connecticut.

The next occupants of the property were Henry Obookiah (“H.O.”) Bragg and Jemima Bragg, who had moved from Amherst, where within the previous fifteen years they lost four of their seven children, ages five to seventeen. (Their three surviving sons would live into their seventies.) H.O. was a charter member of the Agawam Grange and in 1888 was elected to its executive committee.

Judge Gideon Wells acquired the property by 1894. He was well-respected as a family man, lawyer, and public figure and considered “a large figure in local life” and a “lawyer and business adviser of the first order.” He was the judge of the Springfield Police Court and was associated with the Holyoke Water Power Company, the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Springfield Street Railway, the First, Second and Third National Banks, and many other businesses in the area. 

Wells’ March 1898 obituary explained another facet of the judge’s personality:“It was a dream of his life to have a farm, to grow fruit, vegetables and flowers, not to sell but to joy in and dower his friends with – and the satisfaction he got out of his fine Agawam farm during these recent years was immense. He gloried in raising the best melons of the region at his Agawam estate.”

Within a month Wells’ death, the property was listed for sale. The next owner, in the Fall of 1901, was Colonel Robert Stride, an “Englishman” who renamed the property “Coneyhurst” and raised Clumber Spaniels there. He also attempted to create “one of the most advantageous and common sense social clubs ever inaugurated” on one of the “finest properties in New England to be known as the Coneyhurst Club Association Co., Ltd.” Capital, in an amount equivalent to more than a million dollars today, would be raised through 100 members, who would pay $300 each in 15 monthly installments, then pay annual dues of $25.

This wasn’t his first attempt at such a venture; the previous year he had put forth a similar (and apparently unsuccessful) proposal in North Adams. His planned Coneyhurst Club in Agawam would offer members social and recreational opportunities at a clubhouse featuring a bowling alley, pistol range, billiard tables, and dance hall, a private auto track, a game preserve (stocked with rabbits), and trout pond. An onsite farm, would further offer “the privilege of having farm produce, fruit, and poultry delivered at their homes twice a week at wholesale prices.” Stride’s version of a farmshare was a century ahead of its time, and again failed to attract any members.

By 1903, multiple lawsuits were filed against Mrs. Stride for breach of contract, and in September of that year, the livestock and farm implements of Coneyhurst were sold at auction. By 1906, the Strides seemed to have relocated to Kernersville, North Carolina, where the Colonel again established a game preserve. Their North Carolina property was sold at a trustee’s sale in 1911. In 1930, the census listed Robert T. and Helen L. Stride as residents of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands where they died and were buried by the end of the decade. No occupations were listed, but “con artist” may have been appropriate.

 A curious article in the February 7, 1906 Republican detailed a failed negotiation between Colonel Stride and the Colored American Industrial Association for the Converse property, which doomed the planned sale of the property and ensuing construction of an “industrial school and laundry” there.

By 1913, when John J. Adams and Merton J. Crockett, operators of Springfield jewelry store Adams & Crockett, incorporated under the same name to “conduct a general farming business”at their 100-acre farm in Agawam, O. G. Prior had already been installed as manager of the “Coneyhurst Farm.” In 1911, Prior advertised for “experienced tobacco stringers at 80¢ per hundred;” in 1912, offered for sale “Buff wyandot cockerels and eggs for hatching” and in 1913 hoped to attract “25 quiet, peaceful tobacco stringers.” Orville Prior died in 1915 at age 35 of complications from an appendectomy. His death was a determining factor in the decision to end tobacco growing on the property. 

Beginning in late 1916, three acres of the property were leased to a group of local men who summered at Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire and had formed the Lake Sunapee Anglers’ Association there in 1912. 

Members of this group established the Federal Hill Club in November 1916, with Albert E. Lerche as president and Caleb W. Bowles, James H. Beech, Henry Huck (formerly of Agawam), and Daniel H. Buckley as directors. 

Buckley had served as manager of the Lake Sunapee Anglers’ Association since 1912, and was appointed manager of the new Federal Hill Club, which held an informal opening on November 28, 1916. (Buckley was also associated with the Nelson and Nelson-Haynes Hotels in Springfield) The club’s 100 members included many prominent and well-connected residents of the area. In 1921, the Republican described the organization as a “club where members could take their families on week-ends, or at any time when the cares and worries of the city became unbearable.”

One of Daniel Buckley’s sons was Harold R. Buckley, who flew with the 95th Aero Squadron in France during World War I and is credited with five victories, for which he received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Croix de Guerre. 

Upon his discharge from the Air Service in 1919, the younger Buckley was the guest of honor at a reception hosted by his father that March at the Federal Hill Club. Among the 100 luncheon guests was Buckley’s former instructor and fellow flying ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. Two months later, the Publicity Club of Springfield (now the Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts) would present Buckley with its Pynchon Medal for his service.

During Prohibition, federal agents conducted a raid at the Federal Hill Club on 28 January 1921 and seized $10,000 (more than $165,000 in 2025) worth of alcohol, including more than 60 gallons of whisky, five gallons of wine, five gallons of gin, 15 bottles of mixed liquor and champagne, and 300 bottles of beer. Buckley maintained a portion of the seized alcohol was his private stock and filed a lawsuit for its return. In 1925, about half of what had been seized was ordered to be returned.

In April 1921, the “beautiful colonial suburban home located on one of the most attractive sites in Western New England” was being advertised for rent, boasting “Fine shade trees, extensive lawn, garden tract, steam, gas, electricity. Everything modern and up-to-date.” The furnishings of the club, “including Hotel Range, Piano, Etc.” were offered for sale in the same advertisement.

Mr. and Mrs. G.G. Byrnes soon moved to the premises. George Byrnes was the proprietor of Springfield’s Byrnes Motor Company, one of the largest auto dealers in the area, located at the foot of Belmont Street, and which was later the longtime home of Atlas Auto Body. Several times during the late 1920s, the Agawam Women’s Club held their annual end-of-year garden parties, including a “Mother Goose Village,” on the “spacious grounds” of the “Byrnes estate.”

The good times came to an end as the Great Depression tightened its grip on the country: the Byrnes relocated to Florida in 1932 and the Byrnes Motor Company was dissolved the following year.

On 17 November 1934, a small notice in the Springfield Daily Republican announced the reopening of the Federal Hill Club – “after being closed for more than 15 years”  – under the management of previous manager Daniel H. Buckley, with “more than 200 old members” of the club having rejoined. The Springfield Daily News reported that residents of Cooper and Federal Streets were opposed to the reopening and were planning a protest.

By 1936, the Moretti brothers were co-owners of the Federal Hill Club, and in 1943 the property itself was sold to the Moretti family, who operated the restaurant for the next 60 years. The Federal Hill Club was known for its elegant atmosphere and fine cuisine, and was the setting of countless receptions, holiday parties, and special occasions.

After the 1996 closing of the Federal Hill Club, two other restaurants opened and closed at the site in quick succession: Carmelina’s On The Hills (1997) and Capaccio’s (1999).

In 2002, Michael Presnal and Ralph Santaniello opened The Federal, offering “fresh and innovative ‘new american’ cuisine”in the (successful) attempt to return a fine dining establishment at the landmark property. Presnal and Santaniello have also since opened Vinted Wine Bar in West Hartford, Posto in Longmeadow, and Lola’s in Longmeadow. The Federal closed in 2024.

The history of 135 Cooper Street parallels society, and the history of this country: boom, bust, hopes, dreams, pride, failure, and reinvention, all right in our backyard.

David Cecchi, The News from Agawam, Vol. 3 | No. 121, 12 August 2022