A Look Back: Feb. 1, 2025

Published: 02-03-2025 12:01 PM |
■On Friday last, the House of Representatives gave leave for a bill to the petitioners for a college charter for Amherst Institution – yeas 114, nays 96. In the five western counties, Worcester, Hampshire, Franklin, Hampden and Berkshire, there were 29 yeas and 51 nays.
■The company associated to improve the navigation of the Connecticut River met at Hartford on Thursday and chose directors, secretary and treasurer. A meeting was also held to examine the practicability of so improving the navigation of the river as to render it navigable for steamboats, and of connecting it with Lake Memphremagog by a canal.
■George W. Cable, author, died early today at his winter home in Florida. In 1887, he founded the Home Culture Club, now the Northampton People’s Institute, designed for the education and aesthetic culture of wage-earning people.
■John C. Byrne, proprietor of the Calvin restaurant on lower Main Street, announced today that the name of the restaurant is to be changed to John C. Byrne’s Lunch and Grill. Mr. Byrne has had several booths installed in this restaurant and beginning today will conduct a grill service in conjunction with the regular restaurant service.
■Wednesday night winds gusting to 50 miles an hour whipped across Hampshire County, causing scattered power outages in Florence, Leeds and the Elm Street area, and felling numerous trees and tree limbs. Two fires occurred, one at the Easthampton Middle School and another when a transformer on Loudville Road caught fire.
■The Northampton planning board voted Wednesday night to amend the proposed city zoning ordinance to permit Smith College to provide fewer parking spaces than would normally be required each time it constructs or rebuilds a dormitory. Smith officials said the ordinance as written would very much impair the college’s progress in upgrading and renovating its dormitories.