A Look Back, Feb. 24

200 Years Ago

■Pay Your Taxes! E. S. Phelps, tax collector for the town of Northampton, hereby gives notice to all delinquents that unless their taxes are settled by the first day of March, the tax bills will be put into the hands of the constable. And he hereby gives notice that without any special affection or favor, he has determined to have every tax settled, “peaceably if he can, forcibly if he must.”

■James Hulbert offers for sale all or any part of his real estate, consisting of the homestead on which he now lives in Blackpole, so called, pleasantly situated about a mile northwest of the meetinghouse in Northampton, containing 12 acres of excellent land, with good buildings and two wells of the best of water.

100 Years Ago

■Mrs. Laura Ludden and Mrs. Lydia Hamlen today celebrated their 89th birthday in a quiet way at the Lathrop Home on South Street. With remembrances from friends and relatives, both in this city and out of town, and the happiness of reaching the advanced age of 89 years, it was a gala day for the twins.

■Leo Fortier, formerly chef at the Carduff lunch on Pleasant Street, has resigned and taken a position as cook at the new Calvin restaurant on Main Street.

50 Years Ago

■In Hampshire County District Court yesterday, an Easthampton woman was arraigned on charges of stabbing a Northampton shopkeeper. The woman came into the store and asked to buy an antique gun. When the shopkeeper refused to sell a gun to her because of her somewhat nervous appearance, she took an antique bayonet from one of the guns and stabbed the clerk in the stomach.

■The energy crunch and area manufacturing plant layoffs that came in its wake were felt in the city today when a long line of area’s unemployed gathered for their unemployment compensation checks at the Division of Employment Security office on Pleasant Street.