A Look Back, May 24

200 Years Ago

■Much has been said of late in the Boston and New York papers respecting large elms. In Northampton there is an elm, which was set out about 90 years ago by direction of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, in front of his house, the trunk of which measures 21 feet in circumference at four feet above the ground on the lower side, and 18 inches above on the upper side.

■On this day, Jerusalem Lodge will lay the cornerstone of the building which is about to be erected for the accommodation of the Second Congregational Society in Northampton. Members of the lodge and visiting brethren are requested to assemble at the town hall at 10 o’clock. A procession will be formed and will move to the place where the building is to be erected.

100 Years Ago

■Unsigned communications and anonymous telephone conversations are now banned at city hall. Mayor W. H. Feiker announced today in a statement prompted by a recent flood of such letters and calls, many of them of a scurrilous nature.

■More than 400 persons attended the presentation of “Arcadia, Happy Land of Nowhere,” written and directed by Miss Edith Hamilton Parker of this city, and featuring 50 girls and young women from her nature and interpretive classes, which took place in Carnegie Hall last evening.

50 Years Ago

■Bicyclists from throughout the country are convening in Amherst this weekend for the Great Eastern Rally, an annual event of the League of American Wheelmen. The cyclists will be riding in organized trips over area roads through Monday, Memorial Day. Area enthusiasts may join the bicycle trips.

■The Deadly Nightshade is a very popular band in the Pioneer Valley, where Helen Hooke, Anne Bowen and Pamela Brandt first got together in the late 1960s as students at Smith and Mt. Holyoke and where they’ve played together in one band or another ever since. Now the Deadly Nightshade’s first album in out and selling and the band is gaining a national reputation.