LEVERETT — At one time the U.S. post office in town center doubled as a general store, a place where adults picked up and sent their mail, or filled their gas tanks, and children could choose from a wide variety of penny candy on their way to and from elementary school.

Bringing two nickels with him to the store some 60 years ago, around the time when President Kennedy was assassinated, Select Board Chairman Tom Hankinson recalls losing the coins, which are still likely stuck somewhere in the building’s heating ducts. Even though the building has undergone changes over the years, with a handicapped accessible ramp out front and the gas pumps long removed, Hankinson said he still remembers Muriel E. Bourne as the postmaster and proprietor.

“Leverett has been part of my life all my life,” said Hankinson, now 69, who grew up on a former 100-acre farm. “That’s 28% of Leverett’s existence as a town.”

Hankinson shared his memories Tuesday morning during the launch of the town’s 250th anniversary celebrations, which include a commemorative postmark featuring a logo designed by local artist Lori Lynn Hoffer.

The celebrations include a birthday party at Town Hall Saturday afternoon, concerts, history lessons and talks, and, over the summer, a parade and barbecue. The most visible part of the anniversary, aside from signs at the town borders, is this week’s lighting of a ceremonial cake in the field near the Leverett Elementary School and Leverett Library.

The postage station at the post office came on the precise day Leverett separated from Sunderland 250 years earlier. People can bring any uncanceled stamp affixed to any paper and have it stamped with the special postmark this week, and the postmark will continue to be used for mailed items throughout the year.

The idea of the postmark came from Susan Mareneck, who chairs the Historical Commission and worked with Hoffer to get the post office on board.

State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, came to the event, offering well wishes on behalf of the state’s legislative delegation, which includes state Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Deerfield, who was kept in Boston.

Speaking to about 20 residents gathered inside, with Select Board members Melissa Colbert and Patricia Duffy also present, Comerford said she is grateful to represent the town and called its actions humane and honorable and an inspiration for her work. “You really show how it’s done,” she said.

Comerford observed that her chief of staff, Jared Friedman, grew up a stone’s throw from the post office.

Mareneck presented Comerford and Blais with a commemorative T-shirt.

Inside the post office, rebuilt after being burned down in 1932 during a break-in in which thieves blew open the safe, is a display of photographs showing many of the postmasters, including Bourne, who served for 38 years; Terry Glazier, postmaster in the 1970s; Phyllis Glazier, Terry’s mother and Bourne’s daughter, who was postmaster through the 1980s; and Toni Greenough, who was there in the 1990s and 2000s. There also is an antique post office box display from a long-gone Moore’s Corner post office, on loan from the Moore’s Corner Schoolhouse.

Sara Robinson, president of the Leverett Historical Society, was on hand selling postcards with historic Leverett scenes, some showing a store in Moore’s Corner and an aerial of North Leverett center, others the First Congregational Church in town center and the Beaman and Marvell Box Factory that became Leverett Crafts and Arts. Proceeds from the sales are benefiting the society and its work in town.

Her husband, Don, bought several of the postcards and had them stamped, saying he intends to send them to friends.

Also among those reminiscing was Edie Field, emeritus president of the Leverett Historical Society. She reflected on the nearby Field Family Museum, where the Bradford M. Field Library had been located, noting that Field was appointed Leverett postmaster by President Abraham Lincoln and served the town until 1914.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.