Jim Bridgman

200 Years Ago

  • The proprietors of the Northampton Bridge have voted an assessment of ten dollars on each and every share, to be paid to Samuel F. Lyman, Esq., treasurer of said corporation, on the 15th day of December next. – Chris. Clarke, clerk.
  • On Tuesday morning of last week, a passenger in the mail stage from Boston, who called his name Elijah Fisk, stole from Warner’s Coffee House in Northampton, a coat, waistcoat, silver watch, and some other articles, the whole valued at about $40. By the prompt exertions of the Society for Detecting Thieves, he was pursued and taken about 6 miles from this place, brought back and committed to jail for trial at the next term of the S.J.C. From papers in his possession, it is supposed that his real name is Elijah Pratt, Jr.

100 Years Ago

  • Challenging Atty. William M. Welch “to come out in free speech and not hide behind the skirts of the press,” denouncing “the whispering campaign of insinuation and innuendo which makes it necessary for me to fight down through four or five men to reach my opponent,” and flaying the Board of Public Works for mixing in politics, Mayor Feiker broke his long silence yesterday.
  • The third week of the search for Alice M. Corbett, missing Smith College junior, is underway, with a dozen Pinkerton detectives quartered in Northampton looking for clues as to her whereabouts and operatives scattered throughout New England working on the case without success.

50 Years Ago

  • About 20 additional Hampshire County residents will be dropped from the state’s general relief rolls as a result of a court action taken this week. Earlier this week, Federal District Court Judge Frank Freedman refused to extend a temporary restraining order barring the welfare department from dropping “employable” single adults from the rolls.
  • Francois Mitterrand, the head of the French Socialist party, who was narrowly defeated in a race for the French presidency this year, drew a crowd of 250 at Amherst College yesterday. The circumstances were unusual not only because the event, almost unpublicized, occurred during Thanksgiving recess, but because Mitterrand spoke only in French.