A Look Back, Feb. 15

200 Years Ago

■E. S. Phelps, treasurer and collector for the town of Northampton, hereby gives notice to delinquents that all taxes must be paid by the first day of March. “Those who call and pay their taxes before that time will do well for themselves, as I do not intend to make but one call more!”

■John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was on Wednesday last elected President of the United States, for four years to commence on the 4th of March next. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, has been elected, by the votes of the electors, Vice-President of the United States.

100 Years Ago

■Northampton’s budget for 1925, amounting to $792,380, was presented to the city council by Mayor William H. Feiker last night at a special meeting and unanimously adopted with scarcely any discussion. Mayor Feiker, after thanking those who assisted him in preparing the budget, stated that there were no salary increases and no money for permanent highway work or portable schoolhouses this year.

■The Northampton street railway announced this afternoon that commencing tomorrow morning, trolleys will run from Mt. Tom Junction to the Wright Avenue fare limit. The first car will leave the Junction at 8:30, and service will be on the schedule of once an hour.

50 Years Ago

■Three schemes for urban renewal of downtown Northampton were unveiled last night at a meeting of the Northampton Redevelopment Authority Steering Committee. Two of the plans call for a major new department store on Main Street, seen as a key to revitalizing downtown retailing, and the third calls for an elementary school on lower Pleasant Street.

■The current debate over whether there is a “diploma mill” operating at the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts is not new. In 1970 and 1971, a special committee of the UMass Faculty Senate investigated the school and identified what it then saw as numerous academic irregularities.