A Look Back, March 29

200 Years Ago

■The Selectmen of Northampton will receive proposals until the 1st of April next for the support of the poor — also, for taking care of the meeting house and town hall for the year ensuing.

■The new and elegant post coach “Enterprise” commenced running between Hartford and Northampton on Saturday, 26th March, to meet the steamboats at Hartford for New York, and will be ready to leave Hartford for Northampton immediately on their arrival from New York. The coach will run through Granby, Southwick, Westfield, and Southampton.

100 Years Ago

■Thirty-five thousand marbles were given away to a crowd of eager youngsters this morning by the Harry Daniel Associates. Long before the time announced, the boys gathered at the store and by nine o’clock there was a line reaching up the street as far as the Woodworth store.

■Evidently taking a leaf from President Coolidge’s own diary, twenty-eight dormitory members of the Y.M.C.A. formed a breakfast party yesterday to hear Atty. Harold I. Grousbeck’s account of the recent trip of the Northampton pilgrims to the Presidential inauguration. Mr. Grousbeck told of the trip in great detail and gave a graphic picture of the inaugural ceremonies as a spectacle.

50 Years Ago

■The four-day work week, like the rising cost of food and gasoline, has been accepted without complaint by workers at the Pro Brush Division of the Vistron Corp. in Florence. Most workers interviewed this week at Pro Brush said that while they would prefer to work a five-day week, they were thankful that they still had any jobs at all.

■One day, says Patrick Kamins, a motorist will place a quarter into a parking meter which will also cover the cost of recharging the batteries in his electric car. Electric cars, which were seen in Northampton decades ago, are returning to the area streets. Kamins has one, has sold 24, and hopes to have 100 orders for vehicles by the end of the summer.