A Look Back: March 23

200 Years Ago

■Solomon Stoddard of Northampton offers for sale eight or ten lots of land in the town of Northampton, county of Portage, and state of Ohio. This township is situated at the head of the boat navigation on the river Cuyahoga, has a handsome settlement upon it, and possesses peculiar local advantages for enterprising settlers.

■Whereas Roswell Franklin, now in the eighteenth year of his age, having resided in my family from the time he was one year old, absconded from me in January last, all persons are hereby forbid trusting the said Roswell on my account, as I will pay no debts of his contracting after this date. – John Montague, Granby.

100 Years Ago

■F.N. Kneeland, of the First National Bank, is receiving congratulations today from many friends upon the completion of 55 years of service with the bank, of which he is now vice president. When Mr. Kneeland came to his office this morning at the usual hour, he found it decorated by a vase of roses presented by the officials of the bank.

■Dr. Marion LeRoy Burton, formerly president of Smith College and now president of the University of Michigan, and Mrs. Burton are at the White House for several days as guests of President and Mrs. Coolidge.

50 Years Ago

■Northampton High School band members are getting their passports in order for what is now a definite 10-day tour of England and Ireland. The band has been raising funds for the trip since October, and Band Director George Menousek said the group has raised almost $25,000, the amount needed for the trip, through its own efforts and through last minute parent contributions.

■At a time when most written communications come in the form of typescripts, computer printouts or xeroxed forms, the archaic art of penmanship retains it status in Northampton elementary schools, where a special penmanship teacher instructs pupils in the fine points of cursive writing. Edith W. Anderson, Northampton’s penmanship instructor, does not think penmanship is outdated.