July 25, 1874: Thirteen months after a fire destroyed the church on the same site, the cornerstone is laid for the North Congregational Church at North Main and Chapel streets. It will be ready for worship in March 1876.
July 25, 1927: A police squad of six officers enters the home of Ruth A. McKinnon on Runnels Road in Penacook. The officers arrest MacKinnon and confiscate 106 bottles of beer, empty pint and quart bottles and a capping machine. MacKinnon will be fined $100 and $41.10 in court costs and sentenced to 60 days in the house of corrections in Boscawen, but the sentence will be suspended. With her arrest, the police believe they have cut off the supply of liquor to this portion of Merrimack County.
July 25, 1927: A crowd of more than 40,000 gathers to greet Col. Charles Lindbergh, who lands his “Spirit of St. Louis” at Concord airport at 1:44 p.m. The band strikes up “Hail to the Chief” as the hero of transatlantic flight takes his seat on the platform. “This airport can still be improved in many ways,” Lindbergh tells the crowd. “In the future it will bring you considerable air commerce.”
July 26, 1927: His tour stop over, Col. Charles Lindbergh and his “Spirit of St. Louis” take off from Concord Airport at 11:50 a.m. There is a report that he passed over Claremont at 1:20 p.m. on his way to Springfield, Mass.
July 26, 1965: Trains carrying 71-foot laminated wooden arches arrive in Concord. Shipped from Oregon, they will become rafters for the new Everett Arena.
July 27, 1927: The police report more evidence of the pickpockets who worked the crowd during Col. Charles A. Lindbergh’s visit to Concord two days before. Two young boys have found 20 more pocketbooks in a hole covered with paper behind the airport hangar. The number of people robbed now totals at least 36.
July 27, 2000: A Massachusetts company presents preliminary plans for a 300,000-square-foot retail development on 53 acres between South Main and Hall streets in Concord. The project will meet with significant opposition from residents of the South End.
July 28, 1827: Othello is performed at the Eagle Coffee House in Concord. Crowds are sparse.
July 28, 1855: The Concord city council registers its approval of the state’s new anti-drinking law. “Resolved that the late act for the suppression of intemperance in this state meets with our entire approbation. Therefore, resolved that the city marshal and his assistants are requested to prosecute, with promptness and energy, all violations and infringements of said law.”
July 28, 2001: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has reached a contract settlement with Concord’s two radiology clinics, the Monitor reports. The deal means local patients insured by Anthem won’t have to drive to Laconia or Manchester for X-rays, mammograms or CT scans.
July 28, 2002: John Frisbee, executive director of the New Hampshire Historical Society, dies at the age of 58. Frisbee took the helm at the historical society in 1987, and it was under his leadership, colleagues said, that the now 179-year-old organization arrived in the modern age. Frisbee led a more than $6 million capital campaign that paid for renovations to the Tuck Library in Concord as well as the purchase, design and construction of the museum, which opened in 1995.
July 28, 2003: A group of residents who have spent the last decade fighting a planned connector road between Concord’s Pleasant and Clinton streets file a lawsuit in Merrimack County Superior Court in an effort to stop the project for good. The lawsuit asks the court to revoke a wetlands permit that gives the city permission to build the Langley Parkway through about 3.5 acres of wetlands near White Farm.
July 29, 1927: Police Chief A.S. Kimball orders the Lapp carnival on the Bridge Street fairgrounds to close “forthwith.” The shutdown follows the arrest of two men who work for the carnival on gambling charges. Both are convicted and fined $50. The chief investigated after receiving reports of gambling and indecent shows at the fair, including one show to which only men were admitted. The sponsoring Elks Club will argue in vain for a reversal of Kimball’s closure order.
July 29, 1988: Developers announce plans for an eight-story office and retail building at the corner of Main and Bridge streets in Concord. (It won’t happen.)
July 29, 2001: The New York Post runs a first-person essay by Concord’s Adam Young about the experience of trying to make the New York Giants’ roster. “I think I have a different perspective than a lot of guys,” Young writes. “You appreciate the things that come to you after having to battle your way through the ranks.”
July 30, 1777: After riding all night from Exeter, Lt. Col. Gordon Hutchins, Concord’s legislative representative, bursts into the Sunday service at Concord’s meeting house to say that Gen. John Stark is marching west but needs more men. “Those of you who are willing to go had better go at once,” the Rev. Timothy Walker tells his congregation. All men present leave.
July 30, 2003: According to documents that are unsealed in Concord District Court, Manuel Gehring told investigators that he shot his children Sarah, 14, and Philip, 11, on the side of a road, 30 to 45 minutes from Concord. Hundreds of miles later, he said a prayer over their bodies before leaving them in a shallow grave with crosses made from duct tape on their chests.
July 31, 1860: Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic nominee for president, comes to Concord. The crowd at the railroad station is “dense and ungovernable,” and 5,000 people jam onto the State House yard to see the most famous politician of his day. Douglas denounces his fellow Democrat, President James Buchanan, for placating the South.
July 31, 1911: Samuel Eastman buys the assets of the Abbot & Downing Co. for just over $50,000, with more than half of the money going to pay down the failing company’s debt. Eastman will reorganize the company.
July 31, 1947: The Monitor is inundated with letters to the editor urging the city to build a swimming pool. One resident, Hazel M. Stiles, writes: “Oh yes, we have Bear Brook if you have a car and someone to take you over. Most parents are working daytimes and cannot take the children. Yes, we have a bus at the cost of 35 cents each way, making 70 cents and an admission fee when you get there. How many times can a child afford to go there?”
July 31, 1983: Walter Mondale speaks to voters at the Archway Restaurant in Concord and is impressed with the seriousness of their questions. “It was a thoughtful meeting,” he says. “They didn’t want the razzmatazz.”
July 31, 2001: Massachusetts authorities arrest Gary L. Sampson in Vermont and accuse him of murdering three men, one of them former Concord city councilor Robert “Eli” Whitney. Sampson will also be charged with killing a 19-year-old college student from Kingston, Mass., and a 69-year-old retiree from Marshfield, Mass.
July 31, 2003: The Granite State Little Blue wins a 20-10 victory in the Senior Babe Ruth League New England Regional title game in Stamford, Conn. With the win, the Concord-based team will go on to the Senior Babe Ruth 16-year-old World Series in Jamestown, N.Y.
