Our very own Abe Lincoln; the death penalty lives on

July 6, 1849 – The Legislature officially gives Concord permission to become a full-fledged city. An argument in favor of abandoning the town meeting form of government is that there is no place big enough to accommodate all the town's voters.

– July 10, 1927 – A U.S. Army flying school opens at Concord airport with the arrival of the first class of 20 pilots in training.

– July 10, 1879 – John B. Buzzell is hanged at the state prison. Buzzell broke off his engagement with a young woman, who sued him for breach of promise. He hired a young man to kill her. The young man fired a pistol through her window, blowing her head off. Buzzell was acquitted of murder.

Later, when the hired gun turned state's evidence to save his own hide, Buzzell was convicted as an accessory to murder and sentenced to die. As he awaited the noose, his case was used by legislative proponents of a measure to abolish the death penalty in New Hampshire. The measure failed.

– July 11, 1824 – Dr. Asa McFarland, Concord's Congregationalist minister, writes to the town requesting that the contract obliging he be paid as a town officer be terminated. At their 1825 town meeting, Concord voters will honor this request. From this time forward, according to an 1850 town report, “no money has ever been raised by the town, in the capacity of a parish, or for the support of preaching.”

– July 12, 1854 – On a tip, the Concord police raid a Pearl Street paint shop and break up a gambling den. Six men and boys are arrested and fined $5.

– July 12, 1941 – Roy Jenkins meets the new U.S. ambassador to Britain, John G. Winant of Concord, in the Jenkins family's London home. Winant, a former New Hampshire governor, will later employ the young Jenkins as a researcher in the American embassy. In 2001, in his biography of Winston Churchill, Lord Jenkins will describe Winant as “Lincolnesque.”

Author: Cassie Pappathan

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