– Nov. 9, 1869: Josiah L. Pike, slayer of an old couple in Hampton Falls, is hanged – the first person executed in New Hampshire since colonial times. In the days leading up to his death, ministers’ wives and daughters brought him flowers, sang to him and held his hands. An observer describes Pike’s final days as “a surge of sentimental gush that scandalized the state and aroused the stinging sarcasm of Mark Twain.” Afterward, there is a change in prison management, and “murderers have not since been allowed ovations there.”
– Nov. 10, 1854: Concord’s Unitarian Church is destroyed by fire.
– Nov. 11, 1965: The Douglas N. Everett Arena opens in Concord.
– Nov. 11, 1874: Meeting in Concord’s Eagle Hall, a crowd of 100 women form the New Hampshire Women’s Temperance League. The first president is Mrs. Nathaniel White of Concord.
– Nov. 11, 1909: The last major branch of Concord’s trolley system opens. The 1.55-mile route will be known as the Sunset Loop. It runs up Centre Street from Main to Washington, then White, then on to Franklin Street and back to Main. The city’s trolleys are serving 1.2 million passengers a year.
– Nov. 12, 1941: After spending three days in the country with Winston Churchill, John G. Winant of Concord, U.S. ambassador to Britain, writes a five-page memo to Franklin D. Roosevelt outlining three scenarios Churchill has posed. The worst: Japan enters the war against Britain, but the United States stays out. Better: Neither country enters the war. Best: The United States enters the war, but Japan doesn’t. Less than a month later, Pearl Harbor will put a fourth scenario into effect.
– Nov. 12, 1818: A newly discharged convict from the New Hampshire state prison enters the State House and steals the keys to most of the doors. He is quickly arrested.
– Nov. 12, 1885: Ten women in their late teens and early 20s form the Flower Mission, whose purpose is to deliver flowers at Concord hospitals and homes for the aged. The mission survives to this day.
– Nov. 14, 1861: A fire at Main and School streets, the fourth major fire of the year in downtown Concord, destroys a harness factory, a shoe store, the gas-light company offices and homes.
