Aug. 30, 1970 – At the Highway Hotel in Concord, the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge, Pa., honors 10 New Hampshire people for efforts to maintain “the American way.” Among the honorees are Publisher William Loeb and gubernatorial candidate Meldrim Thomson Jr.
•Aug. 30, 1862 – After a federal draft call for nine-month volunteers, the city of Concord offers a bounty of $100 to any resident who will sign up by Sept. 15.
Aug. 30, 1869 – Henry F. Hollis is born. He will become a Concord lawyer and, in 1912, the first New Hampshire Democrat in 60 years to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Aug. 30, 1790 – A town meeting approves spending 100 pounds to build a “town house” on land near Main and Court streets. The town house will be a meeting place for townspeople and the General Court.
Aug. 30, 1824 – Amos Parker, editor of Concord's weekly Statesman, goes to Boston to invite the Marquis de Lafayette to visit Concord during the Revolutionary War hero's U.S. tour. Lafayette agrees to come after the dedication of the Bunker Hill Memorial the following June. Parker describes Lafayette as “a dignified personage, in his 60s, grown portly,” wearing buff-colored cotton pants, a swans'-down vest, a blue broadcloth coat with gilt buttons, a beaver top hat and plain shoes.
Aug. 31, 1866 – The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, author of a Concord history a decade earlier, is named state historian. He will holds this position for 11 years, during which he will compile 10 volumes of provincial and state papers for publication.
Aug. 31, 1892 – The statue of antislavery Sen. John P. Hale is completed outside the State House.
Sept. 1, 1782 – The Rev. Timothy Walker, who has served as Concord's Puritan minister from around the time of its settlement in 1730, collapses while preparing for a service and dies. He is 77 years old.
Sept. 1, 1939 – Germany attacks Poland. The Concord Monitor's lead editorial says: “We feel certain that try as hard as we may, we cannot stay out of the war if it is at all prolonged.”
Sept. 1, 1964 – The U.S. Census Bureau announces that New Hampshire has retained its national ranking in estimated population figures. With a population of 654,000, the state comes in 46th. Vermont is the only New England state with fewer people.
Sept. 2, 1947 – Plans to install the city's first parking meters downtown draw the ire of Concord residents. “I will make one pledge: I never will put 10 cents into a meter in order to shop. I will park my car over on Concord Plains and walk in first,” writes Charles H. Nixon in a letter to the editor.
Sept. 2, 1816 – From Concord, where he is living in the North End, Samuel F.B. Morse writes to his parents that he is engaged to a local girl, Lucretia Walker. “Never, never was a human being so blest as I am,” he writes.
Sept. 3, 2001 – A standoff closes Sewalls Falls Road and re-routes holiday traffic on Interstate 93. After 4½ hours, the police take a man into custody.
Sept. 3, 1914 – Richard F. Upton is born in Bow. He will become a prominent Concord lawyer and speaker of the New Hampshire House. In 1949, concerned with light voter turnout in previous New Hampshire presidential primaries, he will initiate legislation to make the process more meaningful. Long before his death in 1996, he will be known as the father of the state's first-in-the-nation primary.
Sept. 3, 1861 – Thirty-one train cars carry the Third New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment out of the Concord station.
Sept. 5, 1929 – Amateur radio enthusiast Robert Byron of 15 Fayette St. in Concord talks for an hour with Robert E. Byrd's South Pole expedition 12,000 miles away. He says the reception is remarkably clear. Two years earlier, Byrd spoke to a packed house at the City Auditorium. Byron's radio exploits are well known in town. The year before, he was the first to inform the Germans by radio that the Bremen had reached Greenley Island in Canada, meaning that three German pilots had succeeded in making the first east-to-west transatlantic flight.
Sept. 5, 1987 – The temperature falls to 34 degrees, a record low.
