March 5, 1740: After years of disputes over Massachusetts claims on New Hampshire, King George II approves the boundary between the two colonies. The decision increases New Hampshire’s size by 3,500 square miles and costs Massachusetts 28 chartered towns, including Suncook, Bow, Concord, Penacook, Webster, Salisbury, Dunbarton, Weare, Hopkinton, Warner and Bradford.
March 6, 1991: With five seconds left in the state Class I semifinal basketball game, which is tied at 74, Merrimack Valley’s Scott Drapeau miraculously reaches around a Stevens High player to tip in a missed free throw. The MV win sets up a rematch with rival Pembroke Academy and a final showdown between Drapeau and Matt Alosa, two of the biggest basketball stars in area history. Alosa’s Spartans will win the title.
March 6, 2000: Officials investigating the death of the 73-year-old Concord man known as “Cigar Bob” issue a warrant for the arrest of his former roommate. Dwayne Thompson, 46, who has not been seen since Robert Provencher’s body was found, is charged with second-degree murder.
March 7, 1780: Concord town meeting voters elect a prosecutor to find out who “pulled down the house of Andrew Stone, and see what provision they will make for the support of his wife.”
Stone was a soldier from Concord in the Continental Army. Apparently in his absence, a town history reports, “one of Stone’s daughters did not behave so well as the neighbors thought a faire and chaste maiden should do and they undertook to correct her manners by pulling the house down. Whether the girl behaved any better afterwards, tradition saith not.”
March 7, 1798: Crowds converge on Concord, which has grown to 2,000 inhabitants, to celebrate the ordination of the Rev. Asa McFarland, third minister of the village’s Congregational Church. The church is state-sanctioned and tax-supported. Accepting the call, the 28-year-old McFarland tells townspeople he has prayed that God will make him “an instrument to promote your spiritual happiness.” A grand ball at Stickney’s Tavern, on Main Street just up from the ferry crossing, celebrates the event.
March 8, 2001: Carolyn Bradley, principal of Concord’s Rundlett Middle School, announces she will resign at the end of the school year. Bradley has earned praise for her work in Concord and elsewhere in the state, but some will most remember her collection of eyeglasses: 13 pairs, a shade to match every suit.
March 8, 2002: After losing a bet to House Democratic Leader Peter Burling that the St. Louis Rams would beat the New England Patriots in January’s Super Bowl, U.S. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, visits the Legislative Office Building in Concord. He puts on a Patriots jersey with “Vinatieri” on the back.
March 9, 2000: The New Hampshire House votes, 191-163, to abolish the death penalty, a punishment the state last used in 1939. The measure moves next to the state Senate, but Gov. Jeanne Shaheen restates her position: If the bill reaches her desk, she will veto it.
March 10, 2000: A 7-year-old boy crossing Loudon Road on his way to Concord’s Dame School is struck by a pickup truck and seriously injured. The accident inspires residents of the Heights to press city officials for better traffic signals and more clearly marked crosswalks.
March 10, 2002: If there is such a thing as a law designed with noble intent that had results even better than expected, the New Hampshire presidential primary could serve as a prime exhibit, the Monitor reports. Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of Richard Upton’s brainchild.
The law that Upton (then a state representative from Concord) conceived sought to make the votes of New Hampshire citizens really count.
March 11, 2000: After 15 months of negotiations, the Concord teachers’ union and school board have a tentative agreement on a new contract, the Monitor reports.
