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 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 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 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 the chests.
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,” Rev. Timothy Walker tells his congregation. All men present leave.
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, 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 the money going to pay down the failing company’s debt. Eastman will reorganize the company.
Aug. 1, 2001: The Concord Planning Board votes unanimously against a developer’s proposal to build a grocery store and shopping center in the South End. The developer will respond with a lawsuit challenging the decision.
Aug. 2, 1927: Granite cutters from Concord join others from throughout New England in appealing for a five-day week with a $9-a-day wage. They currently work 5½ days a week at $8 per day.
Aug. 2, 1830: The Rev. Roger C. Hatch rides from Hopkinton to Concord to make the first deposit in the New Hampshire Savings Bank. The amount is $100.
Aug. 3, 2002: Nan Hagen has had a lifelong love affair with downtowns, the Monitor reports. As the first coordinator of Main Street Concord, Inc., she’ll bring that love – and 11 years of experience rehabbing community business districts – into Concord’s downtown.
Aug. 3, 1871: Brothers George and Charles Page organize the Page Belting Co. after buying a large tannery on Commercial Street near Horse Shoe Pond in Concord. Their father Moses, an innovator in the leather industry, has operated tanneries in Franklin, Chichester and Manchester. The sons will display their belting at the 1876 Centennial exposition in Philadelphia and the 1893 Columbian exposition in Chicago.
Aug. 3, 1967: To the shouts and jeers of Mayor J. Herbert Quinn’s supporters, Concord’s Board of Alderman votes 13-1 to impeach the mayor. Quinn’s main offense: an attempt to engineer the arrest of Monitor editor James M. Langley on a drunken driving charge. Quinn will appeal his dismissal in the courts, but ultimately his ouster will stand and Concord will revert to a weak-mayor, council-manager form of government.
Aug. 3, 1813: A 20-year-old man from Lexington, Mass., who has rented a room on Concord’s Chapel Street for the past three months announces in the Patriot that he has commenced a wheelwright business. His name is Lewis Downing, and in time his business, Abbot & Downing, will build the coaches that bring Concord national fame.
