July 19, 1832: Fearing a cholera epidemic that has entered the country from Europe and Canada, a special Concord town meeting elects a board of health. The board is granted power “to make all necessary arrangements and accommodations for sick strangers and for the comfort and safety of its own citizens.” Fears of the cholera epidemic will prove unfounded.
July 19, 1985: In a White House ceremony, President Reagan names Christa McAuliffe, a Concord High School social studies teacher, as the nation’s “Teacher in Space.” Scheduled for a January launch on the space shuttle, McAuliffe says: “I think students will . . . say that an ordinary person is contributing to history, and if they can make that connection, they are going to get excited about history and about the future.”
July 20, 1817: President James Monroe attends church at “the Old North,” the Congregational church that stood on the site of the current Walker School.
July 20, 1987: A traveling exhibit in a trailer stops at the State House, and hundreds of people queue up to see what’s inside. Among many other items, the exhibit includes an original Magna Carta, a signed Emancipation Proclamation, a page of the 1638 Connecticut charter and a late draft of the U.S. Constitution with the notes of one of the delegates, Pierce Butler, in the margins.
July 21, 1873: Meeting at city hall, the Congregationalist society of Concord votes to rebuild its church at North Main and Chapel streets. Three weeks earlier, a fire consumed the church.
July 21, 1892: The Snowshoe Club, one of Concord’s many men’s organizations, is founded. Its objects are “enjoyment of the beauties of nature; moral and social improvement; physical culture.”
July 22, 1862: A meeting is held in Concord in response to President Lincoln’s call for 300,000 new volunteers throughout the Union states. The city decides it will put up a $50 bounty, in addition to state and federal bounties, for any Concord man who will enlist.
July 22, 1976: New Hampshire Attorney General David Souter discloses that three pistols were uncovered at the state prison in Concord after officials were informed of plans for an armed escape.
July 22, 2003: Manuel Gehring, the Concord man accused of murdering his children, Sarah, 14, and Philip, 11, returns to Concord on a small jet after spending a week somewhere in the Midwest.
July 23, 1927: Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who is scheduled to arrive in Concord two days from now on his triumphant tour around the country, lands at Concord airport. The reason: the airport in Portland, Maine, his scheduled stop, is fogged in.
July 24, 2002: An 11-run second inning and sparkling defense propels Concord National to the Junior League Softball Championship, with a 13-2 victory over the host Bedford team.
July 24, 2003: Manuel Gehring, the Concord man accused of fatally shooting his children, Sarah and Philip, pleads not guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in Hillsborough County Superior Court.
July 25, 1874: Thirteen months after a fire destroyed the church on the same site, the cornerstone is laid for the North Congregational Church at North Main and Chapel streets. It will be ready for worship in March 1876.
July 25, 1927: A crowd of more than 40,000 gathers to greet Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who lands his “Spirit of St. Louis” at Concord airport at 1:44 p.m. The band strikes up “Hail to the Chief” as the hero of transatlantic flight takes his seat on the platform. “This airport can still be improved in many ways,” Lindbergh tells the crowd. “In the future it will bring you considerable air commerce.”
July 25, 1927: A police squad of six officers enters the home of Ruth A. McKinnon on Runnels Road in Penacook. The officers arrest MacKinnon and confiscate 106 bottles of beer, empty pint and quart bottles and a capping machine. MacKinnon will be fined $100 and $41.10 in court costs and sentenced to 60 days in the house of corrections in Boscawen, but the sentence will be suspended. With her arrest, the police believe they have cut off the supply of liquor to this portion of Merrimack County.
July 25, 2002: It’s been 20 years since a significant building was torn down on Main Street, the Monitor reports. This week, the Sears block takes its place in history alongside such historic demolitions as the Centennial Block in front of Durgin Lane, the retail building that once stood in Eagle Square and the Phenix Hotel.
