Oct. 10, 1774: Reacting to the Intolerable Acts and Britain’s closing of Boston Harbor, a special town meeting in Portsmouth votes to send 200 pounds to Boston for poor relief. The amount is four times Portsmouth’s annual province tax. Other New Hampshire towns, including Concord, will soon follow Portsmouth’s example and send money to Boston.
Oct. 11, 1854: In a closed-door meeting at Concord’s Eagle Hotel, former New Hampshire congressman Edmund Burke leads a group of disenchanted Democrats who vote to repudiate President Franklin Pierce.
Oct, 11, 1894: James M. Langley is born in Hyde Park, Mass. He will be the editor and publisher of the Concord Monitor for four decades, beginning in 1923. He will be instrumental in the campaign to elect Dwight D. Eisenhower president in 1952 and will later serve as Eisenhower’s ambassador to Pakistan.
Oct. 11, 1983: The Concord library’s collection of 500 stuffed birds and mammals is loaded into a U-Haul and trucked to the new Science Center of New Hampshire in Holderness for display. Just as well. The library used to lend the animals to Concord residents, whose household pets chewed their wings and took swipes at their feathers. Estimated cost to restore them: $5,000-$10,000.
Oct. 12, 2002: It used to be that Concord has an affordable housing shortage, the Monitor reports. Today, it simply has a housing shortage – one that’s hitting every income sector, from minimum-wage workers to wealthy executives.
Oct. 13, 1987: The temperature in Concord falls to 22 degrees, a record low.
Oct. 13, 2000: Concord developer Steve Duprey announces the new conference center at Horseshoe Pond will be named for the Grappone family, who “stood out among all our wonderful donors.” The Grappones donated more than $700,000 to the project.
Oct. 14, 2003: The Bow High girls’ soccer team wins 1-0 over Derryfield, giving career victory No. 100 to Coach Kelly Farrell.
Oct. 15, 1851: Philip C. Hunt is caught in a belt and carried around the shafting of a Penacook mill, mangling one leg and one arm badly, from which he never fully recovers. He lives until 1858.
Oct. 15, 2000: About 1,800 people take part in Concord’s leg of the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. The local event raises $157,000 for research.
Oct. 15, 2002: Concord High juniors get the news that their statewide test scores rose significantly in all four subjects on the test, with the most notable jumps in language arts and math. In an effort to boost scores during the testing period in May, the school adopted a controversial reward system for students who took the test. Rewards included bagels, yogurt and McDonald’s apple pies.
Oct. 16, 1940: All men in the state between the ages of 21 and 36 are counted for the draft. By the end of World War II in 1945, 36,000 men will have been drafted, and 22,500 more will have enlisted.
Oct. 16, 2001: Citing safety concerns relating to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Steeplegate Mall cancels its annual trick-or-treat night.
Oct. 16, 2002: One hundred senior citizens gather for a ground-breaking ceremony for the city’s first senior center.
