This Week in Concord History

Aug. 27, 1991: Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder arrives in Concord and plays coy about plans to run for president. “I’m not unmindful at all of all the portents, the omens and the signs relative to being in New Hampshire. I take all of them seriously.” Wilder will eventually jump into the race but then back out.

Aug. 27, 2002: A crowd at Heritage Heights in Concord peppers the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate, U.S. Rep. John E. Sununu and Sen. Bob Smith, with questions ranging from how to expand affordable housing to whether the United States should invade Iraq.

Aug. 28, 1978: The Massachusetts state police assign four troopers to protect New Hampshire Gov. Mel Thomson while the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance demonstrates at the National Governors Association meeting in Boston.

Aug. 29, 1862: While ministering to soldiers of the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry at Second Bull Run, Harriet P. Dame of Concord is captured. She is taken to Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters and will be released the next day. As long as the 2nd serves, Dame will be its “angel of mercy,” according to Maj. J.D. Cooper. “Many days,” he will write, “she has stood by the side of our noble, patriotic sons who have gone to their long homes, doing all in her power to alleviate their sufferings, and soothe their sorrows in the dying hour.”

Aug. 29, 1900: Workmen erecting electric light poles find two rusted tin boxes buried by a dirt road in Bow. The boxes contain documents stolen from the State House more than five years earlier in a heist that netted $6,000 in cash.

Aug. 29, 2001: Republicans agree the budget is balanced, after fumbling a first-punch radio campaign, airing ads that accuse Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, the likely Democratic candidate for Senate in 2002, of cultivating a $200 million state budget deficit. The GOP replaces the erroneous ad with a new one that attacks Shaheen for being a big spender.

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. 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, 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. 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.

Aug. 31, 2000: Author Russell Banks visits with inmates at New Hampshire State Prison. “In many ways,” he tells them, “you guys are my ideal readers.”

 

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, 2000: The high school football season kicks off with a couple of routs. Concord wallops Portsmouth, 42-0, while Kearsarge runs over Bow, 41-0.

Sept. 1, 2002: The Monitor reports that both the Republican and Democratic gubernatorial primary races are too close to call, according to a poll conducted for the newspaper. A survey of 300 likely GOP primary voters showed Cabletron co-founder Craig Benson leading former U.S. senator Gordon Humphrey 33 percent to 31 percent. Former state senator Bruce Keough came in third at 21 percent, and 15 percent of the voters hadn’t picked a candidate yet. The margin of error was plus or minus 6 percent.

 

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. 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, 2002: Concord police arrest a man they say kidnapped two teenagers at knifepoint at Walmart on Loudon Road. James McLaughlin will be arraigned on two counts of kidnapping, one count of robbery, one count of felon in possession of a deadly weapon, and possession of a dangerous weapon while committing a violent crime.

Author: Insider Staff

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  1. Amos Parker wrote a very funny account of what happened when he went to Boston in June, 1825, to pick up Lafayette and bring him back to Concord. I described this in my historical novel for young readers, A BUSS FEROM LAFAYETTE, in great detail. Hint: Parker gave a ride to an elderly Revolutionary war veteran who was NOT Lafayette, and great confusion and amusement resulted, I set this story in Hopkinton NH, during the time that this world famous hero of the Revolution came to New Hampshire.

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