July 30, 1975: After nearly 100 hours of debate over 30 days and 35 inconclusive roll-call votes, the U.S. Senate declares its inability to settle the disputed November 1974 U.S. Senate election in New Hampshire and sends the matter back to the state. The move opens the way for a new election between Republican Louis Wyman and Democrat John Durkin. Durkin had suggested the new election on grounds that at the rate the Senate was going, “the term will have expired long before the Senate makes up its mind.” Durkin will win the new election.
July 30, 2000: John McCain, whose resounding defeat of George W. Bush in the state’s presidential primary sent shock waves through the Republican Party, formally releases his delegates at the GOP national convention in Philadelphia. “I will always be grateful,” McCain says of his time in New Hampshire. “One of the greatest experiences of my life was my time in that state.”
July 30, 1868: A fierce tornado rips through the North Country town of Pittsburg, destroying trees and buildings.
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, 2003: The Granite State Little Blue wins a 20-10 victory in the Senior Babe Ruth League New England Regional title game in Stamford, Conn. With the win, the Concord-based team will go on to the Senior Babe Ruth 16-year-old World Series in Jamestown, N.Y.
July 31, 1854: Samuel Wilson, believed to be the original “Uncle Sam,” dies at 87. Brought up in Greenville, N.H., he became a contractor and supplied meat to the army during the War of 1812. He was known as Uncle Sam and stamped his supply barrels U.S. Asked by passersby on a New York wharf what the U.S. stood for, one of Wilson’s workmen said, “Uncle Sam.” The name quickly spread.
July 31, 1983: Walter Mondale speaks to voters at the Archway Restaurant in Concord and is impressed with the seriousness of their questions. “It was a thoughtful meeting,” he says. “They didn’t want the razzmatazz.”
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, 1662: Englishmen sent north by Royal Gov. John Endicott in Boston to explore the headwaters of the Merrimack River reach Lake Winnipesaukee. An engraved boulder above the current Weirs Bridge marks the spot.
Aug. 1, 1848: The Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad opens its line to Meredith Bridge (Laconia).
Aug. 2, 2002: Four women hold a ‘nurse-in’ at Hunt Memorial Pool in Manchester. The protest is in response to an incident that took place in early July, when one of the women was asked to leave the pool for breastfeeding her baby.
Aug. 2, 2001: The last sheets of fiber used for heel cups roll through Penacook Fibre Co. The company is shutting down after more than 60 years in business.
Aug. 2, 1776: New Hampshire delegates Dr. Josiah Bartlett and William Whipple join other members of the Continental Congress in signing the Declaration of Independence.
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. 3, 2003: In Minneapolis, the Episcopal Church’s laity and clergy move the Rev. Canon Gene Robinson, 56, of Weare, a step closer to becoming New Hampshire’s bishop, giving him more votes than expected in a church deeply torn over his homosexuality. He needs 112 votes from the clergy and laity. He gets 128.
Aug. 3, 1852: On Lake Winnipesaukee, Harvard and Yale hold the first intercollegiate rowing race. Harvard wins by four lengths.
Aug. 3, 1871: Brothers George and Charles Page organize the Page Belting Co. after buying a large tannery on Commercial Street near Horseshoe 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, 1993: U.S. Sen. Bob Smith is one of just three senators to vote against confirming Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying he fears she will pursue a liberal agenda. “What the other senators did wasn’t an issue that Sen. Smith looked at,” his spokeswoman says.
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.
