This week in Concord history

Dec. 3, 1963: Gov. John King says he favors an appropriate memorial for the slain President John F. Kennedy but will oppose any effort to rename one of New Hampshire’s mountains after Kennedy.

 

Dec. 3, 1847: For $1,000, Edward H. Rollins buys R.C. Osgood’s drugstore on Main Street opposite the State House. Rollins will become a leading Republican, and the back room of the store will be his political headquarters, where policies are crafted and candidates made.

 

Dec. 3, 1934: Orchestra leader Guy Lombardo plays to a sell-out audience at the Concord City Auditorium. The group arrived the night before and checked into the old Eagle Hotel. After an early afternoon press conference, Guy put together a touch football game on nearby Higgins Field.

 

Dec. 3, 1985: Louis Cartier walks into Concord High School with a loaded shotgun. After Cartier holds a student hostage and the police at bay, a police officer shoots and kills Cartier.

 

Dec. 3, 1910: Mary Baker Eddy, Bow native and founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, dies in Chestnut Hill, near Boston.

 

Dec. 4, 2000: Salisbury residents who helped douse a backyard fire say a ball of flames fell from the sky and theorize it was a meteorite. Although the cause of the mysterious fire will continue to be debated, experts will throw cold water on the meteorite theory.

 

Dec. 4, 1900: In raids, 16 police officers from Manchester and Suncook bust 20 people under the state’s prohibition statute. Since bootleggers are still active, “there will be plenty to drink,” a Suncook villager says.

 

Dec. 5, 2003: Merrimack County leaders decided to pay $2 million for the blueprints for a new nursing home after hearing that the current home in Boscawen is medically archaic, awkwardly designed and not up to modern safety codes. Health care experts and architects will spend the next year drawing up plans for a $30 million facility for the county.

 

Dec. 5, 1908: Fire Chief William Green sets out for the movies at Phenix Hall, but even though the same show played at the nearby Opera House for more than a year, the Phenix is filled. There are plans to convert yet another building in the Durgin block into a theater. “Verily, the people are moving picture mad,” Mayor Charles Corning writes in his diary.

 

Dec. 5, 1999: A fire breaks out at South Congregational Church in Concord 45 minutes before a scheduled performance of Handel’s Messiah. After about 80 singers and musicians in formal attire gather on Pleasant Street, they head for nearby St. Paul’s Church, where about 200 people are treated to an impromptu rendition of the oratorio’s most famous section.

 

Dec. 5, 1998: Six teenagers tell the Northfield police that they are responsible for the fire that destroyed the former J.P. Stevens Mill several days earlier. They say the fire started when a torch they were carrying ignited paper on the floor.

 

Dec. 5, 1866: The Monitor reports: “A man who had assisted to empty several bottles of wine afterward took a walk. The pavement was quite icy, and he exclaimed, ‘Very singular, whenever water freezes, it freezes with the slippery side up.’ ”

 

Dec. 6, 1883: Morrill’s mill burns down in Contoocook. The loss is estimated at $10,000; it was insured for $2,000.

 

Dec. 6, 1941: The first squadron of A-20 attack aircraft arrive at Manchester Airport, 24 hours before Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. At the peak of the airport’s wartime use, 6,000 troops will be stationed in Manchester, including the 45th Bombardment Group and an anti-submarine squadron that will destroy at least two Nazi subs on the U.S. Atlantic coast.

 

Dec. 6, 1905: Elizabeth Yates is born in Buffalo. Living in Peterborough, she will become a famed author of books for young people, including, in 1951, Amos Fortune, Free Man, winner of the Newbery medal. Her husband, William McGreal, will write of her in 1951: “She has plenty of courage, a strong faith and a native expectancy of good. Living with her is a high adventure.” She will live her later years in Concord and die in the city in 2001.

 

Dec. 6, 1723: The first white men reach Weare. They are an Indian-scalp-hunting party under Capt. Daniel Pecker of Haverhill, Mass.

 

Dec. 6, 1963: Concord Alderman Eugene C. Struckhoff urges that the city lead the battle against a Boston & Maine Railroad plan to end passenger service to New Hampshire.

 

Dec. 7, 1999: On the anniversary of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, presidential candidate John McCain warns a Concord audience that the U.S. military is not sufficiently prepared. “The fault lies not with those who serve, nor with their uniformed leadership,” McCain says. “It rests with political leaders on both sides of the aisle.”

 

Dec. 7, 1972: New Hampshire officials announce that elderly skiers will get reduced rates at two state-owned ski areas. Those 65 and older will get a discount at Cannon and Sunapee. Those over 70 will ski free.

Author: Insider Staff

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