This week in Concord history

Feb. 4, 1908: In Concord, the St. Paul’s School ice hockey team defeats the Harvard freshmen 9-1. Captain Hobey Baker “played a wonderful game,” scoring three goals, the Monitor reports. Baker will later become a college hockey star, and the trophy awarded to the nation’s best male collegiate player each year will one day bear his name.

 

Feb. 4, 1932: Skating on an outside rink in a preliminary match at the Olympic Games in Lake Placid, N.Y., Douglas Everett of Concord scores the U.S. goal in a 1-1 tie with Canada.

 

Feb. 5, 1952: After announcing that he will run in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, President Truman tells the New York Times: “Not only do I not object to such primaries, but I have long favored a nationwide presidential primary, so that the voters could really choose their own candidates.”

 

Feb. 5, 1968: Rev. Norman Limoge, the administrator at Bishop Brady High School, sends 18 boys to Ray’s Barber Shop after they defy his warning to come to school with “respectable haircuts.” “We’re all here under protest,” one boy tells a reporter. “We didn’t think he’d do it,” says another. The act will lead to a lively exchange of letters to the editor. “Jesus wore long hair,” a defender of the boys will write. Margaret Savard of Pembroke will respond: “As the parent of one of the boys involved, you have my approval.”

 

Feb. 5, 1942: Dudley Orr, the state tax commissioner, is pictured on the front page of the Monitor riding his bicycle to work. In a time of severe gas and tire rationing, he says, it is important for public officials to set a good example. He has no problem getting to work but is not fond of pedaling back up the hill to his home at 125 Centre St.

 

Feb. 5, 1972: Alan Shepard of Derry, a crew member on Apollo 14, sets his left foot on the moon, becoming the fifth American who will leave footprints there. “It’s been a long way, but we’re here,” he says.

 

Feb. 6, 1976: Federal Judge Hugh Bownes declares New Hampshire’s public school prayer law unconstitutional and issues a permanent injunction against recitation of prayers in schools.

 

Feb. 6, 1901: The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is formed. The group is a reaction to failed governmental efforts in Concord and Washington to promote safe and regenerative forestry policies. Years of fires, floods and clear-cutting have left the state’s northern forest in terrible condition.

 

Feb. 6, 1862: Meeting in Concord, a “Union Convention” adopts a platform plank on the war similar to that of the Democrats, which states: “This war should not be waged in any spirit of conquest or subjugation, or for the purpose of overthrowing the rights or established institutions of any of the States.”

 

Feb. 6, 1972: Using a makeshift club, astronaut Alan Shepard of Derry whacks a golf ball out of sight on the moon. “It goes miles and miles and miles,” he says.

 

Feb. 7, 1984: Democratic presidential contender John Glenn tells a Concord crowd: “I’m proud of the attitude we had back in those space days, the attitude of ‘Why not? Move ahead.’ We set goals. We had objectives, and we moved out to accomplish those objectives.”

 

Feb. 7, 1986: As a memorial to Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High teacher who died during the Challenger launch, a new state trust fund is formed to allow other teachers to take “journeys of discovery and enlightenment.”

 

 

Feb. 7, 1988: The New York Times reports that Republican Harold Stassen will make a return trip to New Hampshire in time for the presidential primary – his ninth. Hailed as the “Boy Wonder” when he became governor of Minnesota in the 1930s, he is now 80. “I’ve paid my $1,000 filing fee and I’m going into the arena once more,” he says. “That’s the only way to move the debate in the right direction.” Stassen’s best New Hampshire effort was in 1948, when he lost to Thomas Dewey. The last time out, in 1984, he got 1,543 votes, or 2.1 percent of the total cast.

 

Feb. 7, 1811: Nathaniel White is born in Lancaster. He will come to Concord to run a hotel and become a successful businessman. He will be a prominent abolitionist, working with William Lloyd Garrison, an early proponent of women’s suffrage and the Prohibition candidate for governor of New Hampshire in 1875. Among many other charitable acts, he will be a prime benefactor of the Centennial Home for the aged, now the Centennial Inn.

 

Feb. 7, 1984: Gov. John Sununu blasts Congress for not working harder to stop acid rain in the Northeast, caused by coal-fired plants in the Midwest. “There is a limit to our patience,” he tells a U.S. Senate committee. “We’ve got to be concerned about a wide range of jobs, ranging from those in tourism and the farm and forest industries to those jobs which depend on reasonably priced electric power. To focus only on coal jobs would be unwise.”

 

Feb. 8, 1897: Concord’s first movie plays at White’s Opera House. The show includes bathers at Rahway, N.J., a watermelon-eating contest, a mounted policeman stopping a runaway horse and a three-minute boxing match featuring Gentleman Jim Corbett. “There is nothing fake about it,” the Monitor reviewer reports, adding that the pictures are “vivid and truthful.”

Author: Insider Staff

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