June 24, 1993: Residents who use Concord’s buses, pools and libraries pack a public hearing to testify against proposed budget cuts. “I’m a little bit disturbed that the quality of life seems to be attacked every time we talk about budget cuts,” says Richard Croak.
June 25, 2003: The Penacook Historical Society holds an open house for the Rolfe barn, a 200-year-old building that the group had fought to save for months. The event gives many supporters their first peek at the property.
June 25, 1729: The proprietors of Penacook appoint a committee to find and hire a permanent Congregational minister for the settlement. The minister will be paid 100 pounds a year out of the proprietors’ treasury. A year later, the proprietors will hire the Rev. Timothy Walker for the job
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June 25, 1774: The ship Grosvenor anchors in Portsmouth harbor. Twenty-seven chests of Bohea tea are quietly unloaded and stored in a warehouse. When the leaders of a boycott on tea imported from Britain learn of its presence, they will call a town meeting. A committee appointed by townspeople will negotiate the tea’s return to the Grosvenor, which will take it – at the town’s expense – to Halifax.
June 25, 1835: A Mormon remembered only as “Mr. Green” in a city history comes to Concord looking for converts. He finds none despite two days of lectures.
June 25, 1964: State Parks Director Russell Tobey urges the state to get rid of the Cog Railroad and ban autos from the summit of Mount Washington. “It should be a place for people, not cars, huffing trains and dirty, dingy railroad stations,” he says. It’s an argument he will lose.
June 25, 1779: Andover is incorporated by the Legislature. “The town apparently enjoyed a healthy childhood, as not until 1792 did it require a resident physician,” the Granite Monthly magazine will report much later.
June 26, 2002: In a vote of 388 to 121, Pembroke residents approve a new $1.4 million library.
June 26, 2001: Summer is well under way, but there’s still school in Gilmanton. Thanks to eight snow cancellations, the district, which had been scheduled to wrap up classes on June 15, finishes up its school year today.
June 26, 1855: The Legislature incorporates St. Paul’s School. The first student body: three boys from Boston.
June 26, 1741: John Langdon is born in Portsmouth. He will be one of the state’s leaders in the American Revolution, serving as a member of the Continental Congress and, after the war, as a delegate to the convention that drafts the U.S. Constitution. He will later be a U.S. senator, leading that chamber in 1789 until the arrival of the first vice president, John Adams.
June 26, 1863: John Gilman is killed while blasting rocks in Penacook.
June 26, 1817: After years of missed deadlines by the map-maker, the Legislature approves Philip Carrigain’s map of New Hampshire. It is the first to delineate town boundaries.
June 26, 2003: After vetoing the state budget and a companion bill and forcing lawmakers to return on the last day of the fiscal year to try to override the vetoes, Gov. Craig Benson says that state workers will be paid next week – if they work – even if he has no legislative authority to pay them.
June 27, 1835: The Concord Railroad Corp. obtains a charter for a railroad between Nashua and Concord. The Boston and Maine Railroad also obtains a charter on this date. The Concord corporation will be delayed by the Panic of 1837 and other factors, and the first train will not pull into Concord until September 1842. The B&M will not open its first line in the state until 1849.
June 27, 1862: Colonel Jesse A. Gove, a Weare native, is killed leading the 22nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Gaines’s Mill on the Virginia Peninsula. Gove studied law with Franklin Pierce before the war and served as New Hampshire’s deputy secretary of state from 1850 to 1855.
June 27, 1860: A large Democratic crowd marches to the Eagle Hotel, lights bonfires and shoots off fireworks to celebrate news that, at Baltimore, their party has nominated U.S. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas for president.
June 28, 1833: During his eastern tour, President Andrew Jackson stays at the Eagle Coffee House across from the State House in Concord. Since no bed in the hotel is deemed adequate for a president, Mrs. John Estabrook has lent the house her large mahogany model. Slightly ill, Jackson passes up the renowned hotel cuisine, subsisting on bread and milk.
June 28, 1853: James O. Lyford is born. He will become a journalist and politician and write histories of Concord and Canterbury.
