Aug. 19, 1863: With the Union armies in need of more soldiers, Concord takes part in the draft. Of 924 names placed in a turning wheel, the city’s quota of 277 is drawn. The city will pay each man a bonus of $300.
Aug. 19, 1855: A visitor to the Canterbury Shaker Village counts six water-powered mills “for weaving, coloring, fulling, and for knitting shirts and drawers.” The first knitting machine was installed at the village in 1850. In 1856, a machinist, probably John Pepper of Sanbornton, will build the Shakers a hand-operated “hose machine,” and their production of socks will double.
Aug. 19, 1875: Birth of H. Maitland Barnes, who will grow up to be choirmaster and organist at St. Paul’s Church in Concord. He will also start the custom of singing Christmas carols to prison inmates and hospital patients across Concord with his choir boys.
Aug. 20, 2002: In Portsmouth, three men who allegedly planned to storm a pharmacy, kill everyone inside and steal the drugs land in jail instead, arrested at a final planning session. Jay Howard, 24; his brother, Jeff Howard, 21; and Charles Veillette, 32, of Portsmouth; are charged with conspiracy to commit murder, robbery and theft. They enter no pleas at their arraignments in Portsmouth District Court and are held on $1 million apiece.
Aug. 20, 2001: City councilor Jim O’Neill announces his decision to run for mayor. Mike Donovan will later win the election in a clean sweep.
Aug. 20, 1948: Lifeguards for Manchester’s municipal swimming pools go on strike, forcing the city to close two pools and leave others unsupervised. The workers are seeking a $5 pay raise from $28 to $33 per week, and have rejected the city’s offer of $2.
Aug. 21, 2003: A week after Gov. Craig Benson gets stuck in a four-mile traffic backup at the Interstate 95 toll plaza, he successfully pushes for a change; a one-way toll. He lobbies the Executive Council to approve a six-week experiment to eliminate the southbound toll on the busy highway in Hampton. The plan has drivers paying double when heading north. The council approves it 4-1.
Aug. 21, 2002: According to reports filed with the secretary of state’s office, Republican gubernatorial candidate Craig Benson has spent $7.3 million with nearly three weeks left to go before the Sept. 10 primary, shattering all previous campaign spending records to bits.
Aug. 21, 2001: District court security officers scheduled to lose their jobs ask the state’s highest court to halt their layoffs. The Supreme Court later refuses, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
Aug. 22, 2003: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean opens his Concord headquarters, speaking to supporters about the threat of global warming and the need to invest in renewable forms of energy. “I can see Karl Rove cackling and rubbing his hands together over the Birkenstock governor from Vermont right now, but the truth is that this president has allowed us to fall behind in so many areas, and I don’t want to fall behind in this one,” Dean says. “What I want is a president who believes renewable energy is important in this country.”
Aug. 22, 2002: Police officers are credited with saving the life of a newborn found in a backyard in Hampton Beach several hours after she was born. The infant is flown to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, where she is in fair condition. A 15-year-old believed to be the mother is also hospitalized.
Aug. 22, 2001: After a surprise rejection from the state’s Health Services Planning and Review Board on Concord Hospital’s proposed cancer treatment center, the hospital vows it will continue efforts to open the center and requests a rehearing. Concord Hospital spokeswoman Pam Puleo says, “Our biggest concert, and greatest disappointment, is for the people we serve and the lack of local access to radiation therapy.”
Aug. 22, 1976: In a protest at the Seabrook nuclear power plant site, the police arrest 179 people.
Aug. 23, 2002: With the new school year only one week away, six Barnstead upperclassmen do not have high school assignments, the Monitor reports. School officials at Kingswood, Merrimack Valley and Pittsfield, which together took more than 50 of the almost 70 Barnstead eighth-graders placed by June, said they are still struggling to register late-comers in their own districts.
Aug. 23, 1775: The British warship Scarborough leaves Portsmouth harbor for Boston. On board after eight stormy years as New Hampshire’s royal governor is John Wentworth. Shortly after his departure, a mob will demolish Fort William and Mary, which guards the harbor. Wentworth’s departure signals the end of colonial rule in New Hampshire.
Aug. 23, 1983: Gov. John Sununu denounces the issues raised in a lawsuit challenging New Hampshire’s reliance on property taxes to fund schools as “garbage.” The suit, he says, is little more than a ploy by those who want a broad-based tax. Fourteen years later, the state Supreme Court will rule against the state in Claremont II, a similar lawsuit.
Aug. 24, 2003: On the last day of a six-day campaign tour through New Hampshire, U.S. Sen. John Edwards hammers President Bush’s domestic policies and pushes for a national Patient’s Bill of Rights, calling the lobbying power of health care interests “a scary thing to see up close.” “There are more lobbyists for those industries than people living in my home town,” Edwards says. “We need a president who will stand up to these people.”
Aug. 24, 2002: A dog that roamed Tilton for two weeks since bolting from a highway crash on Interstate 93 is caught and returned to her owner, Randolph Carford, of Norwalk, Conn. Nyshka, a 4-year-old Australian shepherd, is found by Tilton police officer William Patten, Melisssa Dudley of Canterbury and Lorden Butman of Concord in an animal trap set by the police behind Wal-Mart. Dog and owner are reunited at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where Carford is recovering from injuries sustained in the crash.
Aug. 24, 1975: Gov. Mel Thomson, just back from a trip to see the Alaska pipeline, encourages oil exploration off the New Hampshire coast: “Get it within the three-mile limit and we will tax it and make money as well as bring in the oil and gas.”
Aug. 25, 2003: A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal details the lavish compensation packages bestowed upon the rector and vice rector of St. Paul’s school in Concord. According to the Journal, Bishop Craig Anderson, the school’s rector, made $524,000 in salary, benefits and deferred compensation last year – more than most college presidents, and vice rector Sharon Hennessy earned $316,400 in total compensation. Some alumni, parents and donors, outraged at Anderson’s salary, campaign for his ouster. They also push for new faces on the 24-member board of trustees, which sets his pay.
Aug. 25, 2002: No one is calling it spectacular, but New Hampshire’s tourism industry is giving the summer a passing grade, the Monitor reports. State Travel and Tourism Director Lauri Klefos says tourism has been good but not the best the state has ever had.
