Aug. 25, 1855: Concord establishes its first public library. The city council appropriates $1,500: “$300 for fixtures, the residue for books.”
Aug. 26, 1988: State Rep. Eugene Daniell Jr. of Franklin, firebrand soapbox orator and former radical, dies at 83. He was one of the first politicians in New Hampshire to call for the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Aug. 26, 1988: Developers abandon plans for a seven-story hotel on Fort Eddy Road. Instead, Concord will get the LL Bean strip mall.
Aug. 27, 2003: Rob Owen, Dick Norris and Steve Nickless, employees of Heritage New Hampshire, secure a place in history when they ride a Segway scooter up Mount Washington’s auto road. The trip requires six sets of batteries for the stand-up scooter, which was invented by Manchester’s Dean Kamen and is manufactured in Bedford.
Aug. 27, 1988: A Maine couple comes forward to claim their share of a $294.8 million Powerball jackpot, the second largest in history. The winning ticket was bought in Rollingsford.
Aug. 27, 1869: Edmund Cox, the most daring coachman in the White Mountains, takes President Ulysses S. Grant on a wild ride from Bethlehem to the Profile House in Franconia Notch. For the bumpy 11-mile trek, Grant joins Cox atop the Concord Coach.
Aug. 27, 1990: David Souter’s friends and neighbors describe for the Monitor their interviews with the FBI after he is nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. “They asked me if David had ever been in any trouble with liquor or speeding or any kind of dope. But I never knew David to drink or anything,” said one neighbor.
Aug. 28, 1728: John Stark is born in a cabin in Londonderry. He will grow up to fight with Rogers’ Rangers in the French and Indian War, become the hero of Bennington during the American Revolution and, in an 1809 letter greeting veterans of Bennington, pen the words “Live Free or Die.”
Aug. 28, 1902: President Roosevelt visits Weirs Beach and speaks to a reunion of Civil War veterans.
Aug. 29, 1900: Workmen erecting electric light poles find two rusted tin boxes buried by a dirt road in Bow. The boxes contain documents stolen from the State House more than five years earlier in a heist that netted $6,000 in cash.
Aug. 29, 1826: In Crawford Notch, an avalanche sweeps the Willey family – mother, father, five children and two servants – to their death. Nathaniel Hawthorne will portray the event in “Twice-Told Tale: The Ambitious Guest.”
Aug. 29, 1814: New Hampshire re-elects Daniel Webster to Congress on an anti-war platform. In a Federalist sweep of the state, Webster’s brother Ezekiel is elected to the state Senate.
Aug. 30, 1869: Henry F. Hollis is born. He will become a Concord lawyer and, in 1912, the first New Hampshire Democrat in 60 years to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Aug. 31, 1892: The statue of antislavery Sen. John P. Hale is completed outside the State House.
Aug. 31, 1899: For the first time, an automobile climbs Mount Washington. It is a Stanley Steamer. The driver is F.O. Stanley, who designed the car. No bumper stickers are available to mark the feat.
