Jan. 11, 2002: Dozens of residents from small towns between Concord and the Seacoast are expected to meet in Barrington with state officials to review options for stopping, or scaling back, what could be the state’s largest water-bottling operation, the Monitor reports. USA Springs, the Pelham based company that hopes to construct a water-bottling plant on 100 acres it owns on the Barrington/Nottingham town line, wants state permission to withdraw up to 439,000 gallons a day from the bedrock beneath, or enough to satisfy 2,200 households. But members of Save Our Groundwater insist the plant’s water withdrawals will drop the water table for miles around, drying up private wells and concentrating contaminants in what water is left.
Jan. 11, 2001: Bill Clinton returns to New Hampshire one last time as president. He tells a packed Dover High School gymnasium that he has kept the commitments he made eight years ago in a famous speech at the Dover Elks Club. Then Clinton had promised to work his heart out “until the last dog dies.” To thunderous applause today, he says, “The last dog is still barking.”
Jan. 11, 2000: Carlton Fisk, who grew up in Charlestown and was a three-sport star at the town’s high school, is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jan. 11, 1993: A fire forces nine nuns out of the Carmelite monastery on Pleasant Street in Concord.
Jan. 12, 2002: Hooksett has been growing quickly for decades, but plans now in the works could increase the number of homes there by 49%, the Monitor reports. It’s a looming boom that illustrates a regional trend: Growth from metropolitan Boston is wending farther north into New Hampshire.
Jan. 12, 1943: State Rep. Norris Cotton leads the charge for a ban on smoking in Representatives Hall during House sessions. The tobacco habit, he says, “is distasteful and obnoxious to the many non-smoking members.” He says the House is the only legislative body in the world that allows smoking during deliberations. The bill passes 203-129.
Jan. 13, 1908: Edwin Bedee dies in Plymouth just five days after his 75th birthday. Bedee was in Ford’s Theater the night President Lincoln was shot. He rushed into the president’s box and held Lincoln’s head while a surgeon looked for the wound. It was Bedee, a captain in the 12th New Hampshire Infantry, who discovered that Lincoln had been shot in the head.
Jan. 13, 1942: Gov. Robert O. Blood announces the rules and regulations for air raid blackouts. The Monitor publishes his message with a guide to identifying the country of origin of military aircraft.
Jan. 13, 1943: Responding to the governor’s call for Victory gardens and home farming, Concord Mayor Charles McKee says: “Concord citizens can keep pigs and chickens in their backyards if they want to. There is no city ordinance to stop them.”
Jan. 13, 1968: Marine Lt. Alfred Russ, 24, of Hancock dies of wounds in Quang Tri Province. He is the 99th serviceman from New Hampshire to die during the Vietnam War.
Jan. 14, 1824: The “other Concord” – in the North Country – officially changes its name to Lisbon, ending confusion with New Hampshire’s capital city.
Jan. 14, 1902: Gen. Simon G. Griffin of Keene dies at 77. Griffin led the 6th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment, became a brigadier general in 1864 and, for his leadership in the battles around Petersburg, Va., was promoted to major general. After the war, he became a businessman and served as speaker of the New Hampshire House. Just before his death, Griffin wrote Keene’s town history.
Jan. 15, 1932: It’s a January thaw to remember: For the third day in a row, the temperature in Concord tops 60 degrees.
Jan. 15, 1942: Sherman Adams leads a rescue party on snowshoes to the rescue of a bomber crew after their plane crashed into the side of Mount Jim near North Woodstock. Adams’s party brings five of the seven crew members out alive. Two perish. The plane was based at Westover Field in Chicopee, Mass. When it crashed, three bombs exploded.
Jan. 15, 1901: A young chicken farmer in Derry writes to a literary editor: “I send you this selection from the poems I have been writing with a view to a volume some day.” The editor publishes one of the poems but not until five years later will she hear again from Robert Frost.
