Aug. 7, 2001: The Concord Baseball Association announces that Pete Dupuis has been named the general manager of the Concord Quarry Dogs for the 2002 season. Dupuis was the assistant general manager under Warren Doane, who passed away earlier this year.
Aug. 8, 1861: The Democratic Standard, a Concord newspaper with Southern sympathies, refers to the Union Army as “Old Abe's Mob.” When angry returned soldiers from the First New Hampshire Volunteers gather outside the Standard office, the paper's frightened proprietors stand in the windows, pistols in hand. The owners fire three shots in the melee that follows, but no one is injured. The mob burns some of the Standard's property and dumps its type cases in the street.
Aug. 8, 1974: As news of the impending resignation of President Nixon sweeps the nation, the Monitor interviews people in the streets of Concord. “I feel a tremendous sense of renewal for the American system,” St. Paul's School English teacher Richard Lederer tells a reporter. The president announces his resignation in a televised speech, and Vice President Gerald Ford assumes the presidency.
Aug. 9, 2001: New Englanders use more electricity than ever before today, as an unrelenting heat wave smothers the region for the fourth day this week. Issuing a rare power warning this morning, the owners of New England's electricity grid urge people to conserve energy.
Aug. 10, 1987: Owners of the Ramada Inn on Main Street in Concord get city permission to build over Storrs Street. “The building that is there right now is, quite frankly, ugly. But what you see there now is not what you'll get,” says lawyer Ray D'Amante. The plan never happens.
Aug. 10, 2003: The Rev. Gene Robinson returns to his home church, St. Paul's Church in Concord, to the hugs and handshakes of hundreds of parishioners and leads the blessing there for the first time since becoming the first openly gay Episcopalian confirmed as a bishop.
Aug. 11, 1746: Thirty or 40 Indians attack a seven-man military party in Rumford (Concord) near the current site of Concord Hospital. The Indians kill five men – Samuel and Jonathan Bradley, Obadiah Peters, John Bean and John Lufkin – and strip and mutilate their bodies. Alexander Roberts and William Stickney are captured. The dead are brought to town in a cart and buried immediately.
Aug. 12, 1927: In the Hall of Flags at the State House, a bronze plaque is unveiled honoring Walter Kittredge of Merrimack, who wrote one of the most popular songs of the Civil War, “Tenting Tonight on the Old Campground.” A Boston publisher originally declined to pay Kittredge $15 for the song but, to his great fortune, changed his mind.
The end of the war was only the beginning of the song's popularity. It was a staple at Grand Army of the Republic reunions well into the 20th century. Kittredge himself sang it before huge veterans' conventions in Chicago and Philadelphia. Ironically, Kittredge was no veteran; though drafted during the war, he was unable to serve because of a disability.
Aug. 12, 1952: State officials announce that Concord will be the northern terminus for the new Central New Hampshire Turnpike, a four-lane, $26 million expressway. The road will extend 40 miles from the Massachusetts state line at Tyngsboro to Concord. It will end in a huge traffic circle just south of the city line.
Aug. 12, 2000: The 2000 Babe Ruth 16- to 18-year-old World Series gets under way before a crowd of thousands at Memorial Field in Concord. The tournament field includes two local teams, but neither of them manages a win in its opening game.
Aug. 13, 1852: The tallest flagpole in New Hampshire history is erected in the State House yard, put up to celebrate Franklin Pierce's nomination by the Democrats to be president. It is 143 feet tall, higher than the State House dome. First flown is an emblem with pictures of Pierce and Sen. Rufus de Vane King of Alabama, his running mate.
Aug. 13, 1979: At the official opening of his presidential campaign headquarters in Concord, Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas says he expects Sen. Edward Kennedy, not President Carter, to be the 1980 Democratic nominee. “I might not be able to match some of the Kennedy mystique,” he says, but a Kennedy run “would put me in a good position.”
