Feb. 4, 2000: Thousands of students got into the act of voting through the Kids Voting New Hampshire program, the Monitor reports. In Concord, 1,589 kids voted alongside their parents and, like their elders, chose John McCain and Al Gore as their favorite candidates.
Feb. 4, 1908: In Concord, the St. Paul’s School ice hockey team defeats the Harvard freshmen 9-1. Captain Hobey Baker “played a wonderful game,” scoring three goals, the Monitor reports. Baker will later become a college hockey star, and the trophy awarded to the nation’s best male collegiate player each year will one day bear his name.
Feb. 4, 1932: Skating on an outside rink in a preliminary match at the Olympic Games in Lake Placid, N.Y., Douglas Everett of Concord scores the U.S. goal in a 1-1 tie with Canada.
Feb. 5, 2001: Up to a foot of snow falls in just a few hours as a true blizzard hits the state. By the time the snow is done the next day, Concord will have about 15 inches of accumulation. Several towns will report more than double that.
Feb. 5, 2000: Concord Coach #425, built at the Abbott-Downing Co. in Concord in 1874, is headed on a new journey, the Monitor reports. The New London Historical Society is sending the coach out for a refurbishing. Unlike its original travels, which were powered by four or five horses, this one is taking place inside a moving van.
Feb. 5, 1968: Rev. Norman Limoge, the administrator at Bishop Brady High School, sends 18 boys to Ray’s Barber Shop after they defy his warning to come to school with “respectable haircuts.” “We’re all here under protest,” one boy tells a reporter. “We didn’t think he’d do it,” says another. The act will lead to a lively exchange of letters to the editor. “Jesus wore long hair,” a defender of the boys will write. Margaret Savard of Pembroke will respond: “As the parent of one of the boys involved, you have my approval.”
Feb. 5, 1942: Dudley Orr, the state tax commissioner, is pictured on the front page of the Monitor riding his bicycle to work. In a time of severe gas and tire rationing, he says, it is important for public officials to set a good example. He has no problem getting to work but is not fond of pedaling back up the hill to his home at 125 Centre St.
Feb. 6, 1901: The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is formed. The group is a reaction to failed governmental efforts in Concord and Washington to promote safe and regenerative forestry policies. Years of fires, floods and clear-cutting have left the state’s northern forest in terrible condition.
Feb. 7, 2000: After 31 years, WKXL talk-show host Gardner Hill airs his final edition of “Party Line.” The Concord station’s owner has decided to hire a new radio personality. “Nooooooo Gardner,” one woman calls in to say. “This is ridiculous,” another adds. “I can’t say that I’m shocked, but I am disgusted.”
Feb. 7, 1986: As a memorial to Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High teacher who died during the Challenger launch, a new state trust fund is formed to allow other teachers to take “journeys of discovery and enlightenment.”
Feb. 8, 2001: More than 30 Concord police and state Drug Task Force officers raid an apartment complex in Concord to arrest three men and a woman who the authorities say are involved in a crack ring. The city’s police deployment is one of the largest in recent memory.
Feb. 8, 1897: Concord’s first movie plays at White’s Opera House. The show includes bathers at Rahway, N.J., a watermelon-eating contest, a mounted policeman stopping a runaway horse and a three-minute boxing match featuring Gentleman Jim Corbett. “There is nothing fake about it,” the Monitor reviewer reports, adding that the pictures are “vivid and truthful.”
Feb. 8, 1820: George Hough, Concord’s first printer and editor of an 18th century newspaper in the city, dies at the age of 73.
Feb. 8, 1847: Franklin Pierce addresses a large meeting called in Concord to advocate “a vigorous and determined prosecution of the war with Mexico.” Pierce will win a brigadier general’s commission, and his war exploits will help propel him to the presidency in 1852.
Feb. 8, 1989: Three hundred people crowd into Representatives Hall to debate the creation of a Martin Luther King holiday in New Hampshire. Holiday advocates say support is building. Stay tuned.
Feb. 8, 1831: Ellen Tucker Emerson of Concord, wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson, dies of tuberculosis in Boston at the age of 19.
Feb. 10, 1942: Robert Leon Harris, a 15-year-old student, agrees to leave Rundlett Junior High School “so as not to cause any trouble.” He is the second Jehovah’s Witness in the city to refuse on religious grounds to pledge allegiance to flag and country.
Feb. 10, 1927: The Schoonmaker Chair Co. signs a seven-year contract to use New Hampshire state prison inmates to make chairs. The company will pay 15 cents per man-hour.
