July 1, 1927: At nightfall, 2,000 people gather at the State House plaza to watch Mayor Fred Marden push the button that will illuminate Concord’s new “White Way” for the first time. Concord Electric Co. has installed 126 large bulbs to light the way, which runs more than mile along Main Street, from Kelly’s drug store to Larkin’s store. A Monitor reporter hears someone whisper in the crowd: “I hope they go on.” They do indeed, causing “a spontaneous uproar and the blowing of hundreds of automobile horns.”
July 1, 1789: The Rev. Israel Evans is ordained as Concord’s second Congregationalist minister, succeeding the Rev. Timothy Walker. The town still pays the minister’s salary and living expenses. Walker, the first minister, served more than 58 years from his ordination in 1730.
July 2, 1976: Gov. Mel Thomson orders a full investigation into what happened to 1,500 pounds of chicken that never made it to a state worker picnic at New Hampshire Hospital. The birds, worth $780, were contaminated and disposed of.
July 3, 1990: Stalled for four years in his effort to build a huge housing project and luxury golf course on Concord’s Broken Ground, Vermonter Barry Stem announces plans to build a 200-room hotel and conference center and a 300,000-square-foot office park on part of the site.
July 4, 1899: Ten thousand people attend the dedication of the Memorial Arch in front of the State House. Cut from Concord granite, it is 33 feet 8 inches high and 53 feet wide. Though built on state land, it was paid for by the city and commemorates Concord’s war veterans.
July 4, 1891: A crowd of 6,000 to 7,000 people gathers at the circus grounds just above Bridge Street along the Merrimack River to watch a holiday baseball game. The Concord YMCA team, a perennial power, defeats the Concord Stars, 13-12. “Fielding at times was rather loose,” the Monitor reports.
July 4, 1842: Hooligans set a barrel of tar on fire in the State House plaza. “The tossing of fire-balls had begun when the police of this town interfered,” according to a city history.
July 4, 1858: Congressman Mason W. Tappan reads the Declaration of Independence on the State House lawn. Solon Gould, an inflexible Concord Democrat, happens by as Tappan is reading the Declaration’s litany of complaints against King George. Thinking that the object of Tappan’s scorn is President James Buchanan, Gould proclaims the reading a “Black Republican affair” and storms off.
July 4, 1820: The fare from Concord to Boston by stagecoach is cut to $1, the result of competition between two lines.
July 5, 1874: Prominent Concord lawyer Anson Southard Marshall dies of a gunshot wound. The previous day, Marshall took his wife and young son for a Fourth of July picnic near Lake Penacook. The family heard target shooting by a militia company nearby. Marshall stood to call to the shooters and request that they be careful. He was immediately shot in the abdomen.
July 6, 2002: The State House is getting a makeover, the Monitor reports. The white portion of the octagonal structure, just below the gilded part of the dome, will be stripped and restored to the tune of $174,000.
July 6, 1849: The Legislature officially gives Concord permission to become a full-fledged city. One big argument in favor of abandoning the town meeting form of government is that there is no place big enough to accommodate all the town’s voters.
July 7, 1995: Concord’s Bob Tewksbury of the Texas Rangers pitches his first American League shutout. He wins 10-0 over the team that originally signed him, the New York Yankees.
July 7, 1989: The state celebrates the opening of the new $30 million New Hampshire Hospital on Clinton Street in Concord. At 199,000 square feet, it is the state’s largest building project ever.
July 7, 1853: In arguing for the passage of prohibition in New Hampshire, George G. Fogg, a Concord editor, says legislators should line up against “the manufacturers of drunkards, paupers, and criminals.” The measure fails.
July 7, 1816: Concord awakens to a hard freeze.
