Jan. 6, 2003: Several Penacook residents ask the city to save their beloved, but most likely doomed, Rolfe barn: They ask the city to seize it through eminent domain. The request is made in a petition filed just minutes before city hall closes. After months of battles between history buffs and property developers, the Penacook Historical Society will own the barn.
Jan. 6, 2001: President Clinton will make one more trip to New Hampshire before leaving office, the Monitor reports. “There’s not a specific reason . . . besides the fact that he likes New Hampshire,” a White House spokeswoman says. “It’s just sort of a farewell tour.”
Jan. 6, 1790: George Hough, 31, who has hauled in a hand press and type cases from Windsor, Vt., publishes Concord’s first newspaper, The Concord Herald and New Hampshire Intelligencer. His office is a one-story print shop on what will one day be the State House grounds. Printed under the weekly’s nameplate, Hough’s motto is: “The Press is the Cradle of Science, the Nurse of Genius, and the Shield of Liberty.” A later journalist will call “Pa” Hough “a man without guile, who never made an enemy, whose only delusion was that all men were as honest as himself.”
Jan. 6, 1942: The school board has decided that in the event of an air raid, Concord students will remain in school. Principals, teachers and janitors will be trained in air raid protection techniques.
Jan. 6, 1943: Twenty-one-year-old Richard B. Lynch, working on an expansion project at Concord Airport, is caught in the chains of a steam shovel owned by his father and crushed to death.
Jan. 6, 1904: Arthur C. Jackson of Concord, who has purchased Daniel Webster’s birthplace as a summer home, proposes to dismantle the room in which Webster was born and remove it temporarily to St. Louis. There he hopes to set it up as New Hampshire’s exhibit at the national fair commemorating the Louisiana Purchase.
Jan. 6, 1853: A train derails and topples on the way to Concord, killing 11-year-old “Little Benny” Pierce. His father, the president-elect, and his mother are traveling with him but are unhurt. Jane Appleton Pierce is “completely distraught” and will never recover from the loss. After the funeral, the body will be carried down Main Street and Concord residents will pay their respects. Benny will be buried alongside his brother, who died at the age of 4 in 1843.
Jan 6, 1823: The first New Hampshire Statesman is published out of the Carrigain Block on North Main Street in Concord. Publisher Luther Roby and Editor Amos Parker are among a group of Democrats who have had a falling out with Isaac Hill, a party leader and editor of the New Hampshire Patriot.
Jan. 7, 2002: Concord’s new mayor, Mike Donovan, welcomes the new city council and outlines his priorities for the city. It is Donovan’s first city council meeting as the mayor, as well as six new councilors’ first times at the table.
Jan. 7, 1942: Concord starts a three-day spell of bitterly cold weather with a low temperature of 15 below zero. The next day it’ll be 25 below, and the day after that, the temperature will fall to 22 below.
Jan. 7, 1904: At its annual meeting, the First Church of Christ Science thanks Mary Baker Eddy of Concord for her gift of $120,000 toward the Concord church, now under construction.
Jan. 7, 1965: Construction workers in Concord use doors from a dozen demolished houses to form a barrier to close the sidewalk along Pleasant and South streets, where the new $3.5 million federal building is under construction.
Jan. 8, 1878: A temperature of 35-below-zero is recorded in Concord, an all-time record cold reading for the city that will stand for more than 65 years.
Jan. 8, 1895: The Supreme Court and State Library buildings are dedicated in Concord.
Jan. 8, 1968: With the impeachment of Mayor J. Herbert Quinn behind it, the newly formed Concord city government takes its place. Seven new members of the city council are sworn in, and the newly hired city manager – John E. Henchey of Presque Isle, Maine – is on the scene.
Jan. 8, 1990: The city council elects Jim MacKay mayor of Concord. He defeats the incumbent, Liz Hager.
Jan. 9, 1974: Twenty-five people brave a snowstorm to gather at the State House to pray in support of beleaguered President Nixon. “God Loves Nixon,” reads one banner.
Jan. 9, 1944: Miss Grace Blanchard, Concord’s retired librarian of 40 years, dies. In her will, she leaves $40,000 in public bequests, including $25,000 to the library.
Jan 10, 1942: City aldermen approve a $400,000 expansion of Concord Airport. The city appropriation for the project is $30,000.
Jan. 11, 1943: Fred Currier, a well-known vegetable and fruit peddler in Penacook, is killed when his truck slides backward as he is unloading it and crushes him against a wall of snow on Elm Street.
Jan. 11, 1982: C. David Coeyman is elected to succeed Martin Gross as mayor of Concord. He beats Jim MacKay in a 9-6 vote of the city council. “We have not always agreed and we will not always agree, but I respect the man,” says Charles Vitagliano, on nominating Coeyman.
Jan. 11, 1993: A fire forces nine nuns out of the Carmelite monastery on Pleasant Street in Concord.
Jan. 12, 1981: The low temperature in the state capital is 21 below zero. The next morning in Concord will be just as cold.
Jan. 12, 1989: Concord Sen. Susan McLane proposes a ban on jet skis on every lake in the state. “A jet ski is like a noisy buzz saw going in mindless circles,” she says. “It’s driving people crazy. This is a problem that isn’t going to go away.” No overall ban is imposed. Instead, lakes are considered on a case-by-case basis.
Jan. 12, 1952: The Monitor reports on plans to make Main and State streets one way, with one going north and the other going south. The idea is to relieve traffic congestion. (It’s never approved.)
Jan. 12, 1942: New Hampshire’s labor unions ban strikes and lockouts for the duration of the war.
