Jan. 27, 2003: The Concord City Council votes to take the historic Rolfe barn through eminent domain, stopping Ken Epworth, the barn’s owner, from dismantling the building and selling the parts to an unnamed client. The Penacook Historical Society asked the city to step in so it can use the barn as a museum and community center.
Jan. 27, 1942: Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony for Concord Mayor John Storrs and the city’s aldermen, Gov. Robert O. Blood has this to say about the world war: “We will put an end to this conflict in two years.”
Jan. 27, 1983: Concord native John Bluto makes a brief TV appearance on an episode of Cheers. He plays an insurance salesman, a role he played in real life in Concord for more than 10 years.
Jan. 27, 1994: The temperature in Concord falls to 27 below zero, the city’s third record low in eight days.
Jan. 27, 1965: Concord Electric Company asks permission of the Federal Power Commission to close down its only generating plant, located at Sewalls Falls on the Merrimack River.
Jan. 27, 1848: Franklin Pierce returns home to Concord after leading a brigade in the Mexican War. A crowd of 3,000 to 4,000 people meet him at the city’s new railroad station. Pierce has been gone eight months. In that time, the Concord town meeting has banned “bowling, saloons and circuses.” Among those present for Pierce’s welcome home is his old friend and Bowdoin College classmate Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Jan. 28, 2002: Convicted killer and Monitor columnist Ray Barham, 72, dies from cancer in the state prison infirmary. He was convicted in 1983 of first-degree murder after shooting his estranged wife’s boyfriend, and started writing for the paper’s editorial page in 1987. Editor Mike Pride will remember him by writing, “Ray joked about wanting to win the Pulitzer Prize. He said it was the only way to change the headline on his obituary. In fact, for many years it was his writing, not the killing, that defined him. He could not outlast the sentence he had brought upon himself, but his pen bore him through it.”
Jan. 28, 2000: Mel Bolden, the charismatic portraitist and political activist who became a friend to people of all ages around the Concord area, dies on his 81st birthday. Bolden, whose artistic career spanned six decades, gained particular notoriety for his portraits of Concord teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died on the same day in 1986 in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. One of the portraits hangs in the National Air and Space Museum.
Jan. 28, 1942: John G. Winant of Concord, the U.S. ambassador to England, tells a national defense luncheon in London that the United States will recruit an army of 7 million men. “Idleness has not been part of our national life,” he says. “That is not America.”
Jan. 28, 1986: The space shuttle Challenger explodes 72 seconds after liftoff, killing all aboard, including Concord High teacher Christa McAuliffe.
Jan. 28, 1979: Lawyer Carroll Jones of Concord, who heads Sen. Bob Dole’s New Hampshire GOP presidential campaign, says Dole’s last-place finish in Iowa means he will have to pull out all the stops between now and the state’s Feb. 26 primary. “No. 1,” says Jones, “it would be necessary to put about $100,000 into advertising. . . . And step two, he would have to be in the state of New Hampshire 50 percent of the time between now and then.”
Jan. 29, 2001: Jerry Madden, a 21-year veteran of the Concord Police Department, is promoted to chief.
Feb. 1, 2003: News spreads through Concord that the space shuttle Columbia has exploded, reminding many of the space shuttle Challenger. “It’s amazing how it brings those feelings right back,” says state Rep. Jim MacKay, who was the city’s mayor when the Challenger exploded 17 years ago with Concord teacher Christa McAuliffe on board.
Feb. 1, 2000: Capitalizing on a groundswell of support among independent voters, John McCain trounces George W. Bush in the state’s Republican presidential primary. McCain’s victory sets the stage for a month of bitter campaigning between the two men before Bush’s network of party supporters and huge political war chest prove insurmountable. Al Gore wins the Democratic primary, effectively ending his nomination fight with challenger Bill Bradley.
Feb. 1, 1859: The Concord Railroad passenger station, including the offices of the Concord, Montreal and Northern railroads, the telegraph office and Depot hall, is destroyed by fire.
Feb. 1, 1921: The Granite Monthly endorses several proposed constitutional amendments: allowing the Legislature to tax income, reducing the size of the House and giving women full rights to hold state office. “All of these amendments must be adopted; the first must be or an intolerable situation will be created in New Hampshire. If during the next few years, the state is forced to depend upon its present sources of revenue, either we shall have a taxation of real property that will be almost confiscation or the work of almost every state department and institution will be crippled seriously.”
Feb. 1, 1864: In response to President Lincoln’s call for 500,000 recruits for the Union army, Gov. Joseph Gilmore announces that until March 10, the state will add $100 to federal enlistment bounties of $300 for new recruits and $400 for men who have served at least nine months under arms. Gilmore also announces the formation of the First New Hampshire Cavalry.
Feb. 1, 1992: Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tells a Concord audience that ambition is no sin. “Some people are telling you you shouldn’t vote for me,” he says. “They say Clinton is too slick, he’s too glib, he’s always wanted to be president. Let me tell you something: Abraham Lincoln always wanted to be president, too.”
Feb. 1, 1996: Standing at the Representatives Hall lectern before a wall of portraits that includes one of Franklin Pierce, Pat Buchanan rails against the decline of American values. Instead of celebrating the birthdays of Lincoln and Washington, he says, we now observe a Presidents Day in which we must think kind thoughts of the likes of Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce.
Feb. 2, 2003: Representatives from several parish Voice of the Faithful groups meet in Penacook to discuss plans for the creation of a statewide organization. While many inpidual parishes have formed their own groups in response to the church’s sexual abuse crisis, no organization has claimed to speak for Catholics across the state.
Feb. 2. 2001: WKXL, Concord’s local radio station, is about to make dramatic changes to its programming, the Monitor reports. Party Line and Coffee Chat, two locally produced call-in and interview shows, will be off the air, replaced by a syndicated talk show hosted by New Yorker Mike Gallagher.
Feb. 2, 1942: Concord’s chief air raid warden, Gladstone Jordan, has signed up 304 wardens to watch the skies over the city. Jordan says 200 more are needed.
Feb. 2, 1965: The New Hampshire House Ways and Means Committee holds a hearing on a proposed property tax exemption for elderly residents. The plan is greeted with skepticism by lawmakers worried about the effect on other taxpayers.
Feb. 2, 1996: President Clinton visits Concord’s Walker School and speaks to students at the Capitol Center. He praises Concord schools for innovative use of computers in the classroom.
Feb. 3, 2003: Concord High School running phenom Rachel Umberger accepts a full scholarship offer to Duke University, according to running coach Barbara Higgins.
Feb. 3, 2000: Gov. Jeanne Shaheen tells the Legislature the state of the state is excellent. She calls for a 10-cent increase in the cigarette tax, but that is as deep as she will venture into the state’s still-troublesome school funding problems.
Feb. 3, 1968: In Concord, Richard Nixon opens his presidential campaign with a speech in which he says America is a country with a torn soul, a country that needs a new leader who recognizes its “crisis of the spirit” and can restore “the lift of a driving dream.” He then hosts the press for a party at the Highway Hotel. Special guests: Nixon’s 19-year-old daughter Julie and her fiancee, David Eisenhower.
Feb. 3, 1942: The Concord school board expels 8-year-old Sylvia Esty from school for failing to say the Pledge Allegiance. Esty, a Jehovah’s Witness, says her religion prohibits it. The board says she may return to school when she is ready to say the pledge each day.
