Aug. 4, 2002: In their first-ever playoff appearance, the Concord Quarry Dogs’ eke out s 2-1 win in the bottom of the ninth over Mill City, the Monitor reports.
Aug. 4, 1862: Gen. Oliver O. Howard of Maine and Col. Edward E. Cross of Lancaster, both wounded at the recent Battle of Fair Oaks, are among the speakers at a war recruiting meeting in Concord. The Patriot will report that the speeches were “able and eloquent” with the exception of Howard’s approving mention of “negro projects,” a reference to the plan to allow black men to serve in the Union Army.
Aug. 4, 1926: It is announced in Concord that Allen Hollis, a local lawyer and civic leader known as “The Kingfish,” will donate 11.9 acres on South Fruit Street and $5,000 toward a football field and other athletic facilities. The land will become Memorial Field.
Aug. 4, 1965: Concord begins celebrating its bicentennial with neighborhood fairs, a Bicentennial Queen pageant, badminton, water polo and tugs of war.
Aug. 5, 1861: New Hampshire’s First Regiment, its three months’ enlistment up, returns to Concord without having fought a battle. Gov. Nathaniel Berry, the Governor’s Horse Guard and a large crowd of citizens greet the regiment and accompany it to the State House. There, the soldiers stack arms. Many will volunteer for service in the three-year regiments now forming.
Aug. 6, 2001: After spending 10 years at the head of the city council’s table, Mayor Bill Veroneau decides not to run again. Veroneau, 71, announces his decision to councilors at a neighborhood forum in Penacook.
Aug. 6, 2000: About 20 people gather along the Merrimack River near Concord’s Loudon Road to pray for a world without a nuclear threat. Marking the 55th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the peace activists toss flowers into the water.
Aug. 8, 2001: The police believe an early morning robbery of the Main Street Cumberland Farms may be connected to recent holdups in Manchester, Bedford and Hooksett, investigators say. “We’re thinking that these may be related,” Manchester Police Sgt. Hames Kinney says. “There are similarities.”
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, 2003: Concord’s Little Blue takes a 13-6 loss to Bakersfield in the 16-year-old Babe Ruth World Series in Jamestown N.Y.
Aug. 9, 1746: A band of 50 to 100 Indians invades Rumford (Concord), but the Indians will be scared off the next morning by 30 armed guards who escort church-goers to their garrisons.
Aug. 9, 1903: Omer T. Lassonde is born in Concord. An artist, he will be federal arts director of the WPA in New Hampshire during the Depression. The subjects of his many portraits will include U.S. Sen. Styles Bridges, Gov. John G. Winant and the King of Samoa.
Aug. 9, 1887: A warehouse is damaged by fire in downtown Concord. “The losses were not heavy, but the fire was a memorable one form the fact that so many boys were injured in jumping from the windows,” the New Hampshire Patriot reports.
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. 10, 2002: The union representing state workers, having struggled for months to hit its target for recruitment, now is trying to exclude more than 1,000 workers from those it must recruit, according to documents filed with the state by a commissioner questioning the effort, the Monitor reports.
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.
