Aug. 25, 2003: A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal details the lavish compensation packages bestowed upon the rector and vice rector of St. Paul’s school in Concord. According to the Journal, Bishop Craig Anderson, the school’s rector, made $524,000 in salary, benefits and deferred compensation last year – more than most college presidents, and vice rector Sharon Hennessy earned $316,400 in total compensation. Some alumni, parents and donors, outraged at Anderson’s salary, campaign for his ouster. They also push for new faces on the 24-member board of trustees, which sets his pay.
Aug. 25, 1855: Concord establishes its first public library. The city council appropriates $1,500: “$300 for fixtures, the residue for books.”
Aug. 26, 1988: Developers abandon plans for a seven-story hotel on Fort Eddy Road. Instead, Concord will get the L.L. Bean strip mall.
Aug. 27, 2002: A crowd at Heritage Heights in Concord peppers the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Rep. John E. Sununu and Sen. Bob Smith, with questions ranging from how to expand affordable housing to whether the United States should invade Iraq.
Aug. 27, 1991: Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder arrives in Concord and plays coy about plans to run for president. “I’m not unmindful at all of all the portents, the omens and the signs relative to being in New Hampshire. I take all of them seriously.” Wilder will eventually jump into the race but then back out.
Aug. 29, 1862: While ministering to soldiers of the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry at Second Bull Run, Harriet P. Dame of Concord is captured. She is taken to Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters and will be released the next day. As long as the 2nd serves, Dame will be its “angel of mercy,” according to Maj. J.D. Cooper. “Many days,” he will write, “she has stood by the side of our noble, patriotic sons who have gone to their long homes, doing all in her power to alleviate their sufferings, and soothe their sorrows in the dying hour.”
Aug. 30, 2001: Michael Johnson, Merrimack County’s top prosecutor of nearly two decades, announces he will leave his position to take a job with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he will serve as chief of prosecution.
Aug. 30, 1970: At the Highway Hotel in Concord, the Freedoms Foundation of Valley Forge, Pa., honors 10 New Hampshire people for efforts to maintain “the American way.” Among the honorees are Publisher William Loeb and gubernatorial candidate Meldrim Thomson Jr.
Aug. 30, 1862: After a federal draft call for nine-month volunteers, the city of Concord offers a bounty of $100 to any resident who will sign up by Sept. 15.
Aug. 30, 1869: Henry F. Hollis is born. He will become a Concord lawyer and, in 1912, the first New Hampshire Democrat in 60 years to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Aug. 30, 1790: A town meeting approves spending 100 pounds to build a “town house” on land near Main and Court streets. The town house will be a meeting place for townspeople and the General Court.
Aug. 30, 1824: Amos Parker, editor of Concord’s weekly Statesman, goes to Boston to invite the Marquis de Lafayette to visit Concord during the Revolutionary War hero’s U.S. tour. Lafayette agrees to come after the dedication of the Bunker Hill Memorial the following June. Parker describes Lafayette as “a dignified personage, in his 60s, grown portly,” wearing buff-colored cotton pants, a swans’-down vest, a blue broadcloth coat with gilt buttons, a beaver top hat and plain shoes.
Aug. 31, 2001: In a decision that alters the juvenile justice system for some young offenders, the state’s Supreme Court rules that teens have a right to a jury trial if they face jail time. Because of this, judges across the state release a few of these inmates, whose incarcerations are suddenly unconstitutional.
Aug. 31, 1866: The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, author of a Concord history a decade earlier, is named state historian. He will hold this position for 11 years, during which he will compile 10 volumes of provincial and state papers for publication.
Aug. 31, 2000: Author Russell Banks visits with inmates at New Hampshire State Prison. “In many ways,” he tells them, “you guys are my ideal readers.”
Aug. 31, 1892: The statue of antislavery Sen. John P. Hale is completed outside the State House.
Aug. 31, 1983: Gov. John Sununu nominates David H. Souter to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
