Feb. 16, 1943: The temperature falls to 37 below zero at 8:30 a.m., the coldest temperature ever measured in Concord. The record had been 35 below, set Jan. 8, 1878.
Feb. 16, 2002: In Concord, a blaze that brings the city’s entire firefighting fleet to Main Street damages the two brick buildings that house Granite Bank and Eye 2 Eye Gallery. Nobody is hurt.
Feb. 17, 1874: Franklin B. Evans, killer of Josianna Lovering of Northwood, is hanged at the state prison. On his last night, Evans sold his body for $50 to a Concord doctor who planned to bring it to the Dartmouth College medical department. Evans was curious to learn if his bones would be wired together. The idea amused him. Over three years later, in a prank, students will steal his skeleton from a lecture hall and hang it on the college grounds.
Feb. 17, 1900: Deep in debt, the 96-year-old Abbot & Downing coach and wagon company is taken over by creditors. Employment has dropped from 300 to 200. The families of Lewis Downing and Stephen Abbot will no longer be involved in running the company after 1901, and the new bosses will struggle to keep the enterprise afloat.
Feb. 17, 1942: St. Paul’s School holds a blackout drill. A steam whistle blast announces the onset of 10 minutes of darkness for the school’s 750 students.
Feb. 18, 1842: The radical and conservative factions of the Democratic Party brawl in Concord’s town hall over control of a party caucus. An observer, Henry McFarland, writes that “seats and desks were smashed, wigs flew in the dusty air, and bloody noses were seen on most respectable faces. There was a great uproar and a clatter of flying feet, combatants chasing their foes as far down as Centre Street.”
Feb. 18, 1869: Fire destroys Concord’s Columbian Hotel.
Feb. 18, 1988: At the short-lived Johnny Babe’s Restaurant in Eagle Square, Democrat Gary Hart tries to convince the media he really didn’t mind coming in dead last in this week’s presidential primary. “I think we’ve got to get away from the notion of win-lose all the time,” Hart tells NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw. “There are other ways to serve one’s country than just standing high in the polls or winning primaries.”
Feb. 19, 2000: Concord wins the Class L wrestling title – but has to share the crown with Timberlane and Salem. A pin in the final match of the day should have given the Crimson Tide the title outright, but the team is penalized one point for premature celebration, and that leaves all three teams with the same score.
Feb. 19, 2003: Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina brings a populist, blue-collar message to Page Belting factory in Concord, his first appearance in New Hampshire since joining the 2004 presidential race.
Feb. 20, 1772: Philip Carrigain is born in Concord. His father is a local physician. Philip will graduate from Dartmouth, practice law in Concord and become New Hampshire’s secretary of state. Chosen in part for his distinguished handwriting, in 1816 he will produce the first map of the state to show town boundaries.
Feb. 20, 1994: On the way to spring training, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Tewksbury of Concord, winner of 33 games the last two seasons, stops in New York for salary arbitration. He loses. His salary for 1994 will be $3.5 million.
Feb. 21, 2000: More than 500 students join Concord’s Bob Tewksbury at Beaver Meadow Elementary School to celebrate the joys of reading. A former Major League Baseball pitcher, Tewksbury tells the youngsters he used books to help fill the down time between starts. Reading, he says, “engages not only our minds but our hearts.”
Feb. 22, 1800: Concord joins other communities across the nation in a day of mourning and prayer for George Washington, dead two months.
Feb. 22, 1854: Concord’s New Hampshire Patriot is the only Democratic paper in the state to support the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act holds that if a territory’s electorate approves of it, slavery will be allowed in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory. Editor William Butterfield writes that the act upholds the principles “which deny to Congress the right to legislate slavery into or out of any territory.”
Feb. 22, 1912: The reorganized Abbot & Downing Co. has orders for 45 express wagons in addition to passenger wagons for Yellowstone Park. This assures work for 50 men. “We have made a start,” says Samuel Eastman, the Concord businessman who purchased the failing company 5½ months ago.
Feb. 22, 1997: The temperature in Concord hits 67 degrees, making this the warmest February day of the 20th century.
Feb. 22, 2002: After a six-month national search that yielded 70 applicants, Concord’s own Fire Division Commander Chris Pope is named Concord’s new fire chief.
