March 1, 1860: During the afternoon, Abraham Lincoln addresses a large crowd at the Phenix Hotel in Concord. He speaks to an even larger one in the evening in Manchester. The mayor of Manchester introduces him as “the next president of the United States.” Lincoln’s appearances follow a trip to see his son, Robert, at Phillips Exeter Academy.
March 1, 1876: Concord’s North Church, at North State and Chapel streets, is consecrated for worship. The church was built on the site of the previous church, which burned to the ground in June 1873. The cost of the new church: $50,883.86.
March 1, 1923: Two Concord newspapers, the Evening Monitor and the New Hampshire Patriot, merge. They will operate as the Concord Daily Monitor and New Hampshire Patriot under Editor James M. Langley, Dartmouth graduate and World War I veteran. Circulation by the mid-’20s will exceed 5,000.
March 1, 1926: The Granite Monthly magazine reports: “The completion of the Concord Monitor-Patriot poll on Prohibition showed an overwhelming victory for the Drys. The totals: Prohibition is right: 1,022. Prohibition is wrong: 152. For modification: 347.”
March 2, 1960: Mayor Charles Johnson of Concord appeals to the Capitol Theatre not to show the movie Jack the Ripper. Johnson hasn’t seen the film but has heard from more than a dozen callers to city hall that it contains scenes of violence and horror. Two days before the movie is scheduled to open, theater manager Theresa Cantin agrees to cancel it.
March 2, 2003: Two Merrimack Valley High School students are killed in a car accident. Amy Gilbert, 17, of Boscawen and Kristin Wagner, 15, of Loudon are in Gilbert’s car when it crosses into an oncoming lane of traffic on Route 106.
March 3, 1863: To the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon and the music of bands, the Second New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment is feted in Concord on its return from the front. The regiment has been fighting with the Army of the Potomac since the first Battle of Bull Run in July 1861.
March 3, 1915: The Legislature takes a poll on Prohibition. Of Concord’s 18 state representatives, only one votes in favor. After all, that year there are 33 places in Concord where liquor can be legally sold: 13 saloons, five hotels, six “bottled goods places,” eight drug stores and one club.
March 3, 1945: G-men with machine guns swarm Main Street after word reaches Concord that two prison escapees from Iowa are holed up downtown. At midday an inspector and three FBI agents arrest 31-year-old killer Edgar Cook at the point of machine guns at the Phenix Hotel. Cook is described as “a tough-looking character with plenty of cash.” Later, a Concord police officer has a hunch that Cook’s partner may have gone to the Capitol Theater to see a matinee of the current feature, The Suspect. The hunch proves correct, and George Stubblefield, aka William Giles, is captured outside a barbershop shortly after leaving the theater.
March 3, 1993: The new $36.5 million federal courthouse in Concord makes the list of “pork projects” named by a citizens’ group that is a member of a coalition headed by Sen. Bob Smith. “Sen. Smith doesn’t necessarily agree with all the projects on the list,” says Smith’s spokeswoman.
March 3, 2002: In the Class I boy’s basketball quarterfinals at UNH, Pembroke beats Merrimack Valley 80-57.
March 4, 1777: Concord’s town meeting votes to “break off all dealings” with attorney Peter Green, Dr. Phillip Carrigain and merchants John Stevens and Nathaniel Green. Although the four are among 156 area men who have signed the Association Test, an oath of loyalty to the Patriot cause, they are suspected of being Tories.
March 4, 2000: Four Concord High hockey players have been suspended on the eve of the state tournament, the Monitor reports. The students are deemed to have violated school policy by attending a party where alcohol was served. School officials learned of the incident from the police – part of a new notification policy the department has put in place.
March 4, 2001: Bishop Brady upsets previously undefeated Merrimack Valley, 45-44, in the quarterfinals of the Class I boys’ basketball tournament. Brady will advance to the finals but lose to Plymouth on a last-second basket.
March 4, 2002: In Concord, a construction company begins making emergency structural repairs to the Sears block, giving some peace of mind to people who worry the decrepit building could collapse at any time.
March 5, 1740: After years of disputes over Massachusetts’s claims on New Hampshire, King George II approves the boundary between the two colonies. The decision increases New Hampshire’s size by 3,500 square miles and costs Massachusetts 28 chartered towns, including Suncook, Bow, Concord, Penacook, Webster, Salisbury, Dunbarton, Weare, Hopkinton, Warner and Bradford.
March 6, 1991: With five seconds left in the state Class I semifinal basketball game, which is tied at 74, Merrimack Valley’s Scott Drapeau miraculously reaches around a Stevens High player to tip in a missed free throw. The MV win sets up a rematch with rival Pembroke Academy and a final showdown between Drapeau and Matt Alosa, two of the biggest basketball stars in area history. Alosa’s Spartans will win the title.
March 6, 2001: A true blizzard sends New Hampshire residents to check the record books. The official tally in Concord is 18.1 inches. That’s a lot for one storm, but it’s considerably short of the 28 inches that fell in December 1969. Other parts of the state (Nottingham is tops with 40 inches) get hit harder.
March 7, 1780: Concord town meeting voters elect a prosecutor to find out who “pulled down the house of Andrew Stone, and see what provision they will make for the support of his wife.” Stone was a soldier from Concord in the Continental Army. Apparently in his absence, a town history reports, “one of Stone’s daughters did not behave so well as the neighbors thought a faire and chaste maiden should do and they undertook to correct her manners by pulling the house down. Whether the girl behaved any better afterwards, tradition saith not.”
March 7, 1798: Crowds converge on Concord, which has grown to 2,000 inhabitants, to celebrate the ordination of the Rev. Asa McFarland, third minister of the village’s Congregational Church. The church is state-sanctioned and tax-supported. Accepting the call, the 28-year-old McFarland tells townspeople he has prayed that God will make him “an instrument to promote your spiritual happiness.” A grand ball at Stickney’s Tavern, on Main Street just up from the ferry crossing, celebrates the event.
March 7, 1825: A team of horses crossing the frozen Merrimack in Concord falls through the ice.
