Sept. 27, 1824: The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton is invited to become Concord’s Congregationalist minister. Three months later he will accept a calling from the church. Bouton will hold the position for four decades.
Sept. 27, 2000: Dropping in on a rally for Gov. Jeanne Shaheen staged by voters with disabilities, her opponent, Gordon Humphrey, gets an earful for his 1990 vote against the Americans with Disabilities Act. By the end of the news conference, Humphrey commits to a day of touring Concord sites that aren’t accessible to people with wheelchairs.
Sept. 28, 1818: Two years after their engagement, Samuel F.B. Morse and Lucretia Walker are married in Concord. In need of income, he has laid aside his itinerant painting career and embraced mechanics, inventing an improved fire engine which the town purchases for $200. Alas, the marriage is ill-starred. Lucretia Walker Morse will die in 1825.
Sept. 28, 1987: Developer Barry Stem agrees to hold off on his plan to build homes and a golf course on Broken Ground while the city council studies ways to preserve open space. Six years later, Stem’s land will be auctioned off, his giant plan dead.
Sept. 29, 1996: In a game to decide the National League West division championship, Bob Tewksbury of Concord starts for the San Diego Padres and holds Los Angeles scoreless for seven innings. He gets a no decision, but the Padres beat the Dodgers 2-0.
Sept. 29, 2002: Records fall, footballs fly and the scoreboard veritably smokes from the dizzying pace as Concord High School beats Manchester West 42-20 at Memorial Field in Concord, the Monitor reports. In the single greatest rushing display in the school’s history, Ryan Dunlavey shatters the school record for rushing yards in a game, cranking out 263 yards on 34 carries. The old record of 221 yards was held by Mark Champagne since 1973.
Sept. 30, 1829: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ellen Tucker marry in Concord. The festivities last three days. The couple moves to Boston, where Emerson has just been ordained as assistant minister at the Second Church in the North End.
Sept. 30, 2002: The state Supreme Court overturns the 2-year-old murder conviction of James Hall, a Concord man who admitted to strangling his mother, stowing her body in a trash can and dumping it in the woods. The court says that the judge in the 2000 trial tainted the verdict by issuing faulty instructions to the jury during their deliberations.
Oct. 1, 1976: In an appearance at the New Hampshire Highway Hotel in Concord, Ronald Reagan tells 700 Republicans that Gov. Mel Thomson must be re-elected. Thomson, he says, is a “politician of national stature.”
Oct. 2, 1856: Near the end of his term, President Franklin Pierce visits Concord to stump for James Buchanan, the Democrat nominated to succeed him. Pierce is greeted with a great parade and reception downtown. A fine horseman, he himself rides in the procession down Main Street.
Oct. 2, 1918: Two Concord soldiers – Marine Lt. Paul Corriveau and Pvt. Herbert C. Drew – die in France on the same day. Corriveau is killed in action; Drew succumbs to pneumonia. Drew’s mother will call the Monitor’s attention to the coincidence that 20 years before, the two men were in the same kindergarten class at Walker School.
Oct. 2, 1929: Vincent Cozzi of Albin Street in Concord is the sculptor of a fully equipped 6-foot doughboy being carved from a 3-ton block of granite at Swenson Granite Co. When it is completed, the statue will be shipped to Harrisonville, Mo., to stand in the square as a memorial to that town’s World War dead. Cozzi is using a photo of a Missouri soldier as a model for his statue, which he expects will take eight weeks to complete.
Oct. 2, 2000: Campaigning in Concord, Ralph Nader criticizes the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has excluded him from tonight’s debate in Boston. He says the two major parties “have wasted democracy in this country.”
Oct. 3, 1924: Malcolm McLane is born in Manchester. McLane will serve on the Concord City Council from 1956 to 1976, including six years as mayor.
