Oct. 18, 1963: Trailing Barry Goldwater by a 2-1 margin in a Wall Street Journal poll of New Hampshire voters, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller comes to Concord with his wife Happy to say he intends to run a vigorous primary campaign.
Oct. 18, 1988: Attorney Ray D’Amante announces the name of Concord’s soon-to-be-built mall: Steeplegate. Concord, he says, is a city of steeples and they will be incorporated into the mall as a prominent design feature.
Oct. 19, 1920: Weeks before the election, Gov. James M. Cox of Ohio, the Democratic presidential nominee, speaks from a platform beneath the Lafayette elm on the State House lawn. Cox, a chief proponent of the League of Nations, assails Warren G. Harding, the Republican nominee, for claiming that France opposes the League. “The facts justify the conclusion that Sen. Harding has stupidly though deliberately attempted to deceive the people of the United States,” Cox says. He blames the Senate for politicizing the issue, saying that until recently Americans saw the League of Nations as “the voice of God speaking to the consciences of the world.” With the Monitor’s support, Harding will win the election, easily carrying Concord and New Hampshire.
Oct. 20, 1814: The first boat of the Merrimack Boating Co., later the Boston & Concord Boating Co., arrives in Concord. Northbound commercial cargo will include sugar, molasses, rum and finished goods. The boats will carry lumber, firewood, potash (for soap) and granite south to Quincy Market.
Oct. 20, 1908: Forest fires all around Concord fill the streets with smoke. Farmers’ wells are running dry. The temperature rises to 85 degrees.
Oct. 20, 1991: James Colbert, 39, is talked out of jumping off the Tobin Bridge in Chelsea, Mass. He tells the police he has killed his family in Concord. The Concord police find the bodies of his estranged wife and three children dead in their house on Merrimack Street.
Oct. 21, 1894: James Garvey, who served in the Navy during the Civil War, is killed by the caving in of a bank at Contoocook River Park in Penacook.
Oct. 21, 1983: The Monitor reports that Tio Juan’s restaurant has opened, using a logo and menu that brought protests and the threat of lawsuit by Hispanic groups in Connecticut. The logo shows a Mexican with drooping eyelids, wearing a sombrero and serape and holding a margarita. Patrick Gallagher, one of the owners, says no offense is intended. “People jump on all these bandwagons,” he says.
Oct. 22, 1844: The Millerites, one of many cults and sects that have gained popularity in New Hampshire in recent years, believe that the world will end on this date. It doesn’t.
Oct. 22, 1988: Loudmouth talk show host Morton Downey Jr. plays the Capitol Theatre in Concord. “You know what Marilyn Quayle said to Dan on their wedding night? Senator, you’re no JFK,” he says to cheering crowds.
Oct. 23, 1890: A statue of John Stark is dedicated outside the State House.
Oct. 23, 2001: Former vice president Al Gore meets with several Concord-area Democrats at the Barley House in Concord. During his visit to the state, he also speaks with out-of-work mill workers in Berlin and attends a concert by Voices From the Heart, a 200-woman choir, in Portsmouth.
Oct. 23, 2003: Wesley Clark keeps his appointment at Concord High School, but a case of laryngitis forces him to leave the talking to the students. When one of them opposes the war in Iraq or supports high school sports, Clark tells them – in a whisper that he agrees.
Oct. 24, 1805: The first Quaker meeting is held in Concord. It will be 10 years before a Quaker meeting house goes up on what is now the State House plaza.
Oct. 24, 1852: News of Daniel Webster’s death at Marshfield, Mass., reaches Concord at 2:38 p.m. Bells toll and flags are lowered to half-staff. At a memorial service the next day Gen. Franklin Pierce, just days before his election to the presidency, will be the principal speaker. Of Webster, Pierce will say: “The great heart of the nation throbs heavily at his grave.”
