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. 29, 1900: Workmen erecting electric light poles find two rusted tin boxes buried by a dirt road in Bow. The boxes contain documents stolen from the State House more than five years earlier in a heist that netted $6,000 in cash.
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. 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. 31, 1866: The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, author of a Concord history a decade earlier, is named state historian. He will holds this position for 11 years, during which he will compile 10 volumes of provincial and state papers for publication.
Aug. 31, 1892: The statue of antislavery Sen. John P. Hale is completed outside the State House.
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.”
Sept. 1, 1782: The Rev. Timothy Walker, who has served as Concord’s Puritan minister from around the time of its settlement in 1730, collapses while preparing for a service and dies. He is 77 years old.
Sept. 1, 2000: The high school football season kicks off with a couple of routs. Concord wallops Portsmouth, 42-0, while Kearsarge runs over Bow, 41-0.
Sept. 2, 1947: Plans to install the city’s first parking meters downtown draw the ire of Concord residents. “I will make one pledge. I never will put 10 cents into a meter in order to shop. I will park my car over on Concord Plains and walk in first,” writes Charles H. Nixon in a letter to the editor.
Sept. 2, 2002: Concord police arrest a man they say kidnapped two teenagers at knifepoint at Wal-Mart on Loudon Road. James McLaughlin will be arraigned on two counts of kidnapping, one count of robbery, one count of felon in possession of a deadly weapon, and possession or a dangerous weapon while committing a violent crime.
Sept. 3, 1861: Thirty-one train cars carry the Third New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment out of the Concord station.
Sept. 3, 1914: Richard F. Upton is born in Bow. He will become a prominent Concord lawyer and speaker of the New Hampshire House. In 1949, concerned with light voter turnout in previous New Hampshire presidential primaries, he will initiate legislation to make the process more meaningful. Long before his death in 1996, he will be known as the father of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary.
Sept. 3, 2001: A standoff closes Sewalls Falls Road and re-routes holiday traffic on Interstate 93. After 4½ hours, the police take a man into custody.
Sept. 3, 1991: Speaking to the Concord Rotary, Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas remembers the real Concord rotary – the one on his way from home in Massachusetts to Dartmouth College in Hanover when he was a student 30 years before. He used to hitchhike to school and back, he said, and “I spent a lot of time at the Concord rotary freezing my rear end off. Those of you who drove past me – I resent it very much.”
Sept. 4, 1980: Merrimack County legislators vote to build a new jail. The cost: $2.7 million.
