June 17, 1970: Attorney General Warren Rudman tells the Concord Rotary Club that he was glad the Chicago Three — David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman — were allowed to speak at UNH. “You cannot repress free speech, he says. “You cannot repress advocacy of things you don’t agree with.”
June 17, 1863: With Union armies still faltering at the front, 30,000 people gather in Concord for the formation of the Public Loyal Union League of the state. Bands, speakers and marches are the order of the day.
June 17, 1840: On Concord’s Rumford Square, a five-acre field of trees between School and Center streets below Rumford Street, a speech by the Whig Sen. Daniel Webster draws a rousing crowd. The speech follows a “Log Cabin Procession” for Gen. William Henry Harrison.
June 17, 1965: Democratic Gov. John King and the Republican-controlled Legislature fight over the governor’s pay raise. King makes $16,587. At issue: raising him to $25,000.
June 17, 1975: Gov. Mel Thomson vetoes legislation guaranteeing equal opportunity in school sports for boys and girls. His fear: costly litigation over “problems that exist more in the minds of social architects than on the playgrounds.”
June 18, 2003: House and Senate leaders strike a deal on a compromise state budget that restores most of the cuts to Health and Human Services that Gov. Craig Benson and the House proposed earlier this year. “We have presented a people’s budget,” Senate President Tom Eaton says. “And we did it without raising taxes.”
June 18, 2002: Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Keough releases a television ad which casts him as the leader among the candidates on solving the state’s education funding problems. The commercial quotes two Union Leader editorials praising him for focusing “like a laser” on the crisis.
June 18, 2000: Organizers say the 77th edition of Bike Week brought some 340,000 people to the Laconia area. The police say they recorded about 170 arrests, significantly fewer than in either of the previous two years.
June 18, 1853: A group of Concord citizens meets and raises money for a street sprinkler to keep the dust down on Main Street.
June 18, 1861: Thaddeus S.C. Lowe, a 29-year-old native of Randolph, N.H., sends a telegram to earth from his balloon 1,000 feet up. Watching this experiment in Washington, D.C., is President Abraham Lincoln. Lowe will become an aeronaut, performing reconnaissance duties for the Union army. Alas, most of his efforts will be ineffectual.
June 19, 2002: After 66 years, Washington Street School in Penacook closes. In the fall, students will attend Penacook Elementary School, a brand-new facility one mile away.
June 19, 2001: The best place in the state to hunt for a moose is in the Pittsburg area, the Monitor reports. According to Fish and Game officials, moose hunters in that area enjoy a success rate of better than 90 percent. The statewide average is 71 percent.
June 19, 1807: Parliamentary maneuvering in the Legislature results in Concord being named the capital, ending several years of roving state government.
June 19, 1856: One hundred booms of the cannon in Concord celebrate the nomination of John Charles Fremont, the first Republican candidate for president. The cheer goes up: “Free Soil, Free Men and Fremont.”
June 19, 1973: Gov. Mel Thomson vetoes legislation that would prevent a governor from delving into confidential tax records.
June 20, 2003: In Laconia, jurors convict Daniel Littlefield of Meredith of the lesser of two negligent homicide charges, finding that he failed to keep a proper lookout when he killed John Hartman with his powerboat last August. But they clear him of the more serious charge of driving while impaired by alcohol.
June 20, 2002: Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Gordon Humphrey and Bruce Keough file a joint complaint with the attorney general’s office accusing the primary rival, former Cabletron CEO Craig Benson, of violating campaign spending laws. Humphrey and Keough say Benson’s political action committee, WhyBenson.com, accepted donations in excess of what the law allows.
June 20, 2000: Laconia’s Broken Antler Restaurant and Lodge, a popular Bike Week destination, is destroyed by two fires, less than 48 hours after the end of this year’s rally. The first one destroyed much of the kitchen area; the second, which started two hours later, levels the rest of the building.
June 20, 1983: Gov. John Sununu says he has no plans to punish the 1,000 state employees who are back at work after calling in sick with “Sick of Sununu” flu. At the state hospital, some workers were replaced by members of the national Guard. The protest ended after Sununu got a back-to-work court order, threatening the State Employees Association with fines of up to $5,000 per day. At issue: raises for state workers.
June 21, 2003: A robust fire that spits flames out of a Perley Street apartment house leaves eight people homeless. Nobody is injured.
June 21, 2001: One of two men accused of fatally beating a 91-year-old Penacook woman confesses in court as part of a deal for a reduced prison sentence. In nine months, prosecutors will ask the court to dissolve the plea deal, saying they now want to try the man who confessed and accept a lesser plea from the second man, who had been headed for trial.
June 21, 1861: In New Jersey, Lt. Charles W. Walker of the Goodwin Rifles, a revered company of the Second New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment, falls from a lurching platform car of the train carrying the regiment to Washington. His injuries prove fatal. His body will be brought back to Concord for burial.
June 21, 1788: At a meeting house near the present-day Walker School, delegates from around the state vote 57-47 in favor of the new U.S. Constitution. This makes New Hampshire the ninth and deciding state to ratify. Hopkinton’s delegate votes in favor; Concord’s delegate, the burly Capt. Ben Emery, votes no, as do representatives of Warner, Salisbury and Loudon.
June 22, 2003: The Concord Quarry Dogs bang out 15 hits and draw 10 walks at Doane Diamond in Concord, scoring the most runs in the team’s history, demolishing the Manchester (Conn.) Silkworms, 18-1.
June 22, 2002: Although he hasn’t decided whether he’s running for president, freshman U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina returns to New Hampshire for the second time this year. The weekend visit includes a headline appearance at the Merrimack Country Democrats’ annual summer gathering.
June 22, 2001: House and Senate negotiators agree on a state budget and school funding compromise. If the full House and Senate sign on, businesses will take the biggest hit through increases in the business enterprise and business profits taxes.
June 22, 2000: Mike Dennehy, who ran John McCain’s 2000 New Hampshire primary campaign, and Nancy Merrill, the campaign’s vice chairwoman, are elected to the Republican National Committee. They succeed Concord’s Tom Rath and Portsmouth’s Ruth Griffin, both of whom supported George W. Bush in the primary.
June 22, 1843: Col. Franklin Pierce, the future president, delivers a temperance lecture at Concord’s old North Church. Pierce is part of a committee whose aim is to “most certainly and speedily cause the use and traffic in intoxicating drinks to cease in town, except for mechanical and medical purposes.”
June 22, 1941: On the day that Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Russia dominates the radio news, Yankee third baseman Red Rolfe of Penacook homers with two out and no one on the ninth inning to tie a game with Detroit. Teammate Joe DiMaggio’s double figures in the winning rally. DiMaggio has now hit in 35 straight games.
June 23, 2003: Republican Gov. Craig Benson promises to veto the latest version of the Legislature’s budget unless lawmakers trim millions off the plan the House and Senate will vote on. “I’m not going to support a budget that leads us down the path to an income tax or any other large taxes,” Benson says. “And I’m not going to spend now and hand the invoice to our children down the road.”
June 23, 2002: Bishop John McCormack likely will not be part of the state’s investigation of Catholic Church leaders who knowingly reassigned abusive priests, according to Attorney General Philip McLaughlin, the Monitor reports. McLaughlin said McCormack was not in New Hampshire when the Diocese of Manchester is accused of mishandling sexual abuse allegations.
June 23, 2001: A strong economy and a shortage of apartments have pushed up the median cost of rent and utilities for a two-bedroom apartment in Concord by 23 percent over the last four years, the Monitor reports. What used to cost $710 a month now costs $873, according to the state Housing Finance Authority.
June 23, 2000: James Hall is convicted of second-degree murder for strangling his 77-year-old mother in their Concord apartment.
June 23, 1823: The New Hampshire Historical Society, formed earlier in the year in Portsmouth, moves to Concord. It will occupy a room in the State House for three years before moving to North Main Street near Ferry Street.
June 23, 1815: A freight boat journeys from Boston to Concord for the first time.
