April 14, 1865: Edwin Bedee of Meredith, a captain in the 12th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment, goes to Ford’s Theater. He can see President Lincoln from his seat. After John Wilkes Booth jumps to the stage and flees, Bedee climbs over several rows and enters Lincoln’s box. He holds the president’s head while a surgeon searches for Lincoln’s wound. Bedee suddenly feels the president’s blood running into his hand. “Here is the wound, doctor,” he says.
April 15, 1928: Augusta Pillsbury of Manchester makes history, becoming the first legislator in the nation to have a baby while in office.
April 17, 1989: New Hampshire House Speaker Doug Scamman says he will leave the Legislature after 11 terms and run for Bob Smith’s seat in Congress. He will be beaten in a GOP primary by Jackson innkeeper Bill Zeliff.
April 18, 1861: During a week of cries for non-partisanship and a rush to volunteer for military service, the Independent Democrat of Concord reports: “Concord is full of the war spirit.”
April 19, 1886: “That certain harbinger of spring, the straw hat, has appeared,” the Evening Monitor reports.
April 20, 1775: Concord’s Rev. Timothy Walker says to a neighbor: “We must fight, John, we must fight. There is no longer any alternative.” Captain Andrew McClary, meanwhile, leads 34 men on the 70-mile march to Cambridge, Mass., to oppose the British. By the end of the month, more than 2,000 New Hampshire Minutemen will be fighting under Col. John Stark.
