July 21, 1857: The Coos Republican reports that Joseph Roby, 23, of Clarksville is struck and killed by a bolt of lightening while sitting in his house. “His cap and boots were torn in pieces, but no mark was found upon his person. Several individuals were in the house at the time, but none of the rest were injured materially.”
July 21, 1861: Col. Gilman Marston of the Second New Hampshire Volunteers is shot in the shoulder at Second Bull Run. The wound is bandaged, and he returns to command his men in the field. He will refuse amputation of his arm, heal and become a brigadier general. In quieter times during the early part of the war, he will attend to his other job: congressman from New Hampshire’s 1st District.
July 21, 1774: The first Provincial Congress meets in Exeter and chooses delegates to the Continental Congress. The purpose of the congress is to devise and adopt measures to “extricate the Colonies from their present Difficulties, to secure and perpetuate their Rights” and to restore peace “between the Parent Country and her Colonies.”
July 21, 1892: The Snowshoe Club, one of Concord’s many men’s organizations, is founded. Its objects are “enjoyment of the beauties of nature; moral and social improvement; physical culture.”
July 22, 2003: Manuel Gehring, the Concord man accused of murdering his children, Sarah, 14, and Philip, 11, returns to Concord on a small jet after spending a week somewhere in the Midwest.
July 22, 1862: A meeting is held in Concord in response to President Lincoln’s call for 300,000 new volunteers throughout the Union states. The city decides it will put up a $50 bounty, in addition to state and federal bounties, for any Concord man who will enlist.
July 22, 1880: After a harsh 10-year reign as prison warden, John C. Pilsbury is cleared of charges of abuse and brutality. “The discipline of our prison is indeed strict,” Pilsbury says, “(but) I am satisfied it is none too severe for the good of the convicts.” Though exonerated, the 78-year-old Pilsbury will soon resign.
July 23, 2002: A Roman Catholic priest files a lawsuit accusing Bishop John McCormack of waging a campaign to keep him silent about the discovery of a dead priest’s child pornography collection. The Rev. Seamus MacCormack sued the Diocese of Manchester, McCormack and other church officials, saying they derailed his career to avoid scandal.
July 23, 1927: Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who is scheduled to arrive in Concord two days from now on his triumphant tour around the country, lands at Concord airport. The reason: the airport in Portland, Maine, his scheduled stop, is fogged in.
July 24, 2003: Manuel Gehring, the Concord man accused of fatally shooting his children, Sarah and Philip, pleads not guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in Hillsborough County Superior Court.
July 24, 1777: Named brigadier general only a week earlier, Gen. John Stark has raised a force of 1,492 men.
July 25, 1986: Gov. John Sununu announces that he has formed a 15-member panel to determine whether a nuclear disaster similar to one at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union could happen at the Seabrook nuclear plant.
July 25, 1927: A police squad of six officers enters the home of Ruth A. McKinnon on Runnels Road in Penacook. The officers arrest MacKinnon and confiscate 106 bottles of beer, empty pint and quart bottles and a capping machine. MacKinnon will be fined $100 and $41.10 in court costs and sentenced to 60 days in the house of corrections in Boscawen, but the sentence will be suspended. With her arrest, the police believe they have cut off the supply of liquor to this portion of Merrimack County.
July 26, 1970: The Associated Press reports that Mel Bolden’s campaign for the Executive Council makes him “the first Negro to seek the seat.”
July 26, 2000: About 25 people show up at Franklin City Hall to watch the night’s episode of Survivor. Unfortunately for her fans, local hero Jenna Lewis is voted off the island.
