Nov. 3, 2003: Seven candidates show up at the secretary of state’s office in Concord, marking the first day that presidential candidates are able to file papers to enter January’s primary. The only one whose name carries any cachet in Washington is Dick Gephardt, who makes a lunchtime appearance between campaign stops.
Nov. 3, 2002: Referring to a television ad that distorted her appearance, Democrat Martha Fuller Clark accuses her opponent, Republican Jeb Bradley, of running the most negative and intentionally insulting campaign in the history of the state. Bradley denies involvement.
Nov. 3, 1964: New Hampshire Republicans have a time on election night. Democratic Gov. John King is reelected and will have a Democratic majority to work with on the executive Council. The Senate is split 12-12. Bert Teague, executive director of the state GOP keeps a stiff upper lip. “The Republican Party in New Hampshire is not dead. If anything, we should come out of this stronger than ever,” he says.
Nov. 3, 1908: Concord elects Democrat Charles French as its new mayor. At midnight, a cheering crowd carries him through the city streets. Outgoing Mayor Charles Corning, who did not seek re-election, disapproves of his successor. The result will bring about “a veritable misfortune unless French reforms his loud manners & modifies his coarse & nasty speech,” Corning writes in his diary.
Nov. 3, 1831: Dolly Emery marries Hayes Doddifer Copp. The couple carry their few possessions into the White Mountains near Carter Notch. Over the years, Dolly Copp will gain fame as a hardy pioneer and a maker of fine woolens and linen. Tourists hike to see the view of Imp’s Profile from the Copps’ dooryard, and, short clay pipe in hand, Dolly greets many of them.
Nov. 3, 1881: On her 50th wedding anniversary, Dolly Copp says: “Hayes is well enough. But 50 years is long enough for any woman to live with a man.” They split their possessions and move to different towns in Maine.
Nov. 4, 1863: With recruitment lagging more than two weeks after President Lincoln’s call for 300,000 new Union troops, New Hampshire Gov. Joseph Gilmore announces a state enlistment quota of 3,768 men. As enticements, enlistees are offered their choice of corps and state bounties of $302 for fresh recruits, $402 for re-enlisting veterans.
Nov. 4, 1947: Concord voters apparently aren’t in the mood to have fun this Election Day. By wide margins, they reject plans to construct a man-made lake and to permit high school sports and recreational bowling on Sundays.
Nov 4, 1976: Two days after winning a third term, Gov. Mel Thomson sums of the voters’ mood: “They think I’m an SOB, but they still vote for me.” Thomson says he may seek a fourth term or even a stint in the U.S. Senate. (Ultimately, he will lose to Democrat Hugh Gallen.)
Nov. 4, 1980: Ronald Reagan easily carries New Hampshire and wins the presidency by a landslide. Warren Rudman defeats incumbent U.S. Sen. John Durkin as the Republicans take control of the Senate. Gov. Hugh Gallen easily wins a second term.
Nov. 5, 2001: After a property tax increase of 18 percent over last year in Bow, town clerk Jill Hadaway is inundated with complaints.
Nov. 5, 1996: Jeanne Shaheen defeats Ovide Lamontagne to become the state’s first female governor. Voters re-elect U.S. Sen. Bob Smith.
Nov. 5, 1975: New Hampshire Fish and Game officials say hunters killed 573 deer in the first two days of the annual hunting season. That’s 64 more than in the first three days of the 1974 season.
Nov. 5, 1996: For the first time ever, Concord elects an all-female delegation to the State House. The members: Reps. Carol Burney, Jean Wallin, Mary Stuart Gile, Gloria Seldin, Liz Hager, Carol Moore, Toni Crosby, Marilyn Fraser, Katherine Rogers, Tara Reardon, Miriam Dunn, Mary Jane Wallner, Betty Hoadley and Sen. Sylvia Larsen.
Nov. 5, 1991: While acting as a commentator on the local cable channel as the city election results are being counted, Concord Mayor Jim MacKay learns that he has been defeated for re-election to the city council.
Nov. 6, 2002: Wet, heavy snow takes down tree branches and power lines, leaving thousands of people across the state without electricity. The slushy weather gives many schoolkids their first snow day of the year. According to the National Weather Service, Concord receives 1½ inches of snow. Some area towns, like Alton and Henniker, receive more than five inches.
Nov. 6, 1863: After accepting an offer from presidential aide Ward Hill Lamon to assist in arrangements for President Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg, Pa., New Hampshireman Benjamin Brown French writes: “This will be a task. . . . If alive and well, I will be there.”
Nov. 6, 1907: By a count of 2,281-2,034, Concord voters decide to stop licensing saloons and ban them. Manchester, Nashua and Portsmouth vote to continue licensing. Franklin, Laconia and Keene join Concord in prohibiting them. The measures will take effect May 1, 1908.
Nov. 6, 1900: Concord Mayor Nat Martin, a local lawyer who made his name closing saloons, is defeated for reelection. He angered voters by trying to have it both ways – busting some backroom bars under the state’s 45-year-old prohibition statute while permitting other “clubs” to serve liquor.
Nov. 7, 2003: Bishop Douglas Theuner, leader of the state’s Episcopal diocese, relieves a Rochester pastor of his duties. Theuner notifies the Rev. Don Wilson, a vocal opponent of V. Gene Robinson’s consecration as the state’s next bishop, that he is no longer authorized to officiate in New Hampshire.
Nov. 7, 2001: Concord parking enforcers give out the first boot, a metal lock that fits over a car’s wheel and prevents the vehicle from moving unless removed. It has been three months since the city announced that it would boot any car whose owner owed more than $100 in parking tickets.
Nov. 7, 1919: Anti-communist raids are launched in Russian immigrant social clubs in Claremont, Manchester, Nashua, Berlin and Portsmouth.
Nov. 7, 1874: A new wrought-iron bridge is opened over the Contoocook River in Penacook. The cost is a little more than $17,000.
Nov. 7, 1629: The Council for New England, a joint-stock company chartered by King James I, grants John Mason and Fernando Gorges a vast area between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers. Mason’s intention, approved by the council, is to name the tract New Hampshire after his home county in England.
Nov. 8, 2002: The director of the state Division of Children, Youth and Families, Nancy Rollins, tells a task force evaluating the Catholic Church sexual abuse policy that the church ignored her advice when it wrote its policy and is now misinterpreting the state’s abuse-reporting law.
Nov. 8, 2000: Democrats point angry fingers at Ralph Nader, blaming his Green Party candidacy for Al Gore’s inability to carry New Hampshire in the presidential election. “And that means,” says former state party chairman Joe Keefe, “that Nader cost Gore the election because if Gore won New Hampshire, he wouldn’t need Florida.”
Nov. 8, 1844: The local Columbian artillery turns out on Sand Hill in Concord to fire off a salute to the election of James K. Polk and George M. Dallas. As the cannon is being loaded, an explosion badly injures John L. Haynes, an officer in the unit. The explosion blows of Haynes’s left arm and shatters the bones in his right arm.
Nov. 8, 1988: Chuck Douglas is elected congressman from New Hampshire’s Second District. He replaces Judd Gregg but will serve just one term.
Nov. 9, 2002: The Concord High girls’ cross country team, already owners of the Class L and State Meet titles, adds a mud-caked New England championship to its cache in Portland, Maine.
Nov. 9, 1987: Officially opening his New Hampshire primary campaign, U.S. Sen. Bob Dole tells a large crowd that he will fight federal budget deficits with common sense “molded in America’s small-town heartland and tempered during a career of public service.”
Nov. 9, 1869: Josiah L. Pike, slayer of an old couple in Hampton Falls, is hanged – the first person executed in New Hampshire since colonial times. In the days leading up to his death, ministers’ wives and daughters brought him flowers, sang to him and held his hands. An observer describes Pike’s final days as “a surge of sentimental gush that scandalized the state and aroused the stinging sarcasm of Mark Twain.”
