June 15, 2002: Concord High School junior Rachel Umberger wins the national title for the 800 meters. She runs it in 2 minutes, 9.67 seconds, a personal best.
June 15, 1983: The Legislature fails to override Gov. John Sununu’s veto of a bill establishing Earth Care Week in honor of the late governor Hugh Gallen. Sununu objects to the section of the bill stating concern for protecting New Hampshire and the planet from the destruction of nuclear war.
June 15, 1776: Three men, including Concord’s Timothy Walker Jr., write a resolution instructing Dr. Josiah Bartlett and William Whipple, New Hampshire’s delegates in Philadelphia, to join “in declaring the 13 united colonies a free and independent state.” New Hampshire will support such a declaration “with our lives and fortunes,” the resolution says.
June 15, 1799: The Concord Musical Society is incorporated “to encourage and promote the practice of sacred musick in Concord.”
June 16, 2003: When the state privatized the Mount Sunapee Ski Resort five years ago, legislators promised rigorous public oversight to ensure that the park land in which the resort sits would not be harmed, the Monitor reports. But a growing number of residents in the region say they are disillusioned with that oversight process. They accuse the state of providing too few opportunities for public discussion and ceding too much authority to the resort’s managers.
June 16, 1946: Brooklyn Dodger President Branch Rickey comes to Nashua to check on how the city is treating African American ballplayers Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella. He finds little cause for worry. Newcombe will pitch to a 14-4 record for the Nashua Dodgers, and Campanella will hit .291 and be named the league’s most valuable player.
June 17, 2003: In honor of former president Ronald Reagan, Gov. Craig Benson signs legislation renaming Mount Clay, a 5,553-foot peak near Mount Washington, to Mount Reagan.
June 17, 2002: A lawyer representing more than 50 people who say they were molested by Roman Catholic priests asks a judge to approve a $30 million lien against the Diocese of Manchester. Peter Hutchins, who filed a class action lawsuit against the diocese, asks the court to freeze the diocese’s real estate, bank accounts and other assets to ensure it has enough money to pay any settlement or verdict for his clients.
June 17, 2001: Bike Week ends, and the American Motorcycle Association estimates that 375,000 people came to the state for the event. The Laconia Police say that at least eight people died in crashes.
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, 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 17, 1977: The federal Environmental Protection Agency approves construction of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, saying the builder, Public Service Co., is using “the best technology available” to limit environmental damage.
June 18, 2001: The Concord City Council puts off a proposal to raise the annual tax credit for veterans. The city’s veterans are entitled to a $50 tax exemption; the proposal would have doubled the amount.
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 18, 1965: Lawmakers consider legislation to allow grocery and drug stores to sell light wines. They estimate an extra $700,000 in state revenue. (The legislation will eventually pass.)
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%. The statewide average is 71%.
June 19, 2000: Residents of Hull, Quebec, pedal through downtown Concord on a 33-passenger bicycle, part of a trek the Canadian town has organized to celebrate its bicentennial.
June 19, 1843: In his journal, Benjamin Brown French, a New Hampshireman who has gone to Washington as a political appointee, marvels over “the astonishing rapidity with which information is now spread over this land.” At noon two days before, Sen. Daniel Webster spoke at the dedication of the Bunker Hill Memorial. After reading the text of Webster’s speech in the Capitol less than 40 hours later, Brown writes: “What’s the use of speculating about balloons, when information can pass from one end of the Union to the other at the rate of 20 miles an hour!”
June 19, 1864: In the waters off Cherbourg, France, the Portsmouth-built USS Kearsarge sinks the notorious marauder CSS Alabama in one of the Civil War’s most celebrated naval duels. The Alabama’s captain, the pirate Raphael Semmes, escapes to England, but his days of terrorizing federal ships are done.
June 20, 1997: A man is killed and several injured in a baseball-bat brawl at a Canterbury sand pit.
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 20, 1806: Two and a half years after the state ordered the towns to survey their land and borders, the Legislature assigns Philip Carrigain and Phinehas Merrill to double-check the surveying work. Carrigain will eventually be hired to combine the town surveys into a map of New Hampshire.
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 21, 1788: After delegates vote to ratify the Constitution, John Langdon of Portsmouth writes to George Washington: “I have the great pleasure of informing your Excellency that this State has this day adopted the Federal Constitution, 57 yeas 46 nays – thereby placing the Key Stone in the great arch.” Langdon helped draft the Constitution, then returned to the state to lobby for approval. New Hampshire is the ninth state to ratify, meaning the Constitution will take effect.
June 21, 1990: With Steve McAuliffe and a large crowd of dignitaries and ordinary citizens in attendance, the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium is dedicated in Concord.
