July 6, 2002: The State House is getting a makeover, the Monitor reports. The white portion of the octagonal structure, just below the gilded part of the dome, will be stripped and restored to the tune of $174,000.
July 6, 2001: Joseph Whittey is found guilty of murdering 81-year-old Yvonne Fine in Concord nearly 20 years ago. Although Whittey had been a suspect early on, it wasn’t until last year that investigators discovered DNA evidence allowing them to charge him with the crime. Already in prison for attempted murder, Whittey is sentenced to life.
July 6, 2000: Secretary of State Bill Gardner appoints an eight-member “think tank” to review the state’s election laws. The commission is supposed to report back after the fall elections with recommendations for the Legislature.
July 6, 1774: Several members of New Hampshire’s Committee of Correspondence meet in Portsmouth to decide whether to accept an invitation from Virginians to attend a Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September. Royal Gov. John Wentworth and Sheriff Parker of Rockingham County invade the meeting and kick the dissidents out of Assembly hall. The men move to a nearby tavern, where they resolve to meet in July to elect delegates to the convention.
July 7, 1995: Concord’s Bob Tewksbury of the Texas Rangers pitches his first American League shutout. He wins 10-0 over the team that originally signed him, the New York Yankees.
July 7, 1989: The state celebrates the opening of the new $30 million New Hampshire Hospital on Clinton Street in Concord. At 199,000 square feet, it is the state’s largest building project ever.
July 7, 1853: In arguing for the passage of prohibition in New Hampshire, George G. Fogg, a Concord editor, says legislators should line up against “the manufacturers of drunkards, paupers, and criminals.” The measure fails.
July 7, 1816: Concord awakens to a hard freeze.
July 7, 1847: President James Polk visits Concord, prompting a parade of bands up Main Street. “The streets were alive with sightseers and from the windows, ladies greeted the president with waving handkerchiefs,” one newspaper reports.
July 8, 1822: John Bedel is born at Indian Stream Republic, now Pittsburg. Son of a general (Moody Bedel), he will gain military fame himself as an infantryman during the war with Mexico. When the Civil War comes, he will lead the Third New Hampshire Volunteers, spend 18 months in a rebel prison and, after his release, achieve the rank of brigadier general.
July 8, 1775: With the royal governor out of power and royal authority gone with him, the president pro tem of the Provincial Congress, Judge Meshech Weare of Hampton Falls, declares that New Hampshire is now “wholly governed by this Congress & the Committee(s) of the respective Towns.”
July 8, 1965: Construction of a new King’s Department Store begins on Loudon Road in Concord. Plans also call for a supermarket and five smaller stores.
July 8, 1777: With the British occupying Fort Ticonderoga and pursuing American forces eastward, Vermont appeals to New Hampshire for help.
July 8, 1967: Monitor reporters set out in the streets of Concord to test a Harris poll’s findings that President Lyndon B. Johnson’s popularity is rising and that the Vietnam War will be a decisive factor in the 1968 presidential election. Interviews with 115 people in Concord turn up these results: 28.7 percent like Johnson more than they did in 1964, 58 percent like him less. Most of those who criticize Johnson cite his handling of the war as the main reason for their discontent.
July 9, 1995: At the dedication of the restored barn of Robert Frost in Franconia, Donald Hall shares his thoughts on Frost’s poetry. He says he once believed Frost wrote 25 great poems, but the number has risen to 75. “Every time I look,” Hall says, “he’s written another good one.”
July 9, 1992: Bob Tewksbury of Concord is named to the National League All- Star team.
July 9, 1965: New Hampshire Attorney General William Maynard advises the Rockingham County attorney that a local bingo game conducted over the radio is illegal under state law.
July 9, 1964: Monitor columnist Leon Anderson takes U.S. Rep. Louis Wyman to task for calling the country’s new civil rights law “a bucket of worms.” He writes: “Most of us do not mind Wyman being in disagreement with some of our thinking, at times. But we also have standards of conduct, especially in public life, which have no place for such foul language. If Wyman kicks the bucket in his second-term bid, we dare suggest his ill-phrased ‘bucket of worms’ will have been the final straw.”
July 9, 1832: The inhabitants of the current Pittsburg, which for years has been claimed by both Canada and the United States, proclaim their vast town the Republic of Indian Stream. They write a constitution and establish courts and an assembly. The independent republic will last three years before the New Hampshire militia occupies it during a renewed territorial dispute with Canada.
July 10, 1885: An avalanche roars for two miles down the northwestern slope of Cherry Mountain. It carries away the home of Oscar Stanley at the base of the mountain and kills one of his farm hands and several head of cattle. Later, a restaurant will be built at the site to provide food for tourists viewing the devastation.
July 12, 1927: Mayor Fred Marden says he has received a telegram informing him that Col. Charles A. Lindbergh will soon fly to Concord in the Spirit of St. Louis.
