Aug. 24, 2002: A dog that roamed Tilton for two weeks since bolting from a highway crash on Interstate 93 is caught and returned to her owner, Randolph Carford, of Norwalk, Conn. Nyshka, a 4-year-old Australian shepherd, is found by Tilton police officer William Patten, Melisssa Dudley of Canterbury and Lorden Butman of Concord in an animal trap set by the police behind Wal-Mart. Dog and owner are reunited at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where Carford is recovering from injuries sustained in the crash.
Aug. 24, 1997: Epsom police officer Jeremy Charron is shot and killed by Gordon Perry while checking out a suspicious car in an Epsom park.
Aug. 24, 1955: New Hampshire’s highway death record is the worst in the nation for the first half of this year, the Monitor reports. Sixty-two people were killed, a 59% increase from the same months the previous year.
Aug. 25, 2003: A front-page story in the Wall Street Journal details the lavish compensation packages bestowed upon the rector and vice rector of St. Paul’s school in Concord. According to the Journal, Bishop Craig Anderson, the school’s rector, made $524,000 in salary, benefits and deferred compensation last year – more than most college presidents, and vice rector Sharon Hennessy earned $316,400 in total compensation. Some alumni, parents and donors, outraged at Anderson’s salary, campaign for his ouster. They also push for new faces on the 24-member board of trustees, which sets his pay.
Aug. 25, 1855: Concord establishes its first public library. The city council appropriates $1,500: “$300 for fixtures, the residue for books.”
Aug. 25, 1989: On the front page of the Monitor is a photograph of Triton, Neptune’s largest moon. The photograph was taken from Voyager 2, which for several days has been transmitting to earth pictures of Neptune, its moons and its rings. Today’s picture, shot from a distance of 1.2 million miles, took four-plus hours to reach earth and appears on readers’ doorsteps perhaps 16 hours after the moment it was taken.
Aug. 26, 1988: Developers abandon plans for a seven-story hotel on Fort Eddy Road. Instead, Concord will get the LL Bean strip mall.
Aug. 27, 1927: At a railroad crossing in Tilton, four young people, including two local girls, are killed just after midnight when an express train strikes the car in which they are riding. Witnesses say the Concord-to-Laconia night flyer struck the car squarely, knocking it into the Woodlawn Inn. The inn’s wall is crushed. The impact of the collision was so great that the cow catcher on the locomotive was “ripped from its hangings.” The victims were thrown free of the car and “horribly mangled,” the Monitor reports. Tilton residents argue that the crossing should be better marked.
Aug. 27, 1869: Edmund Cox, the most daring coachman in the White Mountains, takes President Ulysses S. Grant on a wild ride from Bethlehem to the Profile House in Franconia Notch. For the bumpy 11-mile trek, Grant joins Cox atop the Concord Coach. As he climbs down from the box, the president is “a curious sight, covered with dust from head to foot.”
Aug. 28, 2001: In an unusually harsh rebuke to the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, the Monitor reports, the state archaeologist sides with Abenaki Indians in their claim that sacred burial and ceremonial sites are almost certainly being destroyed as the center proceeds with construction of a $1.2 million visitors center project. Although no human bones have been found – and the center has hired an independent archaeologist to monitor the excavation work – State Archaeologist Gary Hume says the center has a moral obligation to act more responsibly.
Aug. 28, 1915: Tasha Tudor is born in Boston. She will gain fame as an illustrator of children’s books, including some by her husband, Thomas L. McCready. In 1949, she will open the Ginger & Pickles store, selling children’s books and stationery, in her hometown of Webster. Later she will open a doll house museum.
