Aug. 6, 1728: A grant creates the Plantation of Suncook (an Indian term meaning “place of the goose” or “rocky place”). Massachusetts grants the land to the 47 soldiers and survivors of an Indian-hunting expedition to the north known as Lovewell’s War. Francis Doyen of Penacook, one of Lovewell’s soldiers, is believed to have been the first white settler.
Aug. 6, 1854: When President Franklin Pierce declines a besotted South Carolinian’s invitation to have a drink with him, the man berates the president and throws a hard-boiled egg at him. Pierce has the man arrested.
Aug. 8, 1861: The Democratic Standard, a Concord newspaper with Southern sympathies, refers to the Union Army as “Old Abe’s Mob.” When angry returned soldiers from the First New Hampshire Volunteers gather outside the Standard office, the paper’s frightened proprietors stand in the windows, pistols in hand. The owners fire three shots in the melee that follows, but no one is injured. The mob burns some of the Standard’s property and dumps its type cases in the street.
Aug. 8, 1974: As news of the impending resignation of President Nixon sweeps the nation, the Monitor interviews people in the streets of Concord. “I feel a tremendous sense of renewal for the American system,” St. Paul’s School English teacher Richard Lederer tells a reporter. The president announces his resignation in a televised speech, and Vice President Gerald Ford assumes the presidency.
Aug. 9, 1746: A band of 50 to 100 Indians invades Rumford (Concord), but the Indians will be scared off the next morning by 30 armed guards who escort church-goers back to their garrisons.
Aug. 9, 1903: Omer T. Lassonde is born in Concord. An artist, he will be federal arts director of the WPA in New Hampshire during the Depression. The subjects of his many portraits will include U.S. Sen. Styles Bridges, Gov. John G. Winant and the King of Samoa.
Aug. 9, 2001: New Englanders use more electricity than ever before today, as an unrelenting heat wave smothers the region for the fourth day this week. Issuing a rare power warning this morning, the owners of New England’s electricity grid urge people to conserve energy.
Aug. 10, 1737: A cavalcade of horses, coaches and carriages forms at Hampton Falls. The assemblies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire have come together to determine the border between the two colonies.
Aug. 10, 1987: Owners of the Ramada Inn on Main Street in Concord get city permission to build over Storrs Street. “The building that is there right now is, quite frankly, ugly. But what you see there now is not what you’ll get,” says lawyer Ray D’Amante. The plan never happens.
Aug. 11, 1746: Thirty or 40 Indians attack a seven-man military party in Rumford (Concord) near the current site of Concord Hospital. The Indians kill five men outright – Samuel and Jonathan Bradley, Obadiah Peters, John Bean and John Lufkin – and strip and mutilate their bodies. Alexander Roberts and William Stickney are captured. The dead are brought to town in a cart and buried immediately.
Aug. 12, 2003: Rain pours down on Penacook and Boscawen, filling storm drains and waterways beyond capacity. The storm carries away a 15-foot section of River Road, where a culvert leads into the Contoocook River.
