April 23, 1843: Convinced that the end of the world is near, a considerable number of people in Concord and elsewhere neglect all worldly business and give themselves up to prayer. A few become insane, some destitute.
April 23, 1945: Thirteen-year-old Larry West of Concord is killed with a 12-gauge shotgun. The weapon discharges accidentally while he is climbing a tree to shoot a porcupine.
April 24, 1900: Harriet P. Dame dies in Concord at the age of 85. She was renowned for having ventured south with the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. She served as a nurse and helpmate to the soldiers and was captured at Bull Run.
April 24, 1992: The Concord Monitor publishes its last afternoon edition. Henceforth it will be a morning paper.
April 25, 1893: Edward H. Brooks is born in Concord. A graduate of Concord High and Norwich University, he will serve in both world wars, rising to the rank of lieutenant general. A highlight of his long, distinguished career will be leading the Second Armored Division onto Omaha Beach. His pision will also be the first Allied force to enter Belgium.
April 25, 1975: President Ford visits the state and is greeted at Concord Airport and introduced to the Legislature by Gov. Meldrim Thomson. Thomson, however, has let it be known that he’s promoting a challenge to Ford in the presidential primary from Ronald Reagan – and, failing that, Thomson plans to run himself.
April 26, 1948: On the first day of spring vacation, Concord students take to the streets of downtown brandishing placards. Their cause: a new swimming pool in West Concord. Some of the signs read “Swimming Will Make Us Strong” and “Oh Give Us Water!” The state Board of Health closed the old one as unsanitary in 1945, and a committee of the city’s alderman has recommended against spending $110,000 to build a new one.
April 26, 2001: Bancroft Products, a Concord nonprofit known for hiring refugees and people with disabilities, has laid off 260 employees, the Monitor reports. Just six months ago, when the economic outlook was rosier, the company had been planning to add some 130 jobs.
April 27, 1861: The city of Concord appropriates $10,000 to aid the families of local volunteers who go off to war. It expects the state to reimburse it, and for the most part it will. By the end of the year, the city will have doled out $3,000 to soldiers’ families.
April 27, 1987: Fire breaks out in the south end of the Legislative Office Building in Concord. Hundreds gather to watch as a cool wind whips the flames pouring from the roof. Water streams out the door and down the steps into the street. The building suffers extensive smoke and water damage.
April 28, 1974: Gov. Mel Thomson returns to New Hampshire after two days in the Caribbean studying oil refineries. Thomson’s office refuses to say precisely where in the Caribbean area he was.
April 29, 1948: The New Hampshire Christian Civic League, formerly known as the New Hampshire Anti-Saloon League, faces the prospect of disbanding after 50 years of fighting for prohibition. Donations have fallen off, and the organization cannot pay its bills. Nowadays, on the issue of reducing the number of people who drink alcoholic beverages, “even some of the church groups are easy-going,” laments league official Herbert Rainie.
April 29, 1964: In an editorial, the Monitor defends its opposition to the recently initiated state lottery against criticism from Manchester publisher William Loeb. The Monitor calls the lottery “a new venture born under a cloud of doubts.” Loeb has accused the Monitor of being “a minority gone mad and demanding what it wants.” The paper, he writes, is guilty of “vindictive dog-in-the-manger tactics and sabotage.”
April 29, 1975: Environmentalists come out en masse to testify against a bill created by Gov. Mel Thomson that would suspend environmental protection regulations that delay energy production projects.
April 29, 1987: It snows most of the afternoon and night. The accumulation is two to three inches.
