Feb. 5, 1942: An alert Concord police officer spots the car of a suspected spy on South Main Street near the Capitol Theater. He arrests the man at gunpoint. The chief gives the officer a pat on the back, but no charges are filed against the man. “It was all in error,” authorities say.
Feb. 5, 1942: Dudley Orr, the state tax commissioner, is pictured on the front page of the Monitor riding his bicycle to work. In a time of severe gas and tire rationing, he says, it is important for public officials to set a good example. He has no problem getting to work but is not fond of pedaling back up the hill to his home at 125 Centre St.
Feb. 5, 1968: Rev. Norman Limoge, the administrator at Bishop Brady High School, sends 18 boys to Ray’s Barber Shop after they defy his warning to come to school with “respectable haircuts.” “We’re all here under protest,” one boy tells a reporter. “We didn’t think he’d do it,” says another. The act will lead to a lively exchange of letters to the editor. “Jesus wore long hair,” a defender of the boys will write. Margaret Savard of Pembroke will respond: “As the parent of one of the boys involved, you have my approval.”
Feb. 6, 1862: Meeting in Concord, a “Union Convention” adopts a platform plank on the war similar to that of the Democrats, which states: “This war should not be waged in any spirit of conquest or subjugation, or for the purpose of overthrowing the rights or established institutions of any of the States.”
Feb. 6, 1901: The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is formed. The group is a reaction to failed governmental efforts in Concord and Washington to promote safe and regenerative forestry policies. Years of fires, floods and clear-cutting have left the state’s northern forest in terrible condition.
Feb. 7, 1811: Nathaniel White is born in Lancaster. He will come to Concord to run a hotel and become a successful businessman. He will be a prominent abolitionis. Among many other charitable acts, he will be a prime benefactor of the Centennial Home for the aged, now the Centennial Inn.
Feb. 7, 1986: As a memorial to Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High teacher who died during the Challenger launch, a new state trust fund is formed to allow other teachers to take “journeys of discovery and enlightenment.”
Feb. 8, 1847: Franklin Pierce addresses a large meeting called in Concord to advocate “a vigorous and determined prosecution of the war with Mexico. Pierce will win a brigadier general’s commission, and his war exploits will help propel him to the presidency in 1852.
Feb. 8, 1897: Concord’s first movie plays at White’s Opera House. The show includes bathers at Rahway, N.J., a watermelon-eating contest, a mounted policeman stopping a runaway horse and a three-minute boxing match featuring Gentleman Jim Corbett. “There is nothing fake about it,” the Monitor reviewer reports, adding that the pictures are “vivid and truthful.”
Feb. 8, 1939: The Monitor reports on the state of the city’s residential real estate: 3,484 single family homes, 1,044 two-family homes, 97 three-family homes, 105 dwellings for four or more families and 16 apartment houses.
Feb. 8, 1943: The crew of nine women running the sawmill at Turkey Pond is forced to shut down the operation until the pond thaws. The women have been working at the mill since October and all vow to return in May. Timber boss Howard E. Ahlskog says the women are more loyal and dependable than the last male crews he hired.
Feb. 9, 2000: Gov. Jeanne Shaheen denies pardon hearings for two convicted murderers who say they have been rehabilitated. The requests by Gary Place and Anne Marie Reynolds are supported by four of the five members of the Executive Council; Shaheen, however, decides their cases are not worthy of pardons.
Feb. 10, 1927: The Schoonmaker Chair Co. signs a seven-year contract to use New Hampshire state prison inmates to make chairs. The company will pay 15 cents per man-hour.
Feb. 10, 1942: Robert Leon Harris, a 15-year-old student, agrees to leave Rundlett Junior High School “so as not to cause any trouble.” He is the second Jehovah’s Witness in the city to refuse on religious grounds to pledge allegiance to flag and country.
Feb. 11, 1941: President Franklin D. Roosevelt appoints John G. Winant of Concord to succeed Joseph Kennedy as U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Winant, a Republican, is a former governor and served earlier in FDR’s presidency as the first administrator of the Social Security Administration.
Feb. 11, 2000: A Massachusetts development company is considering building a large shopping center anchored by a supermarket on land in the South End, the Monitor reports. Working through a local real estate agent, the company has approached at least 10 different property owners in a triangular-shaped area between Hall and South Main streets near Exit 13 off Interstate 93.
