Sept. 25, 2003: In Concord, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announces that New Hampshire will build a new emergency management center, thanks to a $9.1 million grant.
Sept. 26, 1845: The New Hampshire Courier of Concord tells readers it's willing to take payment in forms other than cash: Those of our subscribers who are in arrears to us for the Courier and wish to pay in wood are reminded that cold weather is at hand and a few cords would be very acceptable about this time.”
Sept. 26, 1906: Whitney Barrett, a police officer, chases down 30-year-old Julia Chadwick and, despite her pleas for help, manages to shoot and kill her in a trolley in Penacook. He then turns the gun on himself. Though married with two children, Barrett had been infatuated with Chadwick.
Sept. 27, 1824: The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton is invited to become Concord's Congregationalist minister. Three months later he will accept a calling from the church. Bouton will hold the position for four decades.
Sept. 27, 1985: The state braces for Hurricane Gloria, a huge storm on the path of the Hurricane of '38. Schools let out at noon. Most businesses close. Trailer parks are evacuated. Gov. John H. Sununu declares a state of emergency. The only thing missing is Gloria. Monitor reporter David Olinger writes for the next day's paper: “New Hampshire residents went home early from the emergency shelters, knowing they had braced for the storm of the century and sat through a rainstorm.”
Sept. 27, 2000: Dropping in on a rally for Gov. Jeanne Shaheen staged by voters with disabilities, her opponent, Gordon Humphrey, gets an earful for his 1990 vote against the Americans with Disabilities Act. By the end of the news conference, Humphrey commits to a day of touring Concord sites that aren't accessible to people with wheelchairs.
Sept. 28, 1929: Susan McLane is born. She will serve as state senator from Concord after also representing the city in the House. She will run unsuccessfully for Congress, just losing out in a primary to Judd Gregg.
Sept. 29, 1954: Vice President Richard Nixon warns a crowd of 900 state Republicans at Concord's city auditorium that Sen. Styles Bridges “is one of those targets chosen by left-wing groups” in the coming election. Opinions may differ over a move in Congress to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy, he says, but there is “no difference of opinion” in the Eisenhower administration's objective to destroy communism.
Sept. 29, 1996: In a game to decide the National League West pision championship, Bob Tewksbury of Concord starts for the San Diego Padres and holds Los Angeles scoreless for seven innings. He gets no decision, but the Padres beat the Dodgers 2-0.
Sept. 29, 2003: Two days before pheasant hunting season starts in New Hampshire, 2,000 ring-necked pheasants arrive at Fish and Game headquarters from a game farm in New York. The birds, along with 11,000 more, will be released across the state in secret locations, some private, some public. It's a tradition that began in 1896.
Sept. 30, 1864: Private Robert H. Potter, a Concord farmer before the war, is shot through the left lung during the Battle of Poplar Springs, Va. Because the surgeon says it is “a question of only a few moments with him,” Potter is carried to the dead house.
The next day, a chaplain will find Potter lying in a pool of water, still breathing faintly. Potter will recover, return to the 6th New Hampshire regiment and, after his company takes a battery at Petersburg, be promoted to captain.
Sept. 30, 2002: The state Supreme Court overturns the 2-year-old murder conviction of James Hall, a Concord man who admitted to strangling his mother, stowing her body in a trash can and dumping it in the woods. The court says that the judge in the 2000 trial tainted the verdict by issuing faulty instructions to the jury during their deliberations.
Oct. 1, 1976: In an appearance at the New Hampshire Highway Hotel in Concord, Ronald Reagan tells 700 Republicans that Gov. Mel Thomson must be reelected. Thomson, he says, is a “politician of national stature.”
