April 9, 2000: A party at Rundlett Middle School brings together longtime Concord-area residents with immigrants and refugees who are more recent arrivals. The event is part of a broader effort that educational, social service and business organizations hope will eventually lead to the creation of a multicultural center.
April 9, 1991: After two consecutive days when the temperature reached 85 degrees, Concord settles for a high of 77. It’s apparently a big year for hot streaks: The city enjoyed another historic heat wave at the beginning of February.
April 9, 1975: State representatives from Concord say they have mixed feelings about a plan by Gov. Mel Thomson to convert the Pleasant View home into a treatment center for the criminally insane. (It won’t happen.)
April 10, 1991: The Concord planning board rejects a plan by developer Barry Stem to build a hotel and conference center on Broken Ground. It is just one segment of his development project, which also includes an 18-hole golf course and nearly 500 luxury homes. None of it will ever be built.
April 10, 1865: A huge celebration in Concord marks the end of the Civil War. Mayor Moses Humphrey orders the city’s fire engines decorated and ready to move to the State House by 4:30 p.m. Bands play, cannons boom, church bells peal. After nightfall, there is a “general illumination” of the city and a 400-gun salute is fired.
April 10, 1829: While addressing a Merrimack County jury in Concord, the spellbinding lawyer Ezekiel Webster, brother of Daniel, drops dead. “He had spoken nearly a half hour, in full and unaltering voice, when the hand of death arrested his earthly course,” writes Judge Charles Corning.
April 11, 2003: The New Hampshire Supreme Court upholds a 2001 Concord Planning Board decision that told the Richmond Co. it couldn’t build a shopping center in the old railroad yards near the South End marsh. The decision rewards the South End residents who have spent nearly three years fighting the project and reinforces the authority of planning boards.
April 11, 2001: New Hampshire Public Radio reports it has completed its most lucrative spring pledge drive ever. This fundraising success follows a decision to drop classical and jazz programming in favor of news and call-in shows.
April 11, 1986: Chosen by the New York Yankees five years earlier as a 19th-round draft pick, Bob Tewksbury of Concord makes his first major league start at Yankee Stadium. He defeats the Milwaukee Brewers 3-2.
April 11, 1793: A tragedy called The Revenge plays at the Town House, on the current site of the Merrimack County Courthouse. It is the first play to be staged in Concord. The city’s Mirrour calling it “a virtuous, sentimental and rational amusement to the respectable inhabitants of the town.”
April 11, 1984: Fire ravages the 125-year-old St. Paul’s church in Concord, leaving only the walls, bell tower and half the roof intact. Firefighters have to smash a century-old stained glass window to ventilate the building and the floor beneath the altar collapses.
April 12, 1827: On Fast Day, Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, 27, delivers the first temperance sermon in Concord. Bouton’s words at the Old North Church ignite local participation in a social movement that will last more than a century. Bouton asserts in his sermon that he has investigated and found that “the use of ardent spirits in Concord” is “universal.” He claims that the 1,400 men in Concord consumed nearly 14,000 gallons of liquor in 1825. The Concord Temperance Society will be formed three years later. By 1843, nearly half of the city’s adult residents will have signed a prohibition pledge.
April 12, 1861: On a gray, drizzly morning in Concord, the telegraph at the Eagle Hotel brings news of the attack on Fort Sumter.
April 12, 1984: An off-duty state trooper spots two men lifting the license plates from Gov. John Sununu’s car at a Shelburne motel. They are promptly arrested and charged with theft.
April 12, 1973: The Monitor reports on plans to raze the mansion built by Gov. Isaac Hill on South Main Street in the 1830s.
April 13, 2003: A fire breaks out in an apartment building off East Side Drive in Concord, attracting the attention of Kyle Bissonnette, 12, Matthew Peters, 12, and Nate Bell, 10. Seeing flames shooting from a downstairs window in the Regency Estates apartment building, the three pull their bikes over and flag down a passer-by, who calls the police. Kyle and Matthew head into the building and start knocking on doors, making sure everyone is out and rousing residents who don’t hear the smoke alarms. Nate waits outside to make sure his friends come out okay. One apartment is destroyed in the blaze. Nobody is injured.
April 13, 1984: The school board in Danvers, Mass., hires away Concord School Superintendent Calvin Cleveland. During his six-year tenure in Concord, Cleveland was best known for an effort to close three neighborhood elementary schools. One, Millville School, did close. The other two, Dewey and Eastman, survived the cut.
April 14, 1865: At 5 p.m., Congressman Edward H. Rollins, a Concord Republican, stops by the White House to seek a pass for a constituent to visit his wounded son in an army hospital. President Lincoln comes downstairs to oblige Rollins, writing a note to the secretary or war. It is the last official business Lincoln will conduct before going to dinner and the theater – and possibly the last time he will sign his name. After Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theatre, Rollins keeps the dated, signed note.
April 14, 1945: In response to Gov. Charles Dale’s call for a day of mourning for President Roosevelt, the Monitor does not publish and all businesses close.
April 14, 1993: The Concord Fire Department, generally in the business of extinguishing fires, starts one: Environmentalists hope a controlled burn on 10 acres of grass at the Concord Airport will improve conditions for the endangered Karner Blue butterfly.
