Dec. 24, 1979: Mississippi Gov. Cliff Finch arrives in Concord and declares, “I will be the next president of the United States.” If he can’t get enough signatures to get his name on the ballot, he says, he’ll run as a write-in.
Dec. 24, 1998: A 26-year-old snowmobiler crashes through the ice of Turkey Pond in Concord and is stuck in the frigid water for an hour – staying afloat by purposely freezing his forearms and hands on top of the ice. A Concord Fire official calls it the most dangerous ice rescue in memory. “There was such shallow ice around him,” he says.
Dec. 24, 1989: Don’t tell Concord folks winter has just begun: Only a month after the coldest November day of the century, the city faces another deep freeze. The day’s low temperature is 20 below zero.
Dec. 24, 1900: The Monitor reports on this year’s building boom. The new structures include the Optima Building and two other business blocks on Main Street, a new library and Dewey School.
Dec. 25, 1820: Episcopalians hold Concord’s first Christmas celebration 93 years after the town was settled. Because Concord was settled by Massachusetts Congregationalists, the holiday was previously banned.
Dec. 26, 2002: The first snowflakes that lined door wreaths and lights Christmas morning were just a harbinger of what was to come, the Monitor reports. By the early afternoon, snow fell in sheets, with up to 20 inches predicted accumulation across the state.
Dec. 26, 2001: A fire tears through a two-story house on Lyndon Street, leaving three people homeless. No one was injured.
Dec. 26, 1987: A Monitor poll of city councilors gives Liz Hager the edge in a three-way vote for mayor of Concord. She will eventually defeat Jim MacKay – with the help of candidate Bob Washburn – becoming the city’s first woman mayor.
Dec. 26, 1900: The police foil a murder for hire in Concord. The hit man turns in the woman who offered him $10, her rings and a pair of opera glasses to kill her estranged husband. The woman, 26-year-old Carrie Sinclair Huntoon, is a Concord belle who can trace her ancestry to the Pilgrims. She will be found insane and committed to the asylum.
Dec. 27, 2002: Andrew McCrae’s lawyer tells a judge he will fight efforts to return McCrae to California, where the college sophomore has admitted to killing a police officer Nov. 19. McCrae, who legally changed his name from Andrew Mickel, was arrested Nov. 26 in a Concord hotel room after insisting on being allowed to tell a reporter why he had ambushed and shot Officer David Mobilio three times. He said he was protesting police brutality and corporate irresponsibility.
Dec. 27, 1975: The New York Times reports that more than half the cells at the New Hampshire state prison in Concord are damaged beyond use by inmates angered over the refusal of officials to release a dozen prisoners from solitary confinement for their Christmas meal. Three people are injured in the four-hour disturbance and about 100 inmates are transferred to new locations.
Dec. 27, 2001: When it opened in 1967, Havenwood-Heritage Heights was one of the first modern retirement communities in the state. But times have continued to change, and now the center is planning a $40 million expansion so it can change along with them, the Monitor reports.
Dec. 27, 1985: At the Ramada Inn on Main Street in Concord, Christa McAuliffe gives her last press conference before setting out for Florida and final preparations for the launch of the Challenger.
Dec. 28, 2001: The Olympic torch comes to Concord on its way to Salt Lake City and makes a quick stop at the State House for a 15-minute ceremony. Former Olympians, Concord student athletes and what seems like thousands of people come out to see the flame.
Dec. 28, 1835: William Chandler is born in Concord. He will go on to become a U.S. senator and secretary of the Navy. He will found the Rumford Press and revitalize a struggling Monitor.
Dec. 28, 1978: State and Concord police officers arrest 28 people in the largest drug bust in city history. Thirty-one people are eventually charged, but the Merrimack County attorney will eventually drop all charges. The chief reasons: a lack of cooperation between the police and prosecutors and flaws in a diary recording the work of an undercover agent.
Dec. 29, 2000: More than 50 Concord residents have called the city recently to complain that their water tastes or smells bad, the Monitor reports. The culprit: golden brown algae. The city’s water treatment system kills it, but the process releases an apparently harmless chemical that has an odor and taste best described as musty.
Dec. 29, 1933: The low temperature in Concord is 21 below zero.
Dec. 29, 1905: The Monitor reports on the opening of the New England Telephone and Telegraph exchange, a two-story building at School and Green streets. On the upper floor are two pay phones staffed by attendants. Female operators at the switchboard, regularly asking, “Number, please,” make connections for callers. Beginning with 1,688 subscribers, the building will provide phone service for half a century.
Dec. 29, 1999: The governor’s office receives a written threat that a bomb will explode during First Night activities somewhere in the state. The state police believe the threat comes from the same person who planted two bombs in Concord the year before. First Night festivities will be curtailed, but there will be no explosion.
Dec. 29, 1975: Gov. Meldrim Thomson gives state prison officials until Feb. 1 to increase efficiency and order at the prison in Concord, after a Christmas Day rampage by inmates that resulted in $250,000 in damage. Thomson says Warden Raymond Helgemoe is “a nice enough fellow” but “wholly inadequate to the tough requirements of state prison administration.”
Dec. 30, 1999: First Night organizers vow to carry on with most of their plans despite a bomb threat. However, the annual fireworks display is canceled, as is a planned countdown to the new millennium. Organizers are advised by the police that security would be difficult at such a large Main Street gathering.
Dec. 30, 1869: A Grant Club is organized in Concord. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is “the people’s general, and will be the people’s president,” the Monitor asserts.
Dec. 30, 1926: Allen and Amoret Hollis deed Concord the land for “a playground and athletic facility for the citizens of the City of Concord.” They also donate a plaque for what will be known as Memorial Field, in honor of the city’s dead from the late World War. Among those who died during the war were the Hollises’ son, Allen Jr., and nephew, Henry Hollis Jr.
