July 21, 2003: Wayne and Ruth Ross, the owners of Rossview Farm in Concord, have struck a deal with the Trust for Public Land to conserve their 510 acres of forest, wetland and hill on District Five Road, the Monitor reports. Provided they can secure the funding, the Trust for Public Land can buy the land for $2.4 million.
July 21, 1873: Meeting at city hall, the Congregationalist society of Concord votes to rebuild its church at North Main and Chapel streets. Three weeks earlier, a fire consumed the church.
July 21, 1892: The Snowshoe Club, one of Concord’s many men’s organizations, is founded. Its objects are “enjoyment of the beauties of nature; moral and social improvement; physical culture.”
July 21, 1939: The Concord Ex-Service Men’s Council petitions the city to rename Concord streets in honor of soldiers killed in World War I.
July 21, 1878: A lightning bolt ignites the “Mother House,” the first building on the campus of 22-year-old St. Paul’s School. Fire destroys the building, which houses classrooms, the dining hall and the offices of the rector and staff. The Rev. Henry Coit, the school’s first rector, is determined that the fire not delay school. Two months later, school will open on time, with 204 boys enrolled.
July 22, 2003: Manuel Gehring, the Concord man accused of murdering his children, Sarah, 14, and Philip, 11, returns to Concord on a small jet after spending a week somewhere in the Midwest.
July 22, 1862: A meeting is held in Concord in response to President Lincoln’s call for 300,000 new volunteers throughout the Union states. The city decides it will put up a $50 bounty, in addition to state and federal bounties, for any Concord man who will enlist.
July 23, 2001: Air quality officials declare a health advisory for southern New Hampshire because pollution and hot, steamy weather have driven ground-level ozone levels into the danger zone. It’s the seventh such advisory of the summer.
July 23, 1927: Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who is scheduled to arrive in Concord two days from now on his triumphant tour around the country, lands at Concord airport. The reason: the airport in Portland, Maine, his scheduled stop, is fogged in.
July 24, 2003: Manuel Gehring, the Concord man accused of fatally shooting his children, Sarah and Philip, pleads not guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in Hillsborough County Superior Court.
July 24, 2002: An 11-run second inning and sparkling defense propels Concord National to the Junior League Softball Championship, with a 13-2 victory over the host Bedford team.
July 24, 1945: Ignoring pleas from state officials to stay home, thousands of out-of-state tourists are coming to New Hampshire. The invasion of “vacationists,” as the newspapers call them, is taxing the power of the Granite State to provide them all with room and board.
July 25, 2002: It’s been 20 years since a significant building was torn down on Main Street, the Monitor reports. This week, the Sears block takes its place in history alongside such historic demolitions as the Centennial Block in front of Durgin Lane, the retail building that once stood in Eagle Square and the Phenix Hotel.
July 25, 1927: A crowd of more than 40,000 gathers to greet Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who lands his “Spirit of St. Louis” at Concord airport at 1:44 p.m. The band strikes up “Hail to the Chief” as the hero of transatlantic flight takes his seat on the platform. “This airport can still be improved in many ways,” Lindbergh tells the crowd. “In the future it will bring you considerable air commerce.”
July 25, 1874: Thirteen months after a fire destroyed the church on the same site, the cornerstone is laid for the North Congregational Church at North Main and Chapel streets. It will be ready for worship in March 1876.
July 26, 1970: The Associated Press reports that Mel Bolden’s campaign for the Executive Council makes him “the first Negro to seek the seat.”
July 26, 1927: His tour stop over, Col. Charles A. Lindbergh and his “Spirit of St. Louis” take off from Concord Airport at 11:50 a.m. There is a report that he passed over Claremont at 1:20 p.m. on his way to Springfield, Mass.
July 26, 1814: In its continuing criticism of rising Federalist Daniel Webster, Isaac Hill’s New Hampshire Patriot says that during the 13th Congress, Webster has done everything in his power “to aid the enemy” in the War of 1812.
July 26, 1945: The war in Europe over, Winston Churchill is ousted as prime minister. His dinner guest on the night of his defeat: John G. Winant of Concord, U.S. ambassador to Britain.
July 26, 1965: Trains carrying 71-foot laminated wooden arches arrive in Concord. Shipped from Oregon, they will become rafters for the new Everett Arena.
July 27, 2000: A Massachusetts company presents preliminary plans for a 300,000-square-foot retail development on 53 acres between South Main and Hall streets in Concord. The project will meet with significant opposition from residents of the South End.
July 27, 1927: The police report more evidence of the pickpockets who worked the crowd during Col. Charles A. Lindbergh’s visit to Concord two days before. Two young boys have found 20 more pocketbooks in a hole covered with paper behind the airport hangar. The number of people robbed now totals at least 36.
July 28, 2003: A group of residents who have spent the last decade fighting a planned connector road between Concord’s Pleasant and Clinton streets file a lawsuit in Merrimack County Superior Court in an effort to stop the project for good. The lawsuit asks the court to revoke a wetlands permit that gives the city permission to build the Langley Parkway through about 3.5 acres of wetlands near White Farm.
