Oct. 15, 2000: About 1,800 people take part in Concord’s leg of the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. The local event raises $157,000 for research.
Oct. 15, 1851: Philip C. Hunt is caught in a belt and carried around the shafting of a Penacook mill, mangling one leg and one arm badly, from which he never fully recovers. He lives until 1858.
Oct. 15, 2002: Concord High juniors get the news that their statewide test scores rose significantly in all four subjects on the test, with the most notable jumps in language arts and math. In an effort to boost scores during the testing period in May, the school adopted a controversial reward system for students who took the test. Rewards included bagels, yogurt and McDonald’s apple pies.
Oct. 16, 2002: One hundred senior citizens gather for a ground-breaking ceremony for the city’s first senior center.
Oct. 16, 2001: Citing safety concerns relating to the Sept. 11 attacks, the Steeplegate Mall cancels its annual trick-or-treat night.
Oct. 16, 1975: The Reagan for President campaign opens a headquarters at the New Hampshire Highway Hotel in Concord. Hotel owner Matthew Morton agrees to a temporary replacement of the wording on the huge sign atop the building from “Highway Hotel” to “Reagan for President,” creating an ostentatious precedent for future political candidates.
Oct. 17, 1908: Robert Abial “Red” Rolfe is born in Penacook. He will play baseball with the New York Yankees from 1934 to ‘42 and be hailed by many as the team’s best third baseman ever. His career will bridge those of Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. He will bat .293 lifetime and play in six World Series. After retiring as an active player, he will coach baseball and basketball at Yale, coach professionally in both sports, manage the Detroit Tigers and serve as athletic director at Dartmouth College.
Oct. 17, 1939: David Souter is born in Melrose, Mass. He will attend Concord High and Harvard and eventually rise to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oct. 18, 1988: Attorney Ray D’Amante announces the name of Concord’s soon-to-be-built mall: Steeplegate. Concord, he says, is a city of steeples and they will be incorporated into the mall as a prominent design feature.
Oct. 18, 1965: Gov. John King urges state lawmakers to approve tearing down a 70-year-old tower atop the state library at the corner of Park and North State streets. He calls it “an architectural monstrosity.”
Oct. 19, 1978: The Monitor reports that Republican Gov. Mel Thomson is outspending Democrat Hugh Gallen 2-1 in the governor’s race. In the end, it won’t be enough to let him hang onto the office.
Oct. 20, 1814: The first boat of the Merrimack Boating Co., later the Boston & Concord Boating Co., arrives in Concord. Northbound commercial cargo will include sugar, molasses, rum and finished goods. The boats will carry lumber, firewood, potash (for soap) and granite south to Quincy Market.
Oct. 20, 2000: James Hall, convicted of second-degree murder for killing his mother, receives a prison sentence of 30 years to life. In April 1999 he strangled Joan Hall, 77, in the Concord apartment they had shared for about a year.
Oct. 20, 1989: The 57-year-old Johnny Cash fills the Capitol Theatre in Concord for two performances. His humble demeanor and his repertory, heavy on gospel, trains, fisticuffs, simple justice and simple pieties, bring down the house.
Oct. 20, 1991: James Colbert, 39, is talked out of jumping off the Tobin Bridge in Chelsea. He tells the police he has killed his family in Concord. The Concord police find the bodies of his estranged wife and three children dead in their house on Merrimack Street.
Oct. 20, 1908: Forest fires all around Concord fill the streets with smoke. Farmers’ wells are running dry. The temperature rises to 85 degrees.
Oct. 20, 1897: Hundreds of people gather in Concord for the 90th birthday party of Moses Humphrey, Civil War era mayor and prime mover of two huge civic projects: the new state prison on its current site and Concord’s trolley lines. He carried out the latter project in 1880, at age 73, “against violent opposition and almost insurmountable obstacles,” the Monitor reports.
