Oct. 4, 1861: A fire on the southwest corner of Main and Centre streets destroys the Merrimack House, a marble works and a doctor's home and office.
Oct. 4, 1983: Chubb Life President John Swope announces his company's plans to expand, bringing 300 new employees to Concord. “This is exactly the kind of employment Concord wants,” he says. “The only environmental problem we cause is we produce too much paper.”
Oct. 4, 2001: A vehicle inspector tells jurors that he's “100 percent” certain that it was not a faulty fuel injection system inside baby sitter Nancy Lamprey's truck that sent her careening into a tree, killing one child and injuring five others. Lamprey is later found guilty of manslaughter, first-degree assault and reckless conduct.
Oct. 5, 2003: Making several appearances around the state, Democrat John Edwards proposes tax cuts for companies that keep jobs in the United States and tax penalties for companies that move overseas. He says his new jobs plan would “stop the exodus of jobs” and create 5 million new jobs in two years.
Oct. 5, 1817: An earthquake rocks Concord at about 11:40 a.m. It lasts 1 to 2 minutes.
Oct. 5, 1918: Concord's Board of Health urges the discontinuation of public funerals because of the Spanish Influenza epidemic, which is at its peak. The board strongly suggests that until further notice only “kinsmen and very near friends attend the last rites of people who die.”
Oct. 5, 1985: The Band, minus Robbie Robertson, plays at the rickety old Capitol Theatre on South Main Street.
Oct. 6, 1912: Perkins Bass is born. Bass will serve as a congressman from the 2nd District from 1955 to 1963. He will also have a stint in the Legislature, rising to Senate president. His son, Charlie, will be elected to the same seat in Congress.
Oct. 6, 1976: Publishers announce the publication of a new pocket-sized book about Gov. Mel. Thomson called “Quotations of Chairman Mel,” a spoof on a book of quotes of Mao Tse-Tung. Among them, a comment to the Panamanians: “Go. Pick your bananas. We'll run the canal.”
Oct. 7, 2001: Concord native Tom Mailhot begins the Ward Evans Atlantic Challenge, a 2,900-nautical mile rowing race from the Canary Islands off Africa to Barbados in the Caribbean. Mailhot is a member of the only American team in the race.
Oct. 7, 2003: Kathleen Gregg, wife of Sen. Judd Gregg, is kidnapped at knifepoint in her Virginia home, forced to withdraw money from a bank and released unharmed. Two men will be arrested the next day in northern New Jersey.
Oct. 8, 1856: A show called Price's Ethiopian Minstrels opens at Concord's Phenix Hall. The show, according to an ad in Concord's Patriot, is “affectionately portraying the lights & shadows of a darky's life.”
Oct. 8, 1869: Franklin Pierce, 14th president of the United States, dies in Concord.
Oct. 8, 2001: Concord area cancer patients and their families win a prolonged and sometimes agonizing battle, when a state board approves Concord Hospital's plan to bring radiation treatments closer to home. The decision clears the way for the hospital to install a $7.8 million radiation device in its new cancer treatment center.
Oct. 9, 1992: In the first Gile concert of the season, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra play to a full house at the Concord City Auditorium.
Oct. 9, 2001: Red River Theatres, a nonprofit organization set on bringing movies back to Concord's downtown, receives $15,000 from the city council to conduct a feasibility study on whether a downtown movie theater would succeed. The group plans to buy the former Concord Theater building on South Main Street and restore it.
Oct. 10, 1774: Reacting to the Intolerable Acts and Britain's closing of Boston Harbor, a special town meeting in Portsmouth votes to send 200 pounds to Boston for poor relief. The amount is four times Portsmouth's annual province tax. Other New Hampshire towns, including Concord, will soon follow Portsmouth's example and send money to Boston.
Oct. 10, 2001: After deliberating for nine hours over two days, jurors convict baby sitter Nancy Lamprey of the harshest charges available to them for killing one child and injuring five others in a truck accident: manslaughter, first-degree assault and reckless conduct.
