Aug. 9, 1746 – A band of 50 to 100 Indians invades Rumford (Concord), but the Indians will be scared off the next morning by 30 armed guards who escort church-goers back to their garrisons.
Aug. 9, 1903 – Omer T. Lassonde is born in Concord. An artist, he will be federal arts director of the WPA in New Hampshire during the Depression. The subjects of his many portraits will include U.S. Sen. Styles Bridges, Gov. John G. Winant and the King of Samoa.
Aug. 9, 2001 – New Englanders use more electricity than ever before today, as an unrelenting heat wave smothers the region for the fourth day this week. Issuing a rare power warning this morning, the owners of New England's electricity grid urge people to conserve energy.
Aug. 10, 2001 – The shop where renowned woodworker David Emerson has created Shaker-style furniture, crafts and dovetail boxes for the last 18 years burns to the ground in a fire that destroys the building in minutes. Fortunately, the Emersons say, they still have their home and barn, and nobody is injured.
Aug. 10, 1987 – Owners of the Ramada Inn on Main Street in Concord get city permission to build over Storrs Street. “The building that is there right now is, quite frankly, ugly. But what you see there now is not what you'll get,” says lawyer Ray D'Amante. The plan never happens.
Aug. 10, 1737 – A cavalcade of horses, coaches and carriages forms at Hampton Falls. The assemblies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire have come together to determine the border between the two colonies.
Aug. 11, 2002 – By this time in the campaign season, the Republican primary between U.S. Sen. Bob Smith and U.S. Rep. John Sununu was expected to be a bloody intramural battle and one of the most closely watched races on the national political scene, the Monitor reports. Instead, supporters of both candidates acknowledge that while Sununu and Smith are working hard to line up votes, the campaign hasn't made the splash most political observers anticipated.
Aug. 11, 1746 – Thirty or 40 Indians attack a seven-man military party in Rumford (Concord) near the current site of Concord Hospital. The Indians kill five men outright – Samuel and Jonathan Bradley, Obadiah Peters, John Bean and John Lufkin – and strip and mutilate their bodies. Alexander Roberts and William Stickney are captured. The dead are brought to town in a cart and buried immediately.
Aug. 11, 1991 – As Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton tries to decide whether to jump into the race for president, some New Hampshire Democrats tell the Los Angeles Times they already like what they hear. After a Clinton speech on allowing young people to earn money for college by performing national service, state Rep. Barbara Baldizar of Nashua says she's ready to begin drafting legislation to implement some of his ideas in New Hampshire. “He's saying what 80 percent of the population – Republican, Democrat, Libertarian – are thinking and feeling,” Baldizar says.
Aug. 12, 2003 – Rain pours down on Penacook and Boscawen, filling storm drains and waterways beyond capacity. The storm carries away a 15-foot section of River Road, where a culvert leads into the Contoocook River.
Aug. 12, 2001 – Monitor Reports: Throughout the state – in local cities and towns and on state and federal lands – it is becoming harder to recreate on public land without paying at the gate. While many users expect to pay at full-service beaches, campgrounds and marinas, some are surprised and angry when they discover it also costs to take a walk in the White Mountain National Forest or launch a canoe or kayak into Lake Winnipesaukee.
Aug. 13, 1898 – A Spanish naval commander visits prisoners of the Spanish-American War at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Thirty-one prisoners will die during detention at the yard. In 1916, their bodies will be exhumed from the Navy Yard cemetery and loaded onto a Spanish warship for the journey to their homeland.
Aug. 13, 2000 – With Verizon's union workers on strike, the telephone company's managers take a turn responding to customers' repair calls. “We know the lingo and the theory,” says Erle Pierce, a manager in the public relations department. “But actually doing it is a different thing.”
Aug. 13, 1975 – Edward Bennett, the state's economic development director, sues Union Leader publisher William Loeb over an editorial in which Loeb accused Bennett of being “one of a group who associated with inpiduals who yearned to foment a Communist revolution.” The suit will be settled out of court more than three years later for an undisclosed amount.
Aug. 13, 1852 – The tallest flagpole in New Hampshire history is erected in the State House yard, put up to celebrate Franklin Pierce's nomination by the Democrats to be president. It is 143 feet tall, higher than the State House dome. First flown is an emblem with pictures of Pierce and Sen. Rufus de Vane King of Alabama, his running mate.
Aug. 14, 2002 – In a raucous debate, all three Republican candidates for governor promise to roll back gay rights, restrict access to abortion if given the chance and curtail the power of the judiciary to decide police matters. Gordon Humphrey, Craig Benson and Bruce Keough also pledge to pass legislation to replace the state supreme court's new House redistricting plan.
Aug. 14, 1864 – Justus Drake of Pittsfield, a cavalryman in a New Hampshire troop, dies of starvation at the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville. His grave there is No. 5,577. He was captured less than two months before.
Aug. 14, 1870 – Admiral David G. Farragut, Civil War hero of Vicksburg and Mobile Bay and one of the first northerners to enter Richmond at war's end, dies at the Navy Yard in Portsmouth.
Aug. 14, 2001 – Appeasing an upset crowd at its meeting and clearing the way for the Tilton Inn's grand opening, the planning board dismisses its previous suggestion that the new owners provide parking. The decision halts the demolition of a Main Street building the owners had planned to tear down and replace with a parking lot.
Aug. 15, 1864 – Steam whistles and cannon herald the opening of Capitol Street along the south side of the State House grounds. A month earlier, the Legislature voted that if the street was not constructed by this day, they would move the capital.
Aug. 15, 2003 – Speaking at a rally at the State House plaza in Concord, local environmentalists and public health advocates condemned President George Bush's Clear Skies Initiative and called upon the state's congressional delegation to oppose it, the Monitor reports.
Aug. 15, 2002 – John Christian Broderick, the son of state Supreme Court Justice John Broderick, agrees to spend up to 15 years in state prison for smashing his father's face with a guitar last March.
Aug. 15, 1971 – Still fuming over Richard Nixon's trip to China, Union Leader publisher William Loeb tells a Reno, Nev., audience that the only two Democrats he could support for president in 1972 are Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington or Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty. He also expresses fondness for two Republicans, Gov. Ronald Reagan of California and Vice President Spiro Agnew.
Aug. 15, 2000 – Aurangzeb Khan of Pakistan, believed to be the tallest man alive, spends the night at the Hampton Inn in Bow. On tour with the Sterling and Reid Bros. Circus, Khan stands 8 feet tall and weighs 380 pounds.
Aug. 15, 1987 – When Vice President George Bush lands at Manchester Airport, Ray Wieczorek, a Republican candidate for mayor, asks for a photo with Bush to improve his chances. He will lose the race. “Two years later, he tried again, without the picture, and won,” reports Bush supporter Hugh Gregg in a campaign history.
