March 20, 2002: An apartment fire on Maplewood Lane in Penacook leaves dozens of residents homeless. Nobody is hurt.
March 21, 1820: An editorial in Concord’s New Hampshire Patriot says the Missouri Compromise, while disappointing on the whole, “succeeded in rescuing from slavery a vast tract of country, which would otherwise have been expos’d to this dreadful curse.”
March 21, 1996: Concord City Manger Julia Griffin says she will resign. She will take a job as Hanover’s town manager.
March 21, 2003: As the war accelerates in Iraq, residents throughout New Hampshire react. “I have really mixed feelings about it,” says Debbie Heckman, as she gets her hair cut at Headlines in Concord. “I support the soldiers and sailors 100 percent, but I just wish it hadn’t come to this.”
March 22, 1851: Former New Hampshire governor and U.S. senator Isaac Hill dies at the age of 63. Hill was once editor of Concord’s New Hampshire Patriot and served in President Andrew Jackson’s “Kitchen Cabinet.”
March 23, 1825: The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton is ordained as minister of the First Congregational Society of Concord. From 1730 until now, the town of Concord, voting as a parish at town meeting, appropriated money to pay the pastor and support the church. The new society will sustain itself without taxpayer support.
March 23, 1867: Forty-two years after becoming Concord’s Congregationalist minister, the Rev. Nathaniel Bouton resigns. During his tenure, Bouton became a trustee of Dartmouth College and, in 1856, published a history of Concord. Seven months before leaving the pulpit, he was named state historian.
March 23, 1986: Congressman Bob Smith visits the state prison in Concord to tell veterans jailed there of his efforts to find Americans missing in Southeast Asia. Smith says the inmates seem to identify with American servicemen missing in action and held as prisoners of war.
March 23, 2001: Concord was New Hampshire’s fastest-growing city in the 1990s, the U.S. Census Bureau announces. The official 2000 population is listed as 40,687.
March 24, 1967: In their nationally syndicated column written out of Concord, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak say that Richard Nixon’s advantage over Michigan Gov. George Romney in next year’s GOP presidential primary is “so small it approaches meaningless.” “We need new blood,” a retired Concord car dealer has told the columnists. Another Concord Republican says: “We all think of Dick Nixon as one hell of a guy who’s going exactly nowhere.”
March 24, 2004: The Concord School Board unanimously approves a $55.1 million budget that includes the elimination of a Rundlett Middle School wellness teacher.
March 25, 1996: In a Concord motel room, Robert Blair kills his girlfriend and her handicapped child with a hammer.
March 25, 1998: Concord officials propose a change in the city’s policy toward low-income housing. If the council approves, Concord will no longer actively support the construction of low-income housing, but will support only the rehabilitation of existing buildings for low-income housing.
March 25, 2002: The Concord School Board unanimously approves a $50.8 million budget for the 2002-03 school year. The budget represents a 1 percent decrease from last year but does not include pay raises for faculty and staff.
March 26, 1853: Concord elects its first mayor, Joseph Low, a grand-looking man with a gold-headed cane. Before this date, the city was a town, run by selectmen.
March 26, 1947: State Sen. Arthur Bean asks the Legislature to allow Concord and Bow to create a man-made lake on the Turkey River, to be called Concord Lake. The lake would be used for recreation and as a backup city water supply. It would be the state’s 10th largest, after Winnipesaukee, Squam, Winnisquam, Newfound, Ossipee, Wentworth, First Connecticut and Massabesic. The Legislature will approve the plan, but city voters will ultimately turn it down.
March 26, 2000: Concord’s Matt Bonner and the rest of the Florida Gators defeat Oklahoma State, 77-65, to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
March 26, 2003: Roland Allen of Penacook dies at the age of 82. For more than 60 years, Allen involved himself in nearly every aspect of Penacook life. From running the Penacook Fibre Co. to founding the village community center to serving on the local school board, he seemed to have been everywhere in town at once. In his spare time, he was a prolific songwriter, an amateur inventor and (gasp!) a devoted Yankees fan.
March 27, 1965: Penacook school district voters will have several options before them: creating a cooperative school district with neighboring towns, merging with Concord or going it alone. Eventually, voters will approve creation of the Merrimack Valley School District.
March 27, 2002: The Capitol Center for the Arts lifted the curtain this month on an ambitious $3 million capital campaign to give the city a sleeker, more functional and attractive focal point, the Monitor reports. If successful, supporters say the project will cement the center’s future as the premier cultural arts venue in northern New England.
