July 31, 1860: Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, the Democratic nominee for president, comes to Concord. The crowd at the railroad station is “dense and ungovernable,” and 5,000 people jam onto the State House yard to see the most famous politician of his day. Douglas denounces his fellow Democrat, President James Buchanan, for placating the South.
July 31, 1947: The Monitor is inundated with letters to the editor urging the city to build a swimming pool. One resident, Hazel M. Stiles, writes: “Oh yes, we have Bear Brook if you have a car and someone to take you over. Most parents are working daytimes and cannot take the children. Yes, we have a bus at the cost of 35 cents each way, making 70 cents and an admission fee when you get there. How many times can a child afford to go there?”
Aug. 1, 2001: The Concord Planning Board votes unanimously against a developer’s proposal to build a grocery store and shopping center in the South End. The developer will respond with a lawsuit challenging the decision.
Aug. 2, 1830: The Rev. Roger C. Hatch rides from Hopkinton to Concord to make the first deposit in the New Hampshire Savings Bank. The amount is $100. The bank’s quarters at 214 N. Main St. are now the offices of the Gallagher, Callahan and Gartrell law firm.
Aug. 2, 1927: Granite cutters from Concord join others from throughout New England in appealing for a five-day week with a $9-a-day wage. They currently work 5 ½ days a week at $8 per day.
Aug. 2, 2001: The last sheets of fiber used for heel cups roll through PenacookFibre Co. The company is shutting down after more than 60 years in business.
Aug. 3, 1813: A 20-year-old man from Lexington, Mass., who has rented a room on Concord’s Chapel Street for the past three months announces in the Patriot that he has commenced a wheelwright business. His name is Lewis Downing, and in time his business, Abbot & Downing, will build the coaches that bring Concord national fame.
Aug. 3, 1871: Brothers George and Charles Page organize the Page Belting Co. after buying a large tannery on Commercial Street near Horseshoe Pond in Concord. Their father Moses, an innovator in the leather industry, has operated tanneries in Franklin, Chichester and Manchester. The sons will display their belting at the 1876 Centennial exposition in Philadelphia and the 1893 Columbian exposition in Chicago.
Aug. 4, 1862: Gen. Oliver O. Howard of Maine and Col. Edward E. Cross of Lancaster, both wounded at the recent Battle of Fair Oaks, are among the speakers at a war recruiting meeting in Concord. The Patriot will report that the speeches were “able and eloquent” with the exception of Howard’s approving mention of “negro projects,” a reference to the plan to allow black men to serve in the Union Army.
Aug. 4, 1926: It is announced in Concord that Allen Hollis, a local lawyer and civic leader known as “The Kingfish,” will donate 11.9 acres on South Fruit Street and $5,000 toward a football field and other athletic facilities. The land will become Memorial Field.
Aug. 4, 1965: Concord begins celebrating its bicentennial with neighborhood fairs, a Bicentennial Queen pageant, badminton, water polo and tugs of war.
Aug. 4, 2002: In their first-ever playoff appearance, the Concord Quarry Dogs eke out a 2-1 win in the bottom of the ninth over Mill City, the Monitor reports.
Aug. 5, 1861: New Hampshire’s First Regiment, its three months’ enlistment up, returns to Concord without having fought a battle. Gov. Nathaniel Berry, the Governor’s Horse Guard and a large crowd of citizens greet the regiment and accompany it to the State House. There, the soldiers stack arms. Many will volunteer for service in the three-year regiments now forming.
Aug. 5, 2000: The Concord National Little League All-Stars travel to Lewes, Del., for the Eastern Regional Softball Tournament. The first game is a tough one, and Concord falls, 6-3.
Aug. 6, 1728: A grant creates the Plantation of Suncook (an Indian term meaning “place of the goose” or “rocky place”). Massachusetts grants the land to the 47 soldiers and survivors of an Indian-hunting expedition to the north known as Lovewell’s War. Francis Doyen of Penacook, one of Lovewell’s soldiers, is believed to have been the first white settler.
Aug. 6, 1854: When President Franklin Pierce declines a besotted South Carolinian’s invitation to have a drink with him, the man berates the president and throws a hard-boiled egg at him. Pierce has the man arrested.
Aug. 6, 2000: About 20 people gather along the Merrimack River near Concord’s Loudon Road to pray for a world without a nuclear threat. Marking the 55th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the peace activists toss flowers into the water.
