Oct. 23, 1890: A statue of John Stark is dedicated outside the State House.
Oct. 23, 2001: Former vice president Al Gore meets with several Concord-area Democrats at the Barley House in Concord. During his visit to the state, he also speaks with out-of-work mill workers in Berlin and attends a concert by Voices From the Heart, a 200-woman choir, in Portsmouth.
Oct. 23, 2003: Wesley Clark keeps his appointment at Concord High School, but a case of laryngitis forces him to leave the talking to the students. When one of them opposes the war in Iraq or supports high school sports, Clark tells them – in a whisper – that he agrees.
Oct. 24, 1805: The first Quaker meeting is held in Concord. It will be 10 years before a Quaker meeting house goes up on what is now the State House plaza.
Oct. 24, 1852: News of Daniel Webster’s death at Marshfield, Mass., reaches Concord at 2:38 p.m. Bells toll and flags are lowered to half-staff. At a memorial service the next day Gen. Franklin Pierce, just days before his election to the presidency, will be the principal speaker. Of Webster, Pierce will say: “The great heart of the nation throbs heavily at his grave.”
Oct. 25, 1843: Col. Richard M. Johnson, the noted Kentuckian who is reputed to have killed the Indian chief Tecumseh, visits Concord. Franklin Pierce and others greet him at the station, and Johnson rides down Main Street on a white horse. At the State House, he wears the same red vest he wore in the Battle of the Thames, during which he is said to have slain Tecumseh. Eleven shots pierced the vest. At a dinner presided over by Pierce, someone will raise doubts about Johnson’s famous act and ask him if it really happened. “In my opinion,” Johnson responds, “I did kill Tecumseh.”
Oct. 25, 1852: Following the lead of a Boston group, 50 young men of various Christian denominations meet in Concord to consider forming a local Young Men’s Christian Association. A committee appointed from this group will lead to the organization’s local founding.
Oct. 25, 1908: Young people fan out all over Concord to raise money for Mary Pillsbury Hospital. They pin red tags on donors to keep them from being asked to give again. By day’s end, the children have raised $2,300.
Oct. 25, 2002: Democrats across the state mourn the passing of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Minnesotan who flirted with a presidential run before the 2000 election. Upon hearing of Wellstone’s death in a plane crash, Jean Wallin, a former Democratic legislator from Concord says “He was a liberal and it didn’t bother him that he was a liberal. And people respected him for that because you always knew that when he spoke he had the interest of the little guy at heart.”
Oct. 25, 2003: The Concord High girl’s cross country team defends their title during the Class L state championship meet in Manchester. They claim the top spot, beating out Manchester Central 50-48.
Oct 26, 1988: State officials break ground for the $1.8 million Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord.
Oct. 26, 2000: As the clock strikes midnight, 33 lucky shoppers are allowed to buy the new Sony PlayStation II at Walmart in Concord. Some have waited in line as long as 28 hours!
Oct. 26, 2001: Patricia Cloutier of Concord, believed to be a founder of Classy Touch Enterprises, a Penacook prostitution business, turns herself in at police headquarters. According to police, Cloutier founded the business with Amy Sullivan and allegedly ran the business out of Sullivan’s home.
Oct. 26, 2002: In Concord U.S. House Minority Leader and possible Democratic candidate for president Richard Gephardt urges New Hampshire Democrats to get out the vote. “Don’t sleep. Don’t eat. Don’t nap,” he says. “Don’t do anything. Don’t even take a coffee break. You give it all you got.”
Oct. 27, 1908: A throng fills Concord’s Phenix Hall with hundreds standing as the state’s two U.S. senators campaign for the November election. “What a whirlwind (Sen. Joseph) Gallinger is for incessant work, work, work,” Charles Corning, the city’s mayor and the emcee for the night, writes in his diary.
Oct. 27, 2003: In a coffee shop on Main Street in Concord, the New Hampshire Green Party throws its support behind presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. And if Kucinich fails in his attempt for the Democratic nomination, Green Party spokesman Guy Chichester says the party may try to recruit the Ohio congressman to run on its ticket in the general election.
Oct. 28, 1856: Thousands teem into the State House park after a torch-lit procession through the streets of Concord to rally support for Republican presidential nominee John. C. Fremont.
Oct. 28, 1906: The New York World reports that Mary Baker Eddy of Concord is mentally and physically unfit to lead the 800,000-member Christian Science church, which she founded. Eddy is 85 years old. “Mrs. Eddy looked more dead than alive,” wrote two reporters who had never seen her. “She was a skeleton, her hollow cheeks thick with red paint.” Mayor Charles Corning visits Eddy after hearing this account and finds her “keen of intellect and strong in memory. A surprising example of longevity, bright eyes, emphatic expression … alertness.”
Oct. 28, 2003: About 700 people attend the unveiling of the new and improved Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord. The theater sports a three-story glass atrium, a new paint job and a refurbished conference room.
Oct. 29, 1792: The first issue of The Mirror is published in Concord. The cost: 5 shillings per year. The publishers requests 1 shilling cash and the rest in “country produce.”
Oct. 29, 1795: Concord Bridge, the town’s first span across the Merrimack, opens with a party and parade. It is near the site of today’s Manchester Street bridge. A second toll bridge will be built to East Concord in 1796.
Oct. 29, 1870: A committee recommends to the residents of Concord that Long Pond become the municipal water supply. After more than two years of contentious debate, the first water will flow from the pond into the pipes.
Oct. 29, 1963: A crowd of 600 to 1,000 – mostly college students and other young people – break through a police cordon at Concord Airport to greet Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. “I don’t know when I’ll be back up here again,” says Goldwater, “but it won’t be long.”
Oct. 29, 1976: Concord Police Chief David Walchak agrees to distribute “hot dots” to city kids on behalf of Gov. Mel Thomson. Earlier, Concord school superintendent Seth O’Shea said he would not distribute the reflective safety dot packages (which include a pamphlet on highway safety featuring a picture of Thomson) until after Election Day. Walchak says the dots are “in the finest tradition of public service by the law enforcement community.” City Manager John Henchey was not consulted. “I doubt I would have concurred,” he says.
Oct. 29, 1989: Meat Loaf, whose 10-year-old Bat out of Hell album has sold 17 million copies, plays one of the last big shows at the deteriorating Capitol Theatre on South Main Street. The crowd, not a full house, stands and sings the choruses with him.
Oct. 29, 2003: A legislative committee has concluded that severe management problems at the North State Street prison in Concord allowed the June 4 escape to happen. In a letter given to Gov. Craig Benson, the committee’s chairman, Rev. Karl Gilbert, names Warden Jane Coplan as the problem. The committee argues that Coplan knowingly distanced herself from critical decision-making aspects of the institution.
