Sept. 24, 1816: A few months after the Legislature confirms Concord as the state capital, the cornerstone of the State House is laid. To now, New Hampshire is the only state in the union without a capitol.
Sept. 24, 1957: In a referendum, Concord voters decide to abandon manager-council government for a strong elected mayor. The margin is so thin – nine votes – that opponents demand a recount. The margin will shrink to five votes – 2,979 to 2,974 – but the result stands. To a call for further investigation of the vote, Mayor Herbert Rainie responds: “The people of Concord have spoken and we must accept their decision.” Almost exactly 10 years later, the city will impeach the mayor and revert to manager-council government.
Sept. 24, 2001: Although the Health Services Planning and Review Board rejected Concord Hospital’s $7.8 million radiation treatment project last month, board members decide to reconsider the application.
Sept. 24, 2002: After months of nonpublic meetings on the matter, Concord officials say the city will make an offer this week on the Allied Leather Tannery in Penacook, the Monitor reports.
Sept. 25, 2003: In Concord, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announces that New Hampshire will build a new emergency management center, thanks to a $9.1 million grant.
Sept. 26, 1845: The New Hampshire Courier of Concord tells readers it’s willing to take payment in forms other than cash: “Those of our subscribers who are in arrears to us for the Courier and wish to pay in wood are reminded that cold weather is at hand and a few cords would be very acceptable about this time.”
Sept. 26, 1906: Whitney Barrett, a police officer, chases down 30-year-old Julia Chadwick and, despite her pleas for help, manages to shoot and kill her in a trolley in Penacook. He then turns the gun on himself. Though married with two children, Barrett had been infatuated with Chadwick.
Sept. 26, 2000: U.S. Sen. Bob Smith says the government should open a retirement sanctuary for more than 1,000 chimpanzees used for research. As of now, many live out their years in cramped cages with minimal opportunity for exercise.
Sept. 27, 1824: The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton is invited to become Concord’s Congregationalist minister. Three months later he will accept a calling from the church. Bouton will hold the position for four decades.
Sept. 27, 1967: Disclosing a closely held secret, Gov. John King tells the Executive Council that the new $1.2 million state Supreme Court will be built on a bluff overlooking the Merrimack River on Concord Heights. Once the building is completed, the court will move there from its present quarters at Park and North State streets.
Sept. 27, 1967: New England College bestows honorary degrees on Dudley W. Orr, a prominent Concord lawyer, and writer and humorist Ogden Nash.
Sept. 27, 2000: Dropping in on a rally for Gov. Jeanne Shaheen staged by voters with disabilities, her opponent, Gordon Humphrey, gets an earful for his 1990 vote against the Americans with Disabilities Act. By the end of the news conference, Humphrey commits to a day of touring Concord sites that aren’t accessible to people with wheelchairs.
Sept. 28, 1818: Two years after their engagement, Samuel F.B. Morse and Lucretia Walker are married in Concord. In need of income, he has laid aside his itinerant painting career and embraced mechanics, inventing an improved fire engine which the town purchases for $200. Alas, the marriage is ill-starred. Lucretia Walker Morse will die in 1825.
Sept. 28, 1929: Susan McLane is born. She will serve as state senator from Concord after also representing the city in the House. She will run unsuccessfully for Congress, just losing out in a primary to Judd Gregg.
Sept. 28, 1987: Developer Barry Stem agrees to hold off on his plan to build homes and a golf course on Broken Ground while the city council studies ways to preserve open space. Six years later, Stem’s land will be auctioned off, his giant plan dead.
Sept. 29, 1954: Vice President Richard Nixon warns a crowd of 900 state Republicans at Concord’s city auditorium that Sen. Styles Bridges “is one of those targets chosen by left-wing groups” in the coming election. Opinions may differ over a move in Congress to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy, he says, but there is “no difference of opinion” in the Eisenhower administration’s objective to destroy communism.
Sept. 29, 1996: In a game to decide the National League West division championship, Bob Tewksbury of Concord starts for the San Diego Padres and holds Los Angeles scoreless for seven innings. He gets no decision, but the Padres beat the Dodgers 2-0.
Sept. 29, 2002: Records fall, footballs fly and the scoreboard veritably smokes from the dizzying pace as Concord High School beats Manchester West, 42-20, at Memorial Field in Concord, the Monitor reports. In the single greatest rushing display in the school’s history, Ryan Dunlavey shatters the school record for rushing yards in a game, cranking out 263 yards on 34 carries. The old record of 221 yards was held by Mark Champagne since 1973.
Sept. 29, 2003: Two days before pheasant hunting season starts in New Hampshire, 2,000 ring-necked pheasants arrive at Fish and Game headquarters in Concord from a game farm in New York. The birds, along with 11,000 more, will be released across the state in secret locations, some private, some public. It’s a tradition that began in 1896.
Sept. 30, 1829: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ellen Tucker marry in Concord. The festivities last three days. The couple moves to Boston, where Emerson has just been ordained as assistant minister at the Second Church in the North End.
Sept. 30, 1864: Private Robert H. Potter, a Concord farmer before the war, is shot through the left lung during the Battle of Poplar Springs, Va. Because the surgeon says it is “a question of only a few moments with him,” Potter is carried to the dead house. The next day, a chaplain will find Potter lying in a pool of water, still breathing faintly. Potter will recover, return to the 6th New Hampshire regiment and, after his company takes a battery at Petersburg, be promoted to captain.
Sept. 30, 2002: The state Supreme Court overturns the 2-year-old murder conviction of James Hall, a Concord man who admitted to strangling his mother, stowing her body in a trash can and dumping it in the woods. The court says that the judge in the 2000 trial tainted the verdict by issuing faulty instructions to the jury during their deliberations.
