May 26, 1857: U.S. Sen. James Bell of New Hampshire, elected the previous year, dies in office.
May 26, 1944: After several destructive incidents, the police join school officials in urging young people not to play with handmade grenades. The grenades are filled with carriage bolts and use match-heads for the explosive charge. Children have been reported making and throwing them throughout the city.
May 27, 1727: A charter is granted to the town of Canterbury. Richard Blanchard will arrive six years later and become the first white settler, living southwest of today’s town center. By 1742, about 30 families will live in the town.
May 28, 1996: U.S. Sen. Bob Smith tours Concord’s so-called “crud corridor,” 440 acres of mostly unsightly and underutilized buildings near Interstate 93. Smith supports the city’s bid for a $200,000 federal grant to identify contamination along the corridor, much of which the city will successfully redevelop into an “opportunity corridor.”
May 29, 2003: The New Hampshire House approves legislation requiring girls younger than 18 to tell their parents before they can have an abortion. The vote, 197-176, virtually guarantees that the state’s first abortion restriction will be enacted since Roe v. Wade became law 30 years ago.
May 29, 1944: One patriotic full-page ad lists all the Concord young people serving in the armed forces. Another, for the Foy Tire Co., gives the number: 2,875.
May 30, 1923: For last time, 88-year-old General Joab Patterson rides at the head of the Memorial Day parade in Concord. In 1861, Patterson, a teacher, recruited 72 soldiers from around his native Contoocook and entered the 2nd New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment as a second lieutenant. He rose to lead the regiment as a colonel, fought in 24 battles and was breveted a major general near war’s end. He lived most of his postwar years in Concord and led the Memorial Day procession each year.
May 30, 1992: Concord’s Bob Tewksbury of the St. Louis Cardinals pitches a four-hitter to beat San Diego. Tewksbury is on his way to his best season ever. He will finish 16-5 with a 2.16 earned run average and be voted National League’s best control pitcher with 20 walks in a career-high 233 innings pitched.
May 31, 2000: U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass announces he will seek a fourth term in Congress, and his campaign airs its first TV commercial. The ad features an endorsement of Bass from Arizona Sen. John McCain, who won the state’s presidential primary this past winter. (In that contest, Bass supported McCain’s opponent, George W. Bush.)
May 31, 1856: Edward H. Rollins, Concord politico, leads a mass meeting at Phenix Hall to condemn terrorism in Kansas and the caning of Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is among the first gatherings in the city of a new party, the Republicans.
May 31, 1649: The state’s first public school supported by taxation opens in Hampton. The sole qualification for students: that they be “capable of learning.”
