Sept 8, 1774: At Portsmouth, an angry mob stones the house of Edward Parry, the tea agent, after learning that, in violation of their boycott, he has allowed the unloading of 30 chests of tea from the mast ship Fox.
Sept. 8, 1679: New Hampshire is declared a separate royal colony.
Sept. 8, 1974: One month after Richard Nixon’s resignation, President Ford pardons him. Retiring U.S. Sen. Norris Cotton of New Hampshire says: “Unquestionably, President Nixon’s concealment of his knowledge of Watergate was unjustifiable but no worse than similar actions on the part of several of his predecessors whose names still shine in undiminished splendor.”
Sept. 9, 2003: In Boston, Gary Lee Sampson, a man accused in a 2001 crime spree that left three men dead including Robert “Eli” Whitney of Penacook, pleads guilty to federal carjacking charges, avoiding a trial and moving the case to the punishment phase. Sampson will be sentenced to death.
Sept. 9, 1898: Styles Bridges is born. He will be a New Hampshire governor and U.S. senator.
Sept. 9, 1980: The Monitor reports that chiropractors are among the biggest supporters of Gov. Hugh Gallen’s reelection campaign. The doctors are enthusiastic about Gallen because he has supported legislation requiring chiropractors to be graduates of accredited chiropractic colleges. He also helped convince President Carter to change his national health insurance plan to cover visits to chiropractors.
Sept. 9, 1919: The Legislature creates a $2 poll tax to pay for a $100 bonus for veterans of the World War.
Sept. 9, 1842: The rail line between Boston and Concord opens. Two years later, it will carry 73,000 passengers and 43,000 tons of freight.
Sept. 10, 1861: Fire destroys the railroad storage barns and many cars of the Concord and Northern railroads.
Sept. 11, 2001: In cities and towns, schools and offices, people across the state break from their routines as the grim details of terrorist attacks along the East Coast unfold. Many simply break down.
Sept. 11, 1866: Kearsarge beats Portsmouth 32-19 in one of the first reported games of “base ball” in Concord. Judge Ira Eastman, however, remembers seeing the game (or its forerunner, rounders) played in the city 50 years before.
Sept. 12, 1765: In protest of the Stamp Act, effigies of George Meserve, the royal stamp agent, and Lord Bute, head of the British ministry, are hanged in Portsmouth’s Haymarket Square. In the evening, they are taken down and paraded to the town’s Liberty Pole, where they are burned.
Sept. 12, 1792: In Tamworth, the Rev. Samuel Hidden is ordained on a large, flat-topped boulder south of Mount Chocorua. He will lead the town for 46 years. An obelisk on the boulder, now known as Ordination Rock, marks the spot.
Sept. 13, 1913: Harry K. Thaw, a wealthy, prominent New Yorker who murdered one of the country’s foremost architects, Stanford White, arrives in Concord. Thaw was convicted, escaped from prison and was recaptured in Canada. He was brought back across the border and is being held under house arrest at the Eagle Hotel on Main Street. His case will be tangled up in court until December 1914. In the meantime, he will pass the summer of 1914 at a resort in Gorham.
