Concord NH Historical Timeline 1815-1864

  • Boston to Concord Freight Boat

    A freight boat journeys from Boston to Concord for the first time.

  • State House Cornerstone Laid

    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.

  • Eagle Placed on State House

    A gilded, carved wooden eagle is raised to a perch of the State House, which is nearing completion. The event is marked with a parade, toasts and refreshments.

  • Phenix Hotel Opens

    The Phenix Hotel, built by Abel Hutchins, opens on Main Street in Concord as “a house of entertainment.”

  • State House Opens

    The State House opens in Concord. The legislative session will be notable for halting the practice of state subsidy for the Congregationalist Church.

  • First Christmas Church Service Celebrated

    Episcopalians hold Concord’s first Christmas celebration 93 years after the town was settled. Because Concord was settled by Massachusetts Congregationalists, the holiday was previously banned.

  • Mary Baker Eddy is Born in Bow

    Mary Baker Eddy is born in Bow. In February 1866, she will write of healing herself from what a doctor diagnosed as a fatal fall on the ice. Out of this experience is born Christian Science. Eddy will found the Church of Christ, Scientist, in 1879.

  • First New Hampshire Statesman Published

    The first New Hampshire Statesman is published out of the Carrigain Block on North Main Street in Concord. Publisher Luther Roby and Editor Amos Parker are among a group of Democrats who have had a falling out with Isaac Hill, a party leader and editor of the New Hampshire Patriot.

  • NH Historical Society Moves to Concord

    The New Hampshire Historical Society, formed earlier in the year in Portsmouth, moves to Concord. It will occupy a room in the State House for three years before moving to North Main Street near Ferry Street.

  • First County Courthouse Opens

    After a 36-year fight during which Hopkinton vied with Concord to become the seat of a county that was to be called Kearsarge, the first Merrimack County courthouse opens on its current site.

  • Concord Changes Support for Preaching

    Dr. Asa McFarland, Concord’s Congregationalist minister, writes to the town requesting that the contract obliging the town to pay him as a town officer be terminated. At their 1825 town meeting, Concord voters will honor this request. From this time forward, according to an 1850 town report, “no money has ever been raised by the town, in the capacity of a parish, or for the support of preaching.”

  • Rev. Nathaniel Bouton Invited to Become Concord’s Congregationalist Minister

    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.

  • Rev. Nathaniel Bouton Ordained

    The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton is ordained as minister of the First Congregational Society of Concord. From 1730 until now, the town of Concord, voting as a parish at town meeting, appropriated money to pay the pastor and support the church. The new society will sustain itself without taxpayer support.

  • Marquis de Lafayette Visits Concord

    The Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, visits Concord during his government-sponsored tour of all 24 states. Driven down Main Street in a four-wheel carriage, he is greeted by a crowd of 30,000 to 40,000. At the State House, 200 to 300 Revolutionary War veterans gather to shake his hand. Many weep. Nine years later, Concord’s Fayette Street will be named in memory of this day. An elm planted on the State House lawn to commemorate the event will flourish until 1956, when the state pays $300 to get rid of it. Gov. Lane Dwinell will salvage a few engraved gavels from the Lafayette elm. Other residents will use slabs from the trunk for coffee tables.

  • Rev. Asa McFarland Dies

    The Rev. Asa McFarland, Concord’s Congregationalist minister for 30 years, dies at the age of 58. Two portraits of McFarland exist, including one by Samuel F.B. Morse, a resident of Concord in the early 19th century.

  • Rev. Nathaniel Bouton Delivers First Temperance Sermon

    On Fast Day, Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, 27, delivers the first temperance sermon in Concord. Bouton’s words at the Old North Church ignite local participation in a social movement that will last more than a century. Bouton asserts in his sermon that he has investigated and found that “the use of ardent spirits in Concord” is “universal.” He claims that the 1,400 men in Concord consumed nearly 14,000 gallons of liquor in 1825. The Concord Temperance Society will be formed three years later. By 1843, nearly half of the city’s adult residents will have signed a prohibition pledge.

  • Citizens Resolve to Form the City’s First Temperance Society

    Meeting on Fast Day at Concord’s Old North Church, leading citizens resolve to form the city’s first temperance society.

  • First Deposit Made in the New Hampshire Savings Bank

    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 North Main Street are now the offices of the Gallagher, Callahan and Gartrell law firm.

  • Second Temperance Society Formed

    A second temperance society is formed in Concord. It calls itself the Concord Total Abstinence Society and will attract mainly middle-aged men. The city’s Temperance Society already has 262 members, including 92 women.

  • Concord Railroad Corp. Obtains Charter for a Railroad

    The Concord Railroad Corp. obtains a charter for a railroad between Nashua and Concord. The Boston and Maine Railroad also obtains a charter on this date. The Concord corporation will be delayed by the Panic of 1837 and other factors, and the first train will not pull into Concord until September 1842. The B&M will not open its first line in the state until 1849.

  • William Chandler is Born

    William Chandler is born in Concord. He will go on to become a U.S. senator and secretary of the Navy. He will found the Rumford Press and revitalize a struggling Monitor.

  • First Passenger Train Rolls into New Hampshire

    The first passenger train rolls into New Hampshire from Lowell, Mass., stopping at a temporary station in Nashua. Two weeks later, freight trains will begin running in New Hampshire.

  • Abolutionist Stephen S. Foster Won’t Stop Talking

    In an unscheduled lecture, Stephen S. Foster, a Canterbury abolitionist, holds forth during a meeting at the Old North Church. When he won’t stop talking, several men escort him out.

  • Factions of the Democratic Party Brawl

    The radical and conservative factions of the Democratic Party brawl in Concord’s town hall over control of a party caucus. An observer, Henry McFarland, writes that “seats and desks were smashed, wigs flew in the dusty air, and bloody noses were seen on most respectable faces. There was a great uproar and a clatter of flying feet, combatants chasing their foes as far down as Centre Street.”

  • First Train at New Depot Arrives

    The locomotive Amoskeag with a train of three passenger cars arrives in Concord at 6:45 p.m. The train, from Boston, is the first to come to the city’s new depot. “As the cars came in, the multitude raised cheering shout, and the cannon pealed forth its thunder to celebrate,” Bouton’s history will report. Many of the onlookers were taken for a joy-ride, to Bow.

  • Concord to Boston Rail Line Opens

    The rail line between Boston and Concord opens. Two years later, it will carry 73,000 passengers and 43,000 tons of freight.

  • New Hampshire Asylum Opens

    The New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane opens in Concord. One of the first patients: a man from Tuftonboro who prays and preaches on the subject of the Second Coming for 4 hours each morning and remains quiet the rest of the day.

  • Col. Franklin Pierce Delivers a Temperance Lecture

    Col. Franklin Pierce, the future president, delivers a temperance lecture at Concord’s old North Church. Pierce is part of a committee whose aim is to “most certainly and speedily cause the use and traffic in intoxicating drinks to cease in town, except for mechanical and medical purposes.”

  • Samuel F.B. Morse Sends First Telegraph Message

    Samuel F.B. Morse, who began his career as a Concord mechanic, sends the first message over his electro-magnetic telegraph. The previous year, Congress appropriated $30,000 to test the machine on a line laid from Washington to Baltimore. New Hampshireman Benjamin Brown French, who will soon join Morse and others in the Magnetic Telegraph Co., calls it “one of the greatest inventions of the age” and predicts it will “eventually be laid down all over the Union.”

  • Columbian Artillery Fires Off Salute

    The local Columbian artillery turns out on Sand Hill in Concord to fire off a salute to the election of James K. Polk and George M. Dallas. As the cannon is being loaded, an explosion badly injures John L. Haynes, an officer in the unit. The explosion blows of Haynes’s left arm and shatters the bones in his right arm.

  • John Parker Hale and Franklin Pierce Debate Slavery

    John Parker Hale and Franklin Pierce debate slavery before an overflow crowd at the Old North Meeting House in Concord. After one antislavery speech from Hale, a veteran known as Old John Virgin blurts out: “Give it to ’em, Jack. Drive the poor vipers into their dens, and make ’em pull their holes in after them.” In response to a pro-Southern argument from Pierce, Hale proclaims: “I refuse to bow down and worship slavery.” The site of the debate is now Walker School.

  • Franklin Pierce Addresses Meeting to Advocate Mexican War

    Franklin Pierce addresses a large meeting called in Concord to advocate “a vigorous and determined prosecution of the war with Mexico.” Pierce will win a brigadier general’s commission, and his war exploits will help propel him to the presidency in 1852.

  • Colonel Palmer Submits Temperance Resolution

    Colonel Dudley “Dud” Palmer, a leader of Concord’s temperance movement, puts forth a resolution requiring the town’s selectmen to enforce the laws against the sale of intoxicating drinks. It passes unanimously.

  • Meredith Bridge Railroad Line Opened

    The Boston, Concord and Montreal Railroad opens its line to Meredith Bridge (Laconia).

  • Abbot & Downing Coach Fire

    Fire destroys all but the blacksmith shop of the Abbot & Downing coach factory in Concord. It will be rebuilt.

  • Legislature Gives Concord Permission to Become a City

    The Legislature officially gives Concord permission to become a full-fledged city. One big argument in favor of abandoning the town meeting form of government is that there is no place big enough to accommodate all the town’s voters.

  • Concord Votes to Remain a Town

    Asked to change Concord from a town to a city, local voters say no, by a vote of 637 against and 183 in favor. Four years later, they’ll change their mind.

  • Worst Fire in History

    Concord’s downtown is ravaged by the worst fire in its history. The fire starts in the old “Mechanics Home” and spreads through old wooden buildings on the east side of Main Street from Park Street south and past the State House. Lost are the Eagle Coffee House, a drug store, the Merchants Exchange, the Prescott Piano Factory and a host of other stores, offices, sheds and houses. More than 1,000 firefighters joined the futile battle. Witnesses say the glow of the fire could be seen in Francestown and Portsmouth – even Portland, Maine.

  • Concord Votes Down Cityhood

    For the third time in three years, local voters reject a plan to turn Concord from a town to a city. The vote is 458 in favor and 614 against.

  • Franklin Pierce Nominated for President

    Convening in Baltimore, the Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce for president. In Concord, a cannon on Sand Hill (Centre Street at Merrimack Street) booms 282 times, once for each vote Pierce received.

  • Tallest Flagpole in NH History Erected

    The tallest flagpole in New Hampshire history is erected in the State House yard, put up to celebrate Franklin Pierce’s nomination by the Democrats to be president. It is 143 feet tall, higher than the State House dome. First flown is an emblem with pictures of Pierce and Sen. Rufus de Vane King of Alabama, his running mate.

  • Sewalls Falls Bridge Construction Approved

    Concord officials vote to build the Sewalls Falls bridge.

  • “Little Benny” Pierce Killed in Train Crash

    A train derails and topples on the way to Concord, killing 11-year-old “Little Benny” Pierce. His father, the president-elect, and his mother are traveling with him but are unhurt. Jane Appleton Pierce is “completely distraught” and will never recover from the loss. After the funeral, the body will be carried down Main Street and Concord residents will pay their respects. Benny will be buried alongside his brother, who died at the age of 4 in 1843.

  • Cityhood Approved by Concord

    The town of Concord holds its last town meeting – and then votes to become a city by a vote of 828-559.

  • First Mayor Elected

    Concord elects its first mayor, Joseph Low, a grand-looking man with a gold-headed cane. Before this date, the city was a town, run by selectmen.

  • City Government Established

    City government is established in Concord.

  • Street Sprinkler Money Raised

    A group of Concord citizens meets and raises money for a street sprinkler to keep the dust down on Main Street.

  • Public Library Established

    Concord establishes its first public library. The city council appropriates $1,500: “$300 for fixtures, the residue for books.”

  • Fire Destroys Phenix Hotel

    A fire reduces Concord’s Phenix Hotel to ashes. It will rise again on the same spot.

  • Choral Concert Celebrates New City/County Hall

    A choral concert celebrates the opening of the new city hall and county building on the site of the current Merrimack County Courthouse.

  • Fire Destroys Railroad Passenger Station

    The Concord Railroad passenger station, including the offices of the Concord, Montreal and Northern railroads, the telegraph office and Depot hall, is destroyed by fire.

  • Blossom Hill Cemetery

    The grounds of the city’s new cemetery on Blossom Hill are consecrated. The site is a favorite picnic and party spot, but with population having grown from 4,903 in 1840 to 10,896 in 1860, the city is running out of cemetery space. It buys the 30 acres for $4,500.

  • Concord Celebrates the Opening of Auburn Street

    Concord celebrates the opening of Auburn Street. Several hundred residents join in a carriage procession, led by the Concord Cornet Band, from the Eagle hotel, up Centre Street to Auburn. Two large flags suspended across the new street draw hearty salutes. The march continues to Little Pond Road. One speaker says the new road suggests indications of our progress in civilization.  An evangelistic preacher and promoter named John G. Hook has laid out 11 streets with house lots in the woods of the city’s West End.

  • Franklin Pierce Speaks at Eagle Hotel

    Former president Franklin Pierce, a Democrat and opponent of the Lincoln administration, speaks at the Eagle Hotel on the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. If civil war comes, Pierce declares, all people of the North must stand together. He closes with these words: “I would not live in a state the right and honor of which I was not prepared to defend at all hazards and at all extremities.”

  • Capt. Sturtevant Marches Squad of Volunteers

    Capt. Edward E. Sturtevant, Concord’s night constable and now the state’s first volunteer for service in the Union army, marches a squad of volunteers into South Congregational Church for Sunday services.

  • Concord Appropriates War Funds

    The city of Concord appropriates $10,000 to aid the families of local volunteers who go off to war. It expects the state to reimburse it, and for the most part it will. By the end of the year, the city will have doled out $3,000 to soldiers’ families.

  • Second NH Volunteer Infantry Returns from War

    To the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon and the music of bands, the Second New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment is feted in Concord on its return from the front. The regiment has been fighting with the Army of the Potomac since the first Battle of Bull Run in July 1861.

  • Public Loyal Union League Forms

    With Union armies still faltering at the front, 30,000 people gather in Concord for the formation of the Public Loyal Union League of the state. Bands, speakers and marches are the order of the day.

  • Monitor is Published

    The Monitor is published for the first time. The city’s first daily newspaper, it is founded “to present the news . . . swearing to the words of no master.”

  • Legislature Considers Displacing Concord as Capital

    The Legislature meets to hear Manchester’s case that it should displace Concord as New Hampshire’s capital. Speaking in Concord’s defense, John George wins the day by arguing that in addition to lagging behind Concord in railroad development, Manchester has a population that is “not steady and sober. Passions, excitements and tumults are likely to be generated at any time.”

  • Legislators Vote to Keep Concord as State Capital

    A year after the Legislature announced that “any city or town” might bid to build a new State House, legislators vote to keep Concord as state capital. The price: The city must build a street on the south side of State House grounds (Capitol Street) and rebuild the cramped 44-year-old State House. It will do so by the following year at a staggering cost of $347,000, including $189,000 interest.

  • House Removed to Make Way for Capitol Street

    One day before the deadline imposed by the Legislature, Concord Mayor Benjamin Gale and other citizens remove a house south of the State House to make way for the building of Capitol Street.

  • Capitol Street Opens

    Steam whistles and cannon herald the opening of Capitol Street along the south side of the State House grounds. A month earlier, the Legislature voted that if the street was not constructed by this day, they would move the capital.