Travel Back In Time: Historic Portsmouth

The City of Portsmouth is a place that is all about blending its proud and celebrated history with the fast-paced, technology driven 21^st century.

Throughout the downtown and the waterfront are carefully preserved Colonial and Federalist buildings that date back to its earliest days.

Strawbery Banke, which is located across from Prescott Park, is one of the best places to get an idea of what Portsmouth looked like when in the years after the first English settlers led by David Thompson and Capt. John Mason founded what was then called Pannaway. A granite marker located on Deer Street proclaims that Portsmouth was actually settled in 1623.

With the confluence of the Piscataqua River and the Atlantic Ocean, Portsmouth proved an ideal place for trade. The fishing, timber and shipbuilding industries prospered and helped the city grow throughout the 1600s and 1700s.

Portsmouth also served as New Hampshire’s capital city until the American Revolutionary War when Colonist who wanted to break from England moved the capital to Exeter.

Long before the shot heard around the world was fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775, Portsmouth Colonists had already rebelled against the British by ousting the last Royal Governor John Wentworth. They also captured gun powder and munitions that were stored at what is now Fort Constitution in nearby Newcastle  in 1774.

John Paul Jones, who is regarded as the father of the U.S. Navy, also lived in the city for three years when The Ranger was built on Badgers Island and then the Americana.

In 1800, President Thomas Jefferson recognized the value of Portsmouth as a shipbuilding center and established the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on Kittery, Maine’s Seavey Island, which continues to provide thousands of jobs for Seacoast area residents.

President Theodore Roosevelt also chose Portsmouth as the location for the 1905 peace treaty  negotiations that ended the Japanese Russo War.

The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was also where the first U.S. submarines were built and tested in 1911. The shipyard continues to be an integral part of the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet maintenance program.

There are many places in Portsmouth where residents and visitors can reconnect with the city’s proud past.

Some of these include:

• The Moffatt-Ladd House which was once the home of William Whipple, an original signer of the Declaration of Independence;
• Strawbery Banke Museum, which has some of the oldest surviving homes from the Colonial period;
• The John Paul Jones House on Middle Street where the legendary Naval hero lived;
• The Gov. John Langdon House on Pleasant Street;
• The North Cemetery, which contains some of the oldest gravesites in the city dating back to the early 1700s.
• The Discover Portsmouth Center operated by the Portsmouth Historical Society is also a great source of information about the city’s past.

Please visit the Patch Passport landing page to view the complete list of interesting places and things to do in Portsmouth.