Portsmouth, New Hampshire

“ I know a New England family of dignity and wealth in which six successive generations of sons have gone to sea in their boyhood, some of later years running away from home to do so. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1787,—so tells a newspaper of that date,—were living a man and wife who had been married about twenty years, and had eighteen sons, of whom ten were then at sea. ”

“ He was commissioned by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England to study the Indian languages and to preach to the Indians; but he was soon diverted from this work. Removing to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he there married a daughter of John Cutt (1625-1681) , president of the province of New Hampshire in 1679-1680, a successful merchant and mill-owner, and thus came into possession of considerable property (including much of the present site of Portsmouth) . ”

“ In one sense the world cannot show its equal. Far away to the east stretches the low Hampshire coast, ended by the harbour of Portsmouth and its bare forest of masts. To the south, towards Spithead, rides the long line of battle-ships ”

“ WHEN Washington visited Portsmouth in 1789 he was not much impressed by the architecture of the little town that had stood by him so stoutly in the struggle for independence. “There are some good houses,” he writes, in a diary kept that year during a tour through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, “among which Colonel Langdon’s may be esteemed the first; but in general they are indifferent, and almost entirely of wood. ”

“ The town of Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, hearing, says their address, "the loud groans of the sinking College, . . . . and hoping that their example might provoke . . . . the General Court vigorously to act for the diverting of the omen of calamity which its destruction would be to New England," pledged themselves to an annual contribution of sixty pounds for seven years. This act of chivalrous generosity fairly shamed our lagging Commonwealth into measures for the resuscitation of an institution especially committed to its care. ”

“ We'll be legally married by the laws of New Hampshire, but we won't think of it as a marriage till I tell your father and mine, and we drive away once more together. That time it will be in the sight of everybody, with our heads in the air. I've got the little house in Portsmouth all ready, Patty: it's small, but it's in a nice part of the town. Portsmouth is a pretty place, but it'll be a great deal prettier when it has Mrs. Mark Wilson living in it. We can be married over again in Maine, afterwards, if your heart is set upon it. ”

“ For nearly nine years Daniel Webster practiced law in Portsmouth. He could not have selected a more prominent place in New Hampshire; but the time came when he felt that for many reasons he should seek a larger field. One reason, which deservedly carried weight, was, that in a small town his income must necessarily be small. During these years of busy activity he never received in fees more than two thousand dollars a year. ”

“ Manufacturing is the leading industry. The percentage of wage-earners engaged therein gradually increased during the last half of the nineteenth century, being 17.1 in 1900, or twice that of 1850. Of the 70,419 thus employed, 21,921 were women. The decade 1890-1900 witnessed the largest absolute gain in the value of products—$118,009,308 in 1900. The southern part of the State possesses the advantage of being close to the business centre of New England, has a convenient harbor at Portsmouth, and shares with Massachusetts the excellent water power afforded by the Merrimac. ”

“ The 15 towns exceeding each 4000 inhabitants collectively contain 46.7 per cent. of the total population. The density of population in 1900 was 45.7 per square mile. The State sends two members to the National House of Representatives.
Cities. The population of the largest towns in 1900 was: Manchester, 56,987; Nashua, 23,898; Concord, 19,632; Dover, 13,207; Portsmouth, 10,637. The capital is Concord.
Religion. The Roman Catholic element amounts to about 10 per cent. of the total population of the State. The principal Protestant denominations are the Congregational, with about 20 per cent. ”

“ The appointment caused great surprise to men of all parties, on account of the comparative youth of the incumbent, and his limited experience of practice at the bar. He acquitted himself, however, of the duties of his arduous station with great credit. His name became still more widely known, and in 1823 he was elected Governor of New Hampshire by a large majority. Failing to be chosen, for a second term, he resumed the practice of his profession in Portsmouth, to which place he had removed in 1819, and where he continued to have his permanent residence until the time of his decease. ”

“ Communications.—Communications are provided mainly by the lines of the London & South-Western railway company, which also owns the docks at Southampton. The main line serves Farnborough, Basingstoke, Whitchurch and Andover, and a branch diverges southward from Basingstoke for Winchester, Southampton and the New Forest and Bournemouth. An alternative line from eastward to Winchester serves Aldershot, Alton and Alresford. The main Portsmouth line skirts the south-eastern border by Petersfield to Havant, where it joins the Portsmouth line of the London, Brighton & South Coast railway. ”

“ New Hampshire.In New Hampshire.—From Plymouth, by Campton, Thornton, Peeling and Lincoln, to Franconia.
From Portsmouth, by Dover, Madberry, Barrington, Barnstead, Gilmanton, Meredith and New Hampton, to Plymouth. ”

“ When I look back to Portsmouth as I knew it, it occurs to me that it must have been in some respects unique among New England towns. There were, for instance, no really poor persons in the place; every one had some sufficient calling or an income to render it unnecessary ”

“ The rich red rust on the gables and roofs of ancient buildings looking seaward would tell him that. There is a fitful saline flavor in the air, and if while he gazed a dense white fog should come rolling in, like a line of phantom breakers, he would no longer have any doubts.
It is of course the oldest part of the town that skirts the river, though few of the notable houses that remain are to be found there. Like all New England settlements, Portsmouth was built of wood, and has been subjected to extensive conflagrations. You rarely come across a brick building that is not shockingly modern. ”

“ But a grateful and profitable feature of Hampshire are the water-meadows that border the fishful streams of the Itchen, the Test, and the Avon. They merit all the commendation that Fuller gives them, and more; but, so far as the Portsmouth Road is concerned, Hampshire exhibits its most barren, ill-watered, and flinty aspects; from the point where it enters the county, near Liphook, past the chalky excrescence of Butser Hill, through the bare and barren downs of Chalton, to Portsmouth itself. ”

“ That a bell, captured at Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell, should summon to the worship of God a people long forgetful of that proud achievement? Such are the evidences of an innate conservatism which has kept alive the old traditions of New England.
Thus for three hundred years Portsmouth has lived the happy life of a country town, and its historian sadly notes that until 1900 its population did not rise to 10,000. The historian need feel no regret: it is not by numbers that we may measure the stateliness of a city ”

“ From such humble beginnings were evolved some of the best public high schools at present in New England.
Portsmouth did not escape the witchcraft delusion, though I believe that no hangings took place within the boundaries of the township. Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination. The folk who live along the coast live on the edge of a perpetual mystery ”

“ The city possesses the deepest harbor on the coast and important coastwise trade. The harbor never freezes. Portsmouth contains a superior line of stores and several important manufacturing interests. ”

“ The old-time aspect of Portsmouth is gone for ever. An almost complete transformation has taken place in appearance, in thought, and manner in little over a century, and where the body of Jack the Painter hung, high as Haman, from a lofty gallows on Blockhouse Beach, no criminals swing to-day. ”

“ Down river to the old chain bridge the rough rocks of the New Hampshire hills, wandering far, come to get a taste of salt, and put their lips to the water at the island home of Harriet Prescott Spofford, whose sparkling verse and piquant prose has made the name of Newburyport known in literary annals for more than half a century. Hills and sea meet there, and all the beauty of marsh, pasture and woodland surround the spot. It is no wonder that romance, vivid life and rich atmosphere inform her work. ”

“ The little shops that line Portsmouth square are the little shops of many peoples. Over their counters you can buy many things practical, and many, many more of the most impractical things in all the world. And the new Hall of Justice rises above the square in the precise site of the old.
G As this goes to press a "vice crusade" has swept San Francisco and the "Barbary Coast" has been forced to close its doors. It is not unlikely that they may be opened once again. E. H.
Portsmouth square has played its part in the history of San Francisco. ”

“ Although Portsmouth Harbour is so interesting and full of life, when the time comes to up anchor and make one’s way out into the Solent past the immortal Victory and the host of other craft which seem to be ever hanging in congested groups just outside or just inside the Point and Point Battery, one is generally ready. Portsmouth may be an exciting and interesting, but it cannot be called a restful, haven. ”

“ I would like to write about several of those ancient Dames, as they were affectionately called, and to materialize others of the shadows that stir in my recollection; but this would be to go outside the lines of my purpose, which is simply to indicate one of the various sorts of changes that have come over the vie intime of formerly secluded places like Portsmouth—the obliteration of odd personalities, or, if not the obliteration, the general disregard of them. Everywhere in New England the impress of the past is fading out. ”

“ For other memories of Gibbon we must wait until we reach his ancestral acres of Buriton, near Petersfield, and meanwhile, we have come to the hill-brow, where the new route and the old meet, and the Portsmouth Road definitely begins.
There are many other memories at Putney; too many, in fact, to linger over, if we wish to come betimes to the dockyard town that is our destination. ”

“ The real centre of the town was, of course, the Common Hard—which is one of the streets of the world like the Cannebière of Marseilles, the King's Road of Brighton, or the High Street of Oxford. Portsmouth cannot be conceived as existing without the Common Hard. It is a broad street facing the harbor ”

“ I DOUBT if any New England town ever turned out so many eccentric characters as Portsmouth. From 1640 down to about 1848 there must have been something in the air of the place that generated eccentricity. In another chapter I shall explain why the conditions have not been favorable to the development of individual singularity during the latter half of the present century. It is easier to do that than fully to account for the numerous queer human types which have existed from time to time previous to that period. ”

“ Then there are Bible-class rooms, and women’s work-rooms, and a lending library, and bathrooms, and a great hall, big enough to hold a thousand people, where there are held temperance meetings, lectures with dissolving views, entertainments, and ‘tea-fights,’ and Sunday services. No wonder that, with such an agency at work for the glory of God and the good of men, Portsmouth is almost a new place. Indeed, although Miss Robinson met with powerful opposition at first from the powers that be, her Institute is now heartily recognised and encouraged in every way at the Horse Guards. ”

“ And are a figure of the way the strong
Of mind and strong of arm should fit together,
One thick where one is thin and vice versa.
New Hampshire raises the Connecticut
In a trout hatchery near Canada,
But soon divides the river with Vermont.
Both are delightful states for their absurdly
Small towns—Lost Nation, Bungey, Muddy Boo,
Poplin, Still Corners (so called not because
The place is silent all day long, nor yet
Because it boasts a whisky still—because
It set out once to be a city and still
Is only corners, cross-roads in a wood) . ”

“ In all probability the opening of the house was attended by a large housewarming, to which the dignitaries of Portsmouth, including Governor John Wentworth, were invited, but the event was considered of too little importance to be mentioned in the annals that are left concerning the mansion.
By a strange irony of fate, the name of the man whose money and brains built the house is rarely associated with it; the fine old pile is known far and near by the name of the man who married the captain's daughter Mary, a comely lass who was a great belle in the town. ”

“ While the state of Massachusetts has drawn from our midst a large proportion of the men whose labors have brought the prosperity and distinction which that proud old commonwealth enjoys, she has given New Hampshire in return some of her own sons, whose efforts have contributed in no small degree to advance the honor and welfare of the state of their adoption. ”