Featured Exhibits at Strawbery Banke Museum

The museum has a rich history that spans four centuries of American life. Throughout the year, special exhibits and programs are developed at the museum to share the real stories of the people that called the Puddle Dock neighborhood of the museum home. These exhibits and programs often pull pieces from the museum's extensive collection that have never been on public display and present them along with the information about what makes the items unique and historically significant. Other exhibits and programs involve the restoration of the historic buildings, gardens, or items from the collections and showcase the museum's unique ability to preserve the past and interpret the history of Portsmouth and the unfolding story of America.

For 2013, Strawbery Banke presents two new exhibits:

Tapping Portsmouth: How the Brewing Industry Shaped the City

The new 2013 exhibit offers a pub crawl through history as brewers and tavern keepers kept “something brewing” in Portsmouth, then and now. Brewing helped shape Portsmouth’s history from the beginning, when beer and hard cider were the healthier alternative to water and European settlers frequented four taverns in nearby New Castle and three more in Portsmouth. During the American Revolution, Pitt and Stoodley’s taverns (both now part of Strawbery Banke) rang with the impassioned voices of loyalists and patriots, including Paul Revere. In the 19th century, thanks to entrepreneur Frank Jones, Portsmouth became synonymous with beer, delivering the nation’s largest output of beer (100,000 gallons per year) across the country. The Frank Jones empire helped shape the seacoast’s hospitality by drawing guests to Wentworth By the Sea and The Rockingham hotels; while other brewers followed suit.

Today, with two major breweries and brewpubs helping to put Portsmouth on New Hampshire’s Beer Tour map, the city is a favorite stop for thirsty travelers and both micro brewmasters and home brewers. The gardens of Strawbery Banke provide constant inspiration and ingredients for the mash. Smuttynose Brewing Co., Red Hook Brewery, The Portsmouth Brewery, Earth Eagle Brewings and A&G Homebrew Supply, along with Kennebunk Savings Bank are funding the new Tapping exhibit and related programs.

 On Friday, May 3rd the brewers collaborate on an historic Tapping Portsmouth Brewers' Tasting in Pitt Tavern. 5-7 pm. Tickets $40 (members $35). Must be 21 or older ot attend. Tickets available online.

First Nations Diplomacy Opens the Portsmouth Door:

300th Anniversary of the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth between Colonial English and Native Americans

View of Fort William and Mary c. 1705.

In 2013 Portsmouth commemorates the 300th anniversary of the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth between the English and the Native Americans of the Maine and New Hampshire coast. Two special exhibits, “First Nations Diplomacy Opens the Portsmouth Door” at Strawbery Banke Museum and at the Portsmouth Historical Society's John Paul Jones House Museum. The exhibits feature historical artifacts from the era and replicas of the original Treaty from the Library of Congress and the British Archives, signed by New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Native American dignitaries.

The 300th anniversary of the 1713 Treaty of Portsmouth provides an opportunity to understand the history of the era, the nuanced diplomacy of the delegates (English and Native American) and its relevance to contemporary Rights of Indigenous Peoples issues, and the nature of life on the frontier in Portsmouth before and after the Treaty.

From the time that the French established a fort at Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada in 1607, and the English settled Plimouth in what is now Massachusetts in 1620 and Portsmouth (New Castle) in 1623, their national rivalries and imperial intentions played out against the “First Nations” people who had inhabited the northeast North American coast for 10,000 years. After the decimating epidemic of 1616-19 and war with the Iroquois, the First Nations of the four Maine coastal alliances and families had formed a confederacy of the Wabanaki, the “people of the dawnland.”

For more information about the Treaty and other commemorative programs, click here.

Click here for information about previous Featured Exhibits at Strawbery Banke Museum.