Settlement and Early Urbanization: 1630-1700
The Eighteenth Century: Prosperity and Revolution
The Nineteenth Century: From Commerce to Industry
The Twentieth Century 

Settlement and Early Urbanization: 1630-1700

Captain Walter Neal and his small following of Englishmen, sailing up the Piscataqua River in 1630, were impressed by the thick growth of wild berries along the west bank, some two miles from the river's mouth. They chose this site for settlement and named it Strawbery Banke. Here, just above a small cove, they erected a large communal structure, called a Great House, to serve as a combination storehouse, trading post and living quarters. The site was destined to become, in another century, an important colonial commercial center. In the twentieth century the part of the site nearest to the cove would become an outdoor history museum, also called Strawbery Banke. But for Captain Neal and the others this riverbank was simply a suitable place for planting and trade.

These initial settlers were the advance party sent out by a group of London merchants who called themselves the Laconia Company. Their primary motive in establishing a colony was economic not religious. The entire operation was directed from England by Captain John Mason, a former governor of Newfoundland who had received a large land grant in America.

We know only a little about the early years at Strawbery Banke. An inventory shows that these settlers were equipped for hunting, fishing, farming and lumbering. As early as 1631 some wives had arrived and by 1640 approximately 170 people were living and working in this community on the Piscataqua.

The growing population did not cluster around the Great House at the Banke. People lived here and there, with the greatest concentrations on Great Island at the river's mouth, and off shore on the Isles of Shoals. The Great House site, not yet the center of settlement, was for most of the seventeenth century used for agriculture.

When the bankruptcy of the Laconia Company in 1638 left the settlement without any legal authority, the settlers at Strawbery Banke drew up a mutual covenant for orderly government and declared their allegiance to the King and English law. They soon found, however, that their compact was not sufficient to solve local disputes and that laws were difficult to enforce. Thus the people of Strawbery Banke did not resist when the growing colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1641 extended its jurisdiction over them and the three other towns that then comprised New Hampshire -- Dover, Hampton, and Exeter. Massachusetts could at least provide legal stability. In 1653 Strawbery Banke petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for permission to change its name to Portsmouth, since "We are at the river's mouth and our port is as good as any in the land." The request was granted.

The union with Massachusetts had more than governmental significance for Portsmouth. Unlike the settlers on the Piscataqua, those in the Bay Colony who began coming to New Hampshire in the 1640s were Puritans, self-righteous in their religion and aggressive in their business dealings. Many of these new arrivals brought considerable mercantile experience, goodly amounts of capital, leadership ability, and ceaseless energy. They helped transform the town into an important trading port.

Two of these later settlers were John and Richard Cutt, brothers who emigrated from Bristol, England, to New England in the 1640s. They went first to the Isles of Shoals, just off Portsmouth Harbor, where they invested in the fishing trade. Later they moved to Portsmouth, received large land grants, and set up a sawmill. They began exporting lumber, which was to become the single most important commodity of Piscataqua trade for the next century and a half. Both men became extremely influential, and by 1680 John Cutt probably was the richest man in New Hampshire. By this time, too, the Cutts owned the Great House and its land and much of the area that is today Portsmouth. Both of the Cutts brothers had died by the 1680s and in accordance with their wills their land was subdivided into urban house lots and became the economic and political center. By the end of the century the original urban center on Great Island had separated from rapidly growing Portsmouth to become the town of New Castle.

Because of men like the Cutts, Portsmouth became during the latter half of the seventeenth century an economically diverse trading town and the leading port north of Boston. In the 1680s it also gained political importance. As a result of continuous pressure from heirs of Captain John Mason, New Hampshire was taken away from Massachusetts in 1679 and made a royal colony. John Cutt, appropriately, was named the first president, and for the first time, New Hampshire was to have its own legislature. Because of Portsmouth's growth and economic prosperity, it became the capitol of the new colonial government. Thus, by the end of the seventeenth century this northern colonial seaport on the Piscataqua River had established itself as the economic and political center of an independent royal province.

By the close of the century Portsmouth's economy was tied to several distinct patterns of trade: a coastal trade in basic commodities that reached from Newfoundland to Virginia, but was particularly tied to Boston; a timber trade with the West Indian Islands and more distant Atlantic destinations such as Spain and Portugal, and the mast trade with England. These were the developments that most benefited Portsmouth's second generation such as Captain John Sherburne.

John's father, Henry Sherburne, had come to Portsmouth in the 1630s and was both a farmer and tavern keeper. John, however, was a mariner, and in 1695 he became one of the young men who purchased a parcel of land along the cove near the Great House. During the 1680s, the heirs of John Cutt in accordance with the requests in his will, began to subdivide the land. By 1700 virtually all of the Strawbery Banke neighborhood had been settled and the urban process in Portsmouth was under way.

Of the many houses that were built in the neighborhood near the coast in the 1690s and early 1700s only two remain, one built by Captain Sherburne and Marden House. Many of the eighteenth century houses which still remain were built on the foundations of the seventeenth century houses.

The Eighteenth Century: Prosperity and Revolution

Busy streets, a forest of masts bobbing rhythmically with the tide at the river's edge, sweating sailors heaving a quintal of cod on to the deck of a schooner, bewigged merchants gesturing emphatically to close a deal at the Pitt Tavern these were the sights and sounds of Portsmouth, one of the most energetic and sophisticated towns in eighteenth century New England. Its fast-growing wealth and self-confidence can be traced to two factors, trade and politics.

Portsmouth's trade matured in the early 1700s. Local merchants developed a wide range of lumber products from masts, boards, house frames, and furniture, to oars, wagon spokes, barrel parts, and small boats and found new markets for them. Trade reached to all points of the Atlantic world.

Sea captains were the indispensable men of trade in eighteenth century Portsmouth, but they were not the town's elite. The wealth was concentrated in a select group of merchants and their families; families like Jaffrey and Rindge, Moffatt and Warner, Atkinson and Pierce, and later Boyd and Langdon. But at the top of the social structure were the Wentworths, who combined a dominance of trade with control over Portsmouth's politics.

I should have seen enough of the Pomps and Vanities and Ceremonies of that little World Portsmouth, If I had gone there, but Formalities and Ceremonies are an abomination in my sight.
—John Adams, 1770

New Hampshire was a small and successful royal province. Portsmouth merchants, like the Wentworths, controlled provincial politics from the governor's chair and the Council, to the legislature and the courts. This political elite, many of whom had firsthand knowledge of English society, gave Portsmouth much of its sophistication with their tasteful homes and elaborate social activities.

But Portsmouth's cosmopolitan nature went deeper than this. Not only the rich had contact with the outside. As a seafaring town, a large number of Portsmouth's middle and even working class inhabitants had walked the streets of Boston, Philadelphia, and London. Many had been to Lisbon and Cadiz, some to Barcelona and even Marseilles.

Society ranged from common to polite, but there was no social segregation, no suburbs to lure the wealthy and prominent to another part of town. Every Portsmouth neighborhood, including the one that grew up around the cove near the Great House, included the homes of laborers and artisans, fishermen and sea captains, traders and merchants. Men of all classes lived and worked alongside one another. This social integration is reflected in the juxtaposition of the eighteenth century houses that have survived from the simple home of blacksmith Joshua Jones to the elegant home of merchant Stephen Chase.

Portsmouth trade remained strong through the 1760s and into the seventies with little interference from the ominous events that were leading toward the American Revolution. The town did occasionally see demonstrations, such as the one in 1766 directed at the detested Stamp Act. Liberty Bridge, over the entrance to the cove, gained its name from this incident when a large crowd hoisted a flag over it bearing the inscription, "Liberty, Property, and No Stamp." The present liberty pole was erected in commemoration of that event.

But Portsmouth remained peaceful. No tea was thrown into the harbor here. Instead, it was quietly reshipped to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Portsmouth, however, could not avoid the conflict indefinitely. On December 13, 1774, Paul Revere burst into James Stoodley's tavern with a warning. A British warship was on its way to seize the arms and ammunition at Fort William and Mary at the harbor entrance at Newcastle. The next day a mob overran the fort, hauled down the King's colors, and carried away the powder. Within a short time the royal governor had fled, the capital of the province was moved inland, and Portsmouth entered a new era. When the fighting ended, Portsmouth and New Hampshire were part of a new nation, but Portsmouth was no longer the political center of New Hampshire.

Portsmouth's trade, as well as its political position, suffered greatly during the war, and many trade patterns were permanently disrupted. The British West Indies were closed to American ships and embargoes by the British, the impressment of New Hampshire seamen, and the seizure of Piscataqua ships all took their toll.

The economic depression was temporary, however, and by the 1790s trade was better than ever and prosperity returned. No less than nine surviving buildings at the museum date from that decade, reflecting a period of increased building and renewed wealth. By 1800 customs revenues reached an all-time high, and Portsmouth entered a new century with great hopes.

The War of 1812, however, did provide great opportunities for profit on the high seas. It also gave Portsmouth one of her most colorful chapters in history -- that of privateers. These fast, low- slung vessels, financed by Portsmouth merchants and manned by local sailors, preyed on enemy commercial shipping throughout the war. One of the most successful, the privateer Fox, carried a crew of eighty-five and earned more than half a million dollars in prize money. But this was not a permanent prosperity when the war ended in late 1814, so did privateering.

Once again, the end of war brought hopes in Portsmouth for a recovery of trade. But this time it was not to be. As ships came into port, increasing numbers of them went out riding high on the tide. The timber in the Piscataqua region had been greatly depleted by the early 1800s. The lumber products, that from the very beginning of settlement had been Portsmouth's key export, were no longer available to fill the holds of trading vessels. After 1812 Portsmouth's trade, especially that with the West Indies, went into a permanent decline.

In place of trade the town shifted to shipbuilding and manufacturing. In 1814 the Portsmouth Navy Yard, established by the federal government in 1800, launched the seventy-four-gun man-of-war Washington. Though less active during periods of peace, the Navy Yard continued to provide work for those in the maritime trades and over the course of the nineteenth century became the back bone of Portsmouth's economy. Among notable ships constructed here was the USS Portsmouth, built in 1843, which was instrumental in the annexation of California three years later. The Kearsarge, which achieved perhaps the greatest fame of any ship during the Civil War by sinking the notorious and elusive Confederate commerce raider, Alabama, was also a product of the Portsmouth Navy Yard.

Commercial shipbuilding also created jobs for Portsmouth artisans. In the late 1840s and 1850s, when the China trade and discovery of gold in California created a demand for faster sea transportation, Piscataqua shipyards became famous for their long and slender clippers. In February 1851 the yard of Fernald and Pettigrew launched the Typhoon. A month later Typhoon made the Liverpool run in a record time of thirteen days. At that very time another Portsmouth ship, George Raynes' Witch of the Wave, was carrying tea from Canton to London in a record-breaking passage of ninety days.

The age of the clippers brought some work and more fame to Portsmouth, but it did not help local commerce. Most of the sleek vessels were built for merchants in Boston, Salem, and New York. Once they dropped down the Piscataqua, they seldom returned. Portsmouth's sea trade continued to decline. The aggregate tonnage of vessels operating from the port in 1839 was 26,000. By 1906 that figure was less than 6,000 tons. Although population did grow slowly, Portsmouth lost its position in relation to the rest of the state and the country. In 1800 Portsmouth was the twelfth largest city in the United States. By 1832 it had dropped to twenty-fifth. Within only a few more years, with the growth of textile manufacturing on the Merrimack River, it was no longer even the largest city in New Hampshire.

The phantom fleet sailed off one day, and never came back again. The crazy old warehouses are empty; and barnacles and eelgrass cling to the piles of the crumbling wharves, where the sunshine lies lovingly bringing out the faint spicy odor that haunts the place the ghost of the old dead West India trade.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1869 

In the 1840s the railroad came to Portsmouth and began to cut into what little coastal trade still existed. But the railroad helped reverse the town's increasing isolation by connecting it with the rest of New England and to the fast-growing western sections of the country. The railroad also was good for newer sources of prosperity in Portsmouth, in particular manufacturing.

In the second half of the 19th century Portsmouth turned increasingly to industry to help replace the prosperity that was lost with the shipping trade. Of products made here during that time, beer became one of the most important. By the late 1800s Portsmouth boasted three breweries, including one of the largest on the east coast. Frank Jones began making malt beverages in the 1860s. Within twenty years his huge plant encompassed the largest ale and porter cellars in the world. By 1896, Jones, "king of the eastern brewers" was producing 250,000 barrels of ale a year.

The character of Portsmouth changed dramatically over the 19th century. In 1800 it was a thriving seaport, barely removed from its days of colonial grandeur. By 1900, except for a few fisher men and sporadic work at the Navy Yard, there was little maritime activity left. These changes are reflected in the neighborhood that had grown up near the cove. Early in the century the waterway and the surrounding area, came to be know as Puddle Dock. The houses that had belonged to sea captains and artisans were in time occupied by immigrants from Europe. Many of the buildings were divided into multiple living units. By the end of the century the Puddle Dock waterway, little used and lined with decaying wharves, was used as a city dump. By 1907 the channel was completely filled in, and little evidence remained of its once bustling maritime activity.

Portsmouth had lost its advantage. It now had to compete with many other small New England cities for the spoils of the industrial age. The sailing ships, the busy wharves, and the wealthy West Indian merchants were gone. At the turn of the century Portsmouth's uniqueness seemed to have been left in the past.

At the same time concern for the older areas of town reappeared. This time it took the form of a Federal Urban Renewal project, wherein all "substandard" houses in the Puddle Dock neighborhood were to be torn down and replaced by modern structures. Many of these houses had been occupied for as long as 250 years by generations of Portsmouth artisans, seamen, merchants, and their families. Some houses had served the needs of Portsmouth people in four different centuries. The original urban renewal proposal did not succeed. After its failure an event occurred that re-oriented the thinking of people in Portsmouth and significantly affected the future of the town.

In 1957 Dorothy M. Vaughan, Portsmouth librarian, was invited to address the local Rotary Club. As she later recalled, "I decided to lay it right on the line, and tell them what Portsmouth was throwing away each time a house was torn down or a piece of furniture was sold out of town." Almost before she had finished, a committee was created to see what could be done to save Portsmouth's heritage. The result was a radical new combination of urban renewal and historic preservation. The Puddle Dock neighborhood was to be saved as a historic museum.

Strawbery Banke, Inc., an organization taking its name from the earliest settlement, was formed by local citizens in 1958. One of its first actions was to get a New Hampshire law changed to permit restoration as a part of renewal. Until that time the law required that every building in a renewal area be demolished. Following that the Portsmouth Housing Authority as the local renewal agency acquired the land and buildings, arranged for the relocation of the residents, and handled the demolition or removal of several late nineteenth and twentieth century structures. The remaining buildings were then deeded to Strawbery Banke.

When Strawbery Banke opened to the public in 1965, Portsmouth began to rediscover the past it seemed to have left behind. That past has become a vital part of the modern city. The museum has become an important asset to the local economy and the major attraction for visitors to Portsmouth.

Strawbery Banke has also helped reawaken the community to the importance of its local heritage. The evident care which many individuals are taking in the rehabilitation of older buildings, the refurbishing of Portsmouth's historic center Market Square, even the general sense of renewed vitality in the city all reflect the historical consciousness that has been raised in Portsmouth since people began to talk about Strawbery Banke in the late 1950s. The days when merchants watched down river for the sails of their ships are gone forever, but Portsmouth has regained its sense of individual identity.