Towering North Church, constructed in 1854 dominates Market Square, the economic and commercial center of Portsmouth since the mid-1700s. It has been a military training ground, site of a meeting house and home of the State of New Hampshire’s Colonial Legislature.
Just across the street from it you have the Portsmouth Athenaeum, an independent membership library, museum, and gallery founded in 1817. The 1805 Federal style building was originally the office for the New Hampshire Fire & Marine Insurance Company, which later went bankrupt. The collection now exceeds 40,000 books and 12,000 photographs
A prominent historical building is the National Block, built in 1878 by Frank Jones, a mayor, congressman, and businessman.
The Franklin Block built in 1879, is the largest Victorian-era building standing in the city. It served as a hotel, assembly hall and dance hall. For many years before the onset of the railroads, the Franklin House, served as the headquarters for two stage coach companies that carried passengers between Portland and Boston.
A notable event that took place at Franklin Hall is when the Marquis de Lafayette and thirty veterans who served under him during the American Revolutionary War received a grand reception.
Speaking of stage coach below you have the Portsmouth Stone placed in 1803 marking the beginning of the road north to the Piscataqua Bridge connecting into the NH interior. It also served as a terminus for the old stage coach line from Boston.
The Chestnut Street Arch serves as a valuable way-finding function for city visitors, creating a pedestrian-friendly walkway from Court Street to Portwalk, bringing foot traffic to the businesses along the way. It was installed in 2018.
When you enter it the first thing you will see is the music hall, the historic 900-seat theater and oldest in New Hampshire. It was built in 1878 by shipwrights and as recently as 1987, the theater dodged demolition. As you can tell its still operating today.
What you see here is the African Burying Ground. During the 1700s when the burying ground was actively used, it was in the undeveloped outskirts of town. As Portsmouth grew during the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s, the African Burying Ground was paved over and many forgot about its existence. When the site was accidentally uncovered in 2003, the Portsmouth City Council appointed the African Burying Ground Committee and asked the group to determine how best to honor those buried on Chestnut Street.
The new memorial park was completed in 2015. It consists of a group of eight life-size vertical bronze and concrete silhouettes standing in a semi-circle around the burial vault. The figural group is surrounded by a metal railing, embellished with ceramic tiles.
Each silhouette has inscribed a line from a poem written by Meadows (a sculptor and artist from Georgia)
“I stand for the Ancestors Here and Beyond
I stand for those who feel anger
I stand for those who were treated unjustly
I stand for those who were taken from their loved ones
I stand for those who suffered the middle passage
I stand for those who survived upon these shores
I stand for those who pay homage to this ground
I stand for those who find dignity in these bones.”
The Rockingham Hotel was originally built in 1785 as a residence by Woodbury Langdon, prominent merchant and politician. It was converted into a hotel in 1833 and after a fire in 1884, was rebuilt preserving the original dining room and reopened in 1886. It was converted to condominiums in the 1970s and the historic dining room is now a steakhouse, The Library Restaurant.
The building incorporates lions near the 2 entrances, terra cotta sculptures of the Four Seasons of Man, and busts of Jones (mayor of Portsmouth, a US Representative, and a brewer who bought it in 1870) and Langdon.
The YMCA building was previously the residence of W. H. Y. Hackett, who lived here for more than fifty years. W. H. Y. Hackett was a prominent lawyer, banker, and politician who arrived in Portsmouth in 1822. W. H. Y. Hackett was a member of a seven-man delegation that welcomed the Marquis de Lafayette to New Hampshire at the Massachusets border in September 1824.
When the Piscataqua Bank was established in 1825, W. H. Y. Hackett was the bank’s solicitor. He served as a bank director for many years and bank president from 1844–1878. He then served as a State Senator from 1861 until 1863.
After his death in 1878, his home became the Portsmouth YMCA.
The Kearsarge House was built as a two-family home in 1866. Almost as soon as it opened, it became a hotel with street-level shops. Colonel Peirce was the original owner. It was renamed ‘Kearsarge’ in 1879 to honor a famous warship. The USS Kearsarge was a Civil War sloop-of-war powered by steam and by sail built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and launched in 1861.
The building served as the city’s Custom House and post office from only 1817 to 1858.
Today the building houses a store, restaurant and apartments.
The Press Room (TPR) dubs itself “Portsmouth’s most intimate live music venue,”. Established in November of 1976, TPR has been host to countless musicians over the years throughout its three owners.
One would still surmise to ask how the theme for printing press came about?
At the intersection once stood a building that housed the office of the States and Union newspaper. At the time it espoused anti-Lincoln, pro-slavery views when Portsmouth already had four newspapers, all generally favoring the Union cause. On April 10, 1865, a mob of upstanding citizens, sailors and shipyard workers were celebrating the end of the Civil War. During a two-hour melee, they would threaten to lynch the editor of the States and Union, Joshua Foster. The editor narrowly escaped out the back door clutching his ledgers and subscription list. The mob invaded the office and took sledge hammers to all of the machinery and furniture and threw it into the street, together with some of the type. Much of the type, they carried down to the street and hurled into the Piscataqua River. Foster was reportedly awarded $2,000 by the government and used that money to get his newspaper back on its feet.
This piece of art was the ‘Isles Of Shoals Humpbacks’ painted throughout the spring of 1993 by the artist Robert Wyland. It features three humpback whales, the family of dolphins and the school of tuna. It was one of 100 “Whaling Walls” created over 27 years by the renowned environmental artist. Sadly this mural is no more as demolition work to the structure was undertaken in 2021.
