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Established in 1623, Portsmouth is the primary harbour for New Hampshire and America’s third oldest English settlement.
When the English settlers first came to this location on the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire the river-banks were strewn with berries. The original 1623 colony was named Strawbery Banke, but this was changed in 1653 to Portsmouth as the port became a regional centre for trade in fish and timber.
From 1679 until the Revolutionary War, Portsmouth served as the colonial capital of New Hampshire (now Concord), while throughout the 18th century trade continued to flourish as textile mills and foundries were built and the town’s ale making industry produced the Eldredge Brewery and the Frank Jones Brewery – America’s largest ale maker. In 1800, the naval shipyard was established in Portsmouth and became the city’s biggest employer.
Many of the town’s mansion houses, wharves and warehouses date from this prosperous period, and thanks to restoration by local residents remain as they were, attracting visitors to the urbane artistic and cultural centre that Portsmouth is today.
The local tourist board have neatly divided up the centre of Portsmouth into 3 districts; the Downtown and Waterfront, the leafy old merchant quarter of the South End and the modernised section along State, Haymarket and Congress streets. The Harbour Trail is a self-guided tour which takes you through these areas outlining Portsmouth’s proud heritage, from the maritime quarter around Ceres Street, a waterfront lane home to Portsmouth’s cultural renaissance and the Moran Company Pier, with its iconic red tugboats, to the central area of Market Square overlooked by North Church, whose spire can be seen poking above the roof tops throughout the town. Also central to the town, is Prescott Park along the old waterfront where pleasure boats have replaced the merchant ships and you’ll find regular outdoor theatre productions.
Portsmouth’s South End is home to a fabulous collection of 18th Century houses which once belonged to the town’s wealthy merchants such as the John Paul Jones House, now a museum and the Oracle House, one of the oldest houses in New England where New Hampshire’s first daily newspaper; The Oracle was published. Portsmouth’s main visitor attraction is the Strawbery Banke Museum a living history museum reproducing the town’s original settlement. Also just outside the centre of town is the Maritime Museum at Albacore Park with the submarine the USS Albacore which was built in Portsmouth.
Portsmouth is a great place to stop off along the coast between Boston and Maine, while just over the Memorial Bridge are the Kittery Outlets in Maine.
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