1919 – Thanksgiving Day Well Observed

“A northeast storm which held up for a time on Thursday, severely interfered with the Thanksgiving observances in the opening, but did not take away from the real spirit of the day, the family reunions and the holiday cheer.

The northeaster which was accompanied by a heavy fall of rain all night and well into the early morning hours turned to snow at the end and there was a white mantle on the ground and the trees were ice-covered. The rain stopped but the weather was threatening and there was a cold strong wind. It was mean weather for outdoor sports and very little was attempted other than the turkey shoot at the Country Club and the football game at the play grounds in the afternoon.

The family gatherings and the reunions where is always found the real spirit of Thanksgiving were in no way interfered with and the cheer inside was as bright as the weather was gloomy outside.”

“Thanksgiving Day Well Observed,” The Portsmouth Herald, November 28, 1919.

Congress Street, 1907

Detroit Publishing Co., Copyright Claimant, and Publisher Detroit Publishing Co. North Church and Congress St. Street, Portsmouth, N.H. United States Portsmouth New Hampshire, ca. 1907. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2016813100/.

Portsmouth’s Liberty Pole

I’m a little bit late on this one, but here’s a nice story about the return of Ron’s eagle to the top of the Liberty Pole as published in seacoastonline.com just a couple of weeks ago.

PORTSMOUTH — The venerable gilded mahogany eagle carved by Strawbery Banke Museum’s Ron Raiselis and restored by Jared Tuveson of Tuveson Studios in Rollinsford returned to the top of the Liberty Pole in Prescott Park Tuesday morning.

This 38-inch tall, 36-inch wide eagle, the third since 1824, has watched over Portsmouth since 2002, turning on its perch with the wind thanks to the metal rod on which it can pivot. It was removed for restoration last September when the Liberty Pole was being repainted.

After more than 75 hours of painstaking work to repair the cracks and abrasion caused by wind-driven rain, snow, ice and other birds, and to re-gild the 28-square-foot surface, the eagle has landed. The Department of Public Works crew hoisted the bird back in place, thanks to help from ProCon Construction, which secured the donated loan of a lift from United Rentals to reach the top of the 110-foot Liberty Pole.

The Federal Fire Society

I came across a digital version of the Federal Fire Society while doing some research for the Deerfield Teachers Center. While it wasn’t what I was looking for, I was happy to have found such an interesting piece of Portsmouth’s past in such an easily shareable format. Originally published in 1905, the book contains biographical sketches of the society’s members and observations on how to prevent and extinguish fires. While I would treat the historical information contained within it’s pages with a degree of skepticism or caution given the lack of cited sources, I think it’s an interesting addition to our resources on Portsmouth History.

 

If you are interested in what became of the Fire Society after this 1905 publication, J. Dennis Robinson has an article for that! Published in 2012 in seacoastnh.com, Robinson discusses the history of the Federal Fire Society and its modern-day members:

Surviving Portsmouth’s Past Pandemics

Jay sent me this article by J. Dennis Robinson, and I thought it appropriate as the inaugural post on this site given our current circumstances. While it is, perhaps, more historically or even scientifically interesting than reassuring, this article does strongly relate to the museum’s theme of resiliency and exemplifies the interpreter’s goal of connecting the past to the present. In the middle of our current day Pandemic, I hope you and your families are all well and safe at home!

Stranded home amid a coronavirus pandemic, readers this week are buying old books about – that’s right – other pandemics. Go figure.

“The Plague,” a 1947 allegorical novel by Albert Camus has leaped back onto the bestseller list. So have “The Stand,” a 1978 dystopian classic by Stephen King, Micheal Crichton’s “Andromeda Strain” (1969), “Love in the Time of Cholera” (1985) by Gabriel García Márquez and many more.

So reluctantly, for those who can’t get enough deadly disease news, we offer plaguey passages from the works of Portsmouth historian Charles Brewster (1802-1869). The editor of the Portsmouth Journal newspaper for half a century, Brewster was fascinated with Portsmouth’s curious past. His 149 collected newspaper columns, published as “Rambles About Portsmouth,” remains the most important contribution to city history. Here’s a sample of what Brewster had to say about two Portsmouth pandemics, both decades before his time.