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An illustrated history one of England’s finest cities - Portsmouth.
Few people think of a rich Black heritage when they think of New England. In the pioneering book Black Portsmouth, Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham celebrate it, guiding the reader through more than three centuries of New England and Portsmouth social, political, economic, and cultural history as well as scores of personal and site-specific stories. Here, we meet such Africans as the "likely negro boys and girls from Gambia," who debarked at Portsmouth from a slave ship in 1758, and Prince Whipple, who fought in the American Revolution. We learn about their descendants, including the performer Richard Potter and John Tate of the People’s Baptist Church, who overcame the tragedies and challenges of their ancestors’ enslavement and subsequent marginalization to build communities and families, found institutions, and contribute to their city, region, state, and nation in many capacities. Individual entries speak to broader issues—the anti-slavery movement, American religion, and foodways, for example. We also learn about the extant historical sites important to Black Portsmouth—including the surprise revelation of an African burial ground in October 2003—as well as the extraordinary efforts being made to preserve remnants of the city’s early Black heritage.
Images of America: Portsmouth, Virginia is an educational and entertaining volume that will delight residents and visitors as well as lovers of history everywhere. Located in heart of the Chesapeake Bay at the zero milepost on the Intracoastal Waterway, Portsmouth's five historic districts and its thriving downtown are living landmarks, reminding onlookers of the gracious living, perilous times, and exciting events that often played a crucial role in the life of the nation. Here the last Colonial governor of Virginia took refuge, and here Lord Cornwallis garrisoned his British troops before going to Yorktown, where his defeat gave birth to the United States. Here the first ironclad ship, the first battleship, and the first aircraft carrier were designed and built, and here the wounded from all of America's wars since 1830 have been brought to recover at Portsmouth's naval hospital. Vintage photographs within these pages capture the everyday lives of almost four centuries of residents. The ferries that connected Portsmouth to nearby Norfolk, the trains that made it the gateway to the South, and the city's center-its commercial district-all come alive through the images. Focusing on the Olde Towne historic district, the Naval Hospital, the Naval Shipyard, and the downtown area district, this volume provides a tour of the quaint structures of the oldest part of the city and preserves part of the nation's heritage. Author, and lifelong Portsmouth resident, Robert Albertson draws together postcards, photographs, paintings, and engravings that capture the drama of the city's past and disclose the charm of its neighborhoods.
Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835-1894) was born in Portsmouth, NH. When she was four, her father became the lighthouse keeper on White Island in the Isles of Shoals. After resigning his post eight years later, he built a resort hotel on Appledore Island in Maine. The first of its kind on the New England coast, the hotel became a gathering place for writers and artists during the latter half of the 19th century. In her last year of life, Celia published this work, in which she lovingly describes her Appledore garden and its flowers. The flowers she grew in her cutting garden filled her own rooms and those of the hotel, and this work became famous for its descriptions of the old-fashioned flowers she grew there. Her island garden, a plot that measured 15 feet square, has been re-created and is open to visitors.
The New York Times bestseller from master biographer Evan Thomas brings to life the tumultuous story of the father of the American Navy. John Paul Jones, at sea and in the heat of the battle, was the great American hero of the Age of Sail. He was to history what Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey and C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower are to fiction. Ruthless, indomitable, clever; he vowed to sail, as he put it, “in harm’s way.” Evan Thomas’s minute-by-minute re-creation of the bloodbath between Jones’s Bonhomme Richard and the British man-of-war Serapis off the coast of England on an autumn night in 1779 is as gripping a sea battle as can be found in any novel. Drawing on Jones’s correspondence with some of the most significant figures of the American Revolution—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson—Thomas’s biography teaches us that it took fighters as well as thinkers, men driven by dreams of personal glory as well as high-minded principle, to break free of the past and start a new world. Jones’s spirit was classically American.
In 1752, the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act approving Col. William Crawford's survey for a town, which he would name Portsmouth after his hometown in England. Crawford envisioned a port that would be known for its commerce and naval capabilities. Today Portsmouth is home to the nation's oldest naval shipyard and naval hospital. The roots of the U.S. Coast Guard were established here when the nation's first lightship was placed offshore at Craney Island in 1820. "Olde Towne" and other residential sections of the city remain mostly intact, with picturesque dwellings from the 18th and 19th centuries. Strolling around the downtown district, one can still admire the many churches, theaters, and commercial structures that have been a part of Portsmouth's history and culture.