Kittery 375th: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard a town cornerstone since 1800

This article is part of a monthly series celebrating Kittery’s history, as Maine’s oldest town celebrates its 375th birthday.

There isn’t much one could say about Portsmouth Naval Shipyard that hasn’t already been printed in these pages, but you can’t talk about Kittery history without mentioning its cornerstone foundation. You might say the yard is the jelly to Kittery’s peanut butter.

And the history of the yard, which goes back to 1800, is just so epic it can’t be shoehorned into a single article, no matter how brilliantly written. To do such a subject justice, one would require another entire series.

For instance:

One article could just focus on the yards’ historic significance, as the longest-running naval shipyard our country has ever had. And how, even before the site was designated by an emerging new federal government to be the location for a Navy facility, this area had been a hotbed of Revolutionary War-era wooden shipbuilding. The access of Kittery’s harbor islands to both the timber required to build the ships and the sea to launch them made locations like Badger’s Island ideal for the construction of vessels like the famous USS Ranger, built for the Father of the American Navy, John Paul Jones.

You could describe how the 74-gun warship USS Washington was the first warship built at the yard, during the War of 1812, and how one of its most famous ships ever was the USS Kearsage, which won renown for taking out the feared Confederate raider Alabama during the Civil War some 50 years later.

You could point out how just about every superstar in the history of the American Navy seems to have had some kind of connection here at our humble hometown Navy yard at some point during their careers. Isaac Hull, the yard’s first commandant, was already a celebrity when he arrived here, having commanded the USS Constitution when the frigate became known as “Old Ironsides” for its War of 1812 exploits.

More: Kittery wraps up 375th birthday with party and Taste this weekend

David Farragut, perhaps America’s most famous admiral, immortalized for ordering his crew “Damn the torpedoes…full speed ahead!” during the Civil War, died at the yard while visiting in 1870. Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations during World War II, also died at the yard the following century, in 1956.

One could devote an entire book, not merely an article, to the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth which was signed at the yard. In fact, many books have been written on this historic moment, which ended what was then the largest war the world had ever seen and established Japan as a world power.

Negotiations between diplomats from Japan and Russia were held in Building 86 at the yard for pretty much the entire month of August. The treaty signing on Sept. 5 ended the Russo-Japanese War and earned President Teddy Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing the two sides together, even though he never personally took part in the talks.

The iconic and long-deserted Naval Prison at the yard, for years a subject of fascination for both locals and tourists sailing by on the Piscataqua River, is certainly a story worthy on its own merits.

For decades, this majestic concrete medieval-looking structure fueled an urban Seacoast legend which never seems to die for good. According to this story, a young Walter Elias Disney served time as a prisoner at the yard’s prison and later used its design as his basis for Cinderella’s castle in the 1950 animated classic.

Unfortunately, the story is indeed a myth, as Disney never served in the military and therefore would not have served time at the local Naval Prison, which held convicted Navy sailors and Marines. However, the prison was known locally as “The Castle” during its several decades of operation.

Another popular legend, which might have at least a kernel of truth, describes a young Navy sailor named Humphrey Bogart who, more than 100 years ago, was assigned to escort a prisoner to the yard facility. According to this story, the handcuffed prisoner asked Bogart for a cigarette, and as Bogart was trying to find a match, the prisoner smashed him in the mouth with the cuffs and tried to escape. The resulting scar across Bogart’s lip supposedly gave him his legendary lisp, at least according to this tale.

Ironically, the underrated 1973 film classic “The Last Detail,” starring Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid, follows the adventures of two older Navy sailors escorting a young seaman to the Naval Prison to serve a lengthy sentence. However, the Kittery facility does not actually appear in the film.

The site of the prison was initially a camp for up to 1,600 enemy prisoners from the Spanish-American War in the late 1890s. When the prison opened on Seavey Island in 1908, it was believed to be the largest poured concrete building in the world, according to Naval Sea Systems Command.

Empty since 1974, the fortress-like structure now seems a mysterious and brooding protector of Portsmouth Harbor, fueling endless speculation as to what the heck to do with such a remarkable building.

Again, entire books could be written about the yard’s vital role during the Second World War, which I personally consider its most fascinating era. At one point during the war, about 20,500 people were working daily at the yard – twice the actual population of the town today.

More: This WW2 vet started at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at 16. He's still there at 95.

Almost 80 submarines, nearly half the American fleet at the time, were manufactured at the yard during America’s three-and-a-half years in this global conflict. An unprecedented 32 subs were completed in 1944 alone. And on one single record-shattering day – 27 January 1944 -- the yard commissioned not one, but four submarines: USS Razorback, USS Redfish, USS Ronquil and USS Scabbardfish.

The yard had been already been in the submarine construction business for nearly a quarter-century when America entered the war. It was the first US Navy facility to build a submersible vessel, back in 1917 during the First World War, with the commissioning of a sub known only as L-8.

After Germany surrendered to end the Second World War, Nazi submarines were brought to the yard for study and their crewmen, for a short time, were held as prisoners at The Castle.

The yard continued to manufacture Navy submarines until 1969. The tragic peacetime sinkings of USS Squalus in 1939 and USS Thresher in 1963 – already detailed in this series – brought Kittery under the global spotlight. Today the facility is renowned as the Navy’s premier facility for overhauling and modernizing its subs.

Although there isn’t much talk about it anymore, for decades a fierce debate raged between Maine and New Hampshire over which state had jurisdiction over the yard. Personally, I never understood how New Hampshire could claim the yard as its own when anyone attempting to visit the facility by land could only do so by driving through Kittery.

The Granite State, of course, was seeking to avoid the taxation of its citizens who happened to be employed at the yard. The border dispute was finally settled by the United States Supreme Court in Maine’s favor in 2001 by an 8-0 vote, with Justice David Souter (a former New Hampshire attorney general) abstaining.

Another entire article could be devoted to the yard’s role as cog to the Seacoast’s economic engine. In fact, such a piece was just published in the Herald this month.

More: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard economic impact $1.3B: Here's towns with most workers, payroll

The Seacoast Shipyard Association recently issued a report gauging the yard’s economic impact at more than $1.3 billion in 2021. This marks a substantial increase of almost 40% over the previous year. And as recently as 2018, the economic impact was “only” $882 million, according to the advocacy group.

These findings are calculated based on the yard’s civilian employee payroll, military payroll, the cost of purchased goods and services, and contracted services. Surprisingly, Kittery ranks third among towns with the most civilian employees at the yard, behind Sanford, Maine, and Rochester, New Hampshire. According to the report, 438 Kittery residents were employed at the facility, earning nearly $37.8 million.

Anyway, you get the point. Kittery and the yard have long been intertwined, and are likely to remain so for quite a while. You can’t look back over 375 years of local history without recognizing an institution that’s been a cornerstone for more than half of it.

Several events are taking place in Maine’s oldest town this year, in celebration of Kittery’s 375th birthday. Information about these festivities is available at www.kittery375th.com.

D. Allan Kerr is an old Navy guy, but has great grudging respect for the heroes of the Coast Guard.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kittery ME 375th: Portsmouth NH Naval Shipyard a cornerstone of town