Portsmouth 400th lights up city with start of year of events: 'We are so excited'
PORTSMOUTH — With snow falling and backdropped by a blue-lighted Memorial Bridge, leaders and lovers of the city turned out Friday at Prescott Park to ring in a yearlong celebration of its 400th anniversary.
While organizers recocignized the earliest populations, namely the Wabanaki people, the quadricentential is based on the 1623 settlement of Portsmouth, alongside neighboring Dover, New Castle and Rye — all celebrating 400th anniversaries this year. The date 1/6/23 was chosen to match the settlement year.
The Portsmouth event kicked off next to the Piscataqua River with an illumination of the picturesque bridge connecting the city to Kittery, Maine. Mayor Deaglan McEachern and his daughter, 6-year-old Tiernan, flipped a red light switch, built by the Portsmouth Fire Department, to have the bridge project blue lights out along the river.
The mayor recalled the origins of the city’s anniversary planning efforts, which the Portsmouth Historical Society began roughly five years ago. Though the anniversary has since become a city-led effort, the early participants created hundreds of suggestions and goals for what Portsmouth’s 400th anniversary celebration could look like.
“I talk a lot about Portsmouth as the ‘City of the Open Door’ and I love telling my daughters about all those who helped push that door open, and keep it open for those who followed after them,” McEachern said.
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Symbolized by a lighthouse, Portsmouth NH 400th, Inc., the group at the head of the operation, identified seven pillars to formulate anniversary events around: arts and culture, commerce and trade, communities and neighborhoods, education, maritime and military, signature events and legacy projects.
“Wherever we needed a more direct path to get us where we needed to go, Portsmouth chose a bridge instead of the long way around,” McEachern said. “So on this night we begin a yearlong celebration through the open door of January 6, 2023. Let us make sure we honor all those who have lifted us on their shoulders to keep our door open and built bridges to get where we needed to go instead of taking the long way around.”
Dozens of jubilant attendees, wielding glowsticks and “2023” glasses, marched from the park to South Church following the bridge’s illumination. Participants packed the aisles of the church, whose congregation formed in 1713 after splitting from the nearby North Church, for music by the Leftist Marching Band and the Potsmouth Brass Quintet, and a presentation about the events to come in the year ahead.
“We are so excited and we’re so excited to see you all here,” said Valerie Rochon, managing director of the Portsmouth NH 400th Inc. team tasked with orchestrating the festivities.
400th anniversary events are being held throughout 2023
Emceed by Courtney Daniel, a local small business owner, and Denise Wheeler, a 400th anniversary organizer, attendees were given a month-by-month breakdown of some of the main events scheduled to mark the anniversary. According to organizers, more than 100 programs are on the docket for 2023 to celebrate the city’s anniversary.
Anniversary events are beginning this month, including "Set the House on Fire Gospel Concert: Celebrating The Life and Legacy of Rev Martin Luther King Jr." on Jan. 16 produced by Seacoast African American Cultural Center President Sandi Clark Kaddy.
“We’ll have a great program,” she told the crowd.
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In April, “The Hidden Neighborhoods of Portsmouth” bicycle tour will begin and last through October, and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard will start giving tours of its history museum. The following month, Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club will host a “Jazz Ball” put on by the Seacoast Jazz Society, and the city will also be the home of the “Keeping History Above Water” symposium.
Parade will be first of three 'signature' events
The first of three signature events to mark the 400th, a parade organized by anniversary leader Trevor Bartlett, will be held June 3. “We are going to march through this town like nobody ever has before,” Bartlett said of the parade.
The second signature event will be the Little Italy Carnival on Tuesday, Aug. 6. Massimo Morgia and the 400th team have raised $87,000 toward making the event free for all members of the community, according to organizers.
The final signature event will be the Chamber Collaborative of Greater Portsmouth’s annual ‘Street.life!” meal, which will be a lobster dinner Aug. 15 serving 700 community members and running the length of Congress Street.
Events will keep rolling
Additionally occurring in September is the New England BIPOC Fest, organized by local chefs David Vargas and Evan Mallet, Assistant Mayor and Cup of Joe owner Joanna Kelley and University of New Hampshire doctorate student Marie Collins. The event will be held Sept. 24 on Pleasant Street, with Kelley noting that the entire street will be shut down for the festival.
“We’ll have over 30 restaurants represented from Indigenous food to Indonesian to African food to Filipino, a huge, wide, diverse selection,” Kelley said Friday.
The New Hampshire Brewfest is slated to be held in October, with Daniel saying, “Raise a glass because beer helped build Portsmouth.” The month will also see the 28th annual Portsmouth Halloween Parade march through the streets of downtown.
In December, a time capsule will be buried with the instruction that it cannot be dug up until 2123, and the anniversary year will come to a finale with a champagne toast at The Music Hall toward the end of the month.
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During the year, oral histories of city mainstays, including former elected officials Jack Blalock, Nancy Clayburgh, Ruth Griffin, Jim Splaine and Harold Whitehouse, will be revealed after being compiled by Portsmouth High School students.
Running through the list of events planned for the year, Wheeler took a moment to address the creative nature of the city and its residents, many of whom contributed to planning for the anniversary in the years leading up to 2023.
“There are so many people in here that are admired, inspired, support the arts and support our community,” Wheeler said. “You are what makes Portsmouth special.”
Information: portsmouthnh400.org
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the Thunder Over New Hampshire Air Show taking place Sept. 9-10 at the Pease Air National Guard Base is no longer associated with the Portsmouth 400th.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH 400th lights up with first in year of events in 2023
