Portsmouth Athenaeum announces 2023 Lecture Series: 'Portsmouth, NH: Evolution 1623-2023
PORTSMOUTH — The 2023 Athenaeum Lecture Series, “Portsmouth, NH: Evolution 1623-2023,” continues to celebrate our city’s significant anniversaries in this, Portsmouth’s quadricentennial year. The talks this year shine a light on Portsmouth’s commerce over 400 years, the historic interiors of those who lived here and, finally, the impact of climate change as evidenced at Strawbery Banke.
Each program begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Shaw Research Library of the Portsmouth Athenaeum at 9 Market Square in Portsmouth, N.H. (unless otherwise noted). Reservations for each program are required as seating is limited. Please call 603-431-2538, Ext. 2 to reserve. If unable to keep a reservation, please call again to release the seat for someone else. Attendance at programs is free for Athenaeum proprietors, subscribers and friends. Guests and members of the public are welcome to attend the entire series by becoming a Friend of the Athenaeum for as little as $25 per year, payable at the door. Admission to an individual program is $10.
Our series begins on March 15, with “Save the Date!” - Anniversary Celebrations in Portsmouth by Tom Hardiman, Jr., Keeper and Executive Director of the Portsmouth Athenaeum. This presentation, in the words of the presenter, “recounts Portsmouth’s relentless obsession with 1623 and other dates that usually require an asterisk and a footnote to justify the celebration.”
The following month on April 19, Sam Reid will give a talk entitled The Life, Near-Death, and Revival of Wood Island Station. The Wood Island Life Saving Station sits on a small island next to the Maine/New Hampshire border where the Piscataqua River meets the Atlantic Ocean. Built in 1908 and decommissioned in 1948, it housed the brave men, called “surfmen” or “storm warriors,” who rowed out to save mariners in distress. Hundreds of rescues were performed and hundreds of lives were saved. The station’s ownership shifted from the federal government to the Town of Kittery in 1973, but little maintenance was undertaken. In 2011, to avert the planned demolition of the then-derelict and rotting structure, the Wood Island Life Saving Station Association (WILSSA) was formed to restore this National Register of Historic Places building to its former glory.
In her talk May 17 on An Abundance of Cod: Fueling the New World, Ann Beattie will take you a step back in time to the early 17th century when Europeans began to sail to the New World and carry home tales of wondrous riches in the form of the obliging cod fish. Discover how salting and drying cod fish prevented the starvation of early settlers and became a staple of New England life, literally fueling both the communities and economy of our region. With a close look at the Isles of Shoals fishing station, investigate the lost art of drying cod to produce the renowned “dunfish,” once sought worldwide for its quality and flavor. Solve the mystery of why this once prized commodity has been relegated to a distant memory in today’s world.
From April through July in our Randall Gallery, the Athenaeum’s Exhibits Committee features the Wentworth family in an exhibit developed by historian Sandra Rux. As a complement to the exhibit, on June 21 Ms. Rux will present Before “Live Free or Die”: The Wentworth Oligarchy 1715-1775, during which period the family dominated Portsmouth and the New Hampshire colony. According to Jere Daniell, writing in Colonial New Hampshire, the Wentworths owed their political success to hard work, their understanding of New Hampshire politics and good luck. They developed and nurtured ties to the royal government in England. They, like many other New Hampshire businessmen and farmers, enjoyed grants and low prices for land, on which they harvested lumber to supply masts to the British Navy. They were initially led by Lt. Gov. John Wentworth and his wife Sarah Hunking, whose 14 children furthered the family oligarchy through talent and strategic marriages. With the Revolution came the end of the mast trade and the benefits of royal patronage.
After a break for the summer, the Athenaeum lecture series resumes on Sept. 20 with Ed Caylor’s talk, Trading on the Gundalow. As described on the website of Portsmouth’s Gundalow Company, “a gundalow is a shallow drafted type of cargo barge, once common in the Gulf of Maine’s rivers and estuaries. . . . [As it evolved it acquired] a cabin and lateen sail that could be lowered to ‘shoot’ under bridges.” This presentation will begin with a discussion of the historic significance of gundalows for the growth of the Piscataqua Region through trade and transportation from the 1640s to 1870s. The talk will follow the gundalows through their final commercial sails in the early 1900s and their brief local revival in 1950. The closing portion of the talk will cover their return to the area beginning in 1982 and their importance today in protecting the Piscataqua Region’s maritime heritage and environment.
Jane C. Nylander, a long-time student of New England interiors, will deliver a lecture on Oct. 18 entitled At Home in Portsmouth, 1750-1850. The talk will weave together a host of primary sources to expand our understanding of the appearance and functioning of domestic spaces in Portsmouth during the years 1750-1850. Diary entries, probate inventories, newspaper advertisements, and excerpts from private letters will be combined with illustrations of documented household furnishings to illuminate the changing taste and advancing technology that enriched the lives of local residents.
This year’s series concludes on Nov. 15 when Proprietor Rodney Rowland presents Water Has a Memory: Sea Level Rise, Our Past, Our Future. Strawbery Banke Museum is confronting the impacts of and damage from sea level rise right now. The 10-acre campus incorporates the Puddle Dock neighborhood; it is the lowest point in the city and just 150 yards from the Piscataqua River. The impacts are from both surface flooding caused by rainfall and groundwater intrusion from upwelling (the forcing up of the water table by, in this case, salt water.) This talk tells the story of the work to protect this historic site while we look to our past to help influence our future.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Athenaeum announces lectures: 'Portsmouth, NH: Evolution 1623-2023
