Sailing up the Piscataqua River, Captain Walter Neal and a small following as Englishmen, spied a bank full of wild berries. Finding this to be a hospitable place for a settlement, Strawbery Banke was founded when a large communal structure called the Great House was built. Settlers brought over by the Laconia Company soon brought commerce into the area. The original settlers hunted, fished, farmed, and cut lumber. In less than ten years the community grew to 170 members.

Forgetting Strawbery Banke

Many of the original agricultural settlers built throughout the area, including off shore on the Isles of Shoals. A short time after the Laconia Company went bankrupt, the settlement became a part of Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1653, the citizens petitioned to change the name of the town to Portsmouth, advertising its location for economic reasons. Puritans came and transformed the town into an important trading port. The fishing trade also became a mainstay of the town.

The rise and decline

During the Revolution, the town supplied the revolutionaries with gun powder, as well as ships and experienced seamen. At the start of the 1800s, trade came to a stop, but during the war of 1812, privateers, fast low ships, confiscated goods from foreign merchant ships. After the war ended, Portsmouth could not regain its prominence as a merchant town. The lumber trade faltered as well, after running out of trees to cut. Shipbuilding created some jobs, and kept the town alive throughout the rest of the 19th century. By 1900 the whole town was devoted to industry, where many immigrants choose to settle. The undesirable waterfront area was now renamed Puddle Dock, and slowly went into decline. If the town residents hadn't fought the development of the docks in the 1950s, many historical buildings would have been lost.