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Among the Mountains of Portsmouth

Founding of Portsmouth, NH / SeacoastNH.comSeacoastNH.com Presents
Historic Portsmouth #271

Always searching for more data on the early history of Portsmouth, I spotted an entry from an 1847 book entitled "A Pictorial History of the United States of America". Something is very wrong here. (Continued below)

The basic information about the settlement of the Piscataqua region appears accurate here, and is probably taken from the 1831 history of New Hampshire by Jeremy Belknap of Dover. The front page of this 1847 history book boasts 200 engravings, but check this one carefully. Although labeled "Founding of Portsmouth, somebody goofed. The illustration, published at Hartford, CT, shows tiny figures in 17th century attire gathering in a cleared patch of forest beneath a towering mountain range. The message is – always question your sources, kids. History books are written and illustrated by humans, and often peppered with errors, although not often as funny as this one. Could the artist have been thinking of the founding of York, Maine at the bast of Mt. Agamentics, the only high ground in the region? Not likely. The pictures just got mixed up in this low-rent popular history book, we assume. (Courtesy of SeacoastNH.com collection) 

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