Butchered Colonial Preserved Portsmouth

Strawbery Banke Presents
HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH #211

In 1935 the Capt. Chauncey House on Islington Street (top photo) was converted into a gas station (below). In the 1950s Richard Howland, president of the National Trust in Washington, DC, used these exact photos as evidence of Portsmouth’s disregard for its own history. (Continued)

HISTORIC PHOTOS of the Greater Portsmouth Area appear here weekl

Howland showed these pictures in his lectures as a shocking example of the wanton destruction of historic American buildings. In 1957 Howland spoke to a packed house of Portsmouth citizens at the Rockingham Hotel. He implored the city to stop destroying its architectural heritage. Howland’s inspirational talk was a key factor in the creation of Strawbery Banke Inc., a nonprofit preservation company founded 50 years ago. Today the building survives as an auto shop and popular BBQ restaurant. (Courtesy Richard M. Candee)

This image from the book STRAWBERY BANKE:
A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making
by J. Dennis Robinson
(c) Strawbery Banke Museum Collection

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