SeacoastNH.com Presents 
Historic Portsmouth #411

While we’re on the subject of hanging things on clotheslines at the Isles of Shoals (see last week’s fishy photos) – here is a rare candid image. This picture was taken around the time of the Civil War and shows the 1856 home of John Handy Robinson (no relation to yours truly) on the left. On the right two boys lounge on the rocks in Gosport, NH. (Continued below)

Little did the boys know that, within a decade, the town would no longer exist. Richard Poor of the Boston spice company Stickney & Poor, was about to buy up the real estate on Star Island and turn the ancient fishing village into a tourist resort. Poor didn’t last long at the Shoals and sold the Oceanic Hotel to the Laighton Brothers who later went bankrupt. The nonprofit Star Island Corporation now operates the island and it still retains the tranquil atmosphere evident here. And they still dry clothes on the line in the cool Shoals breeze. (Courtesy Portsmouth Athenaeum)

Photo (c) Portsmouth Athenaeum
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