WHAT: Winter Symposium "Life and Death in the Piscataqua Region", WHEN: February 11, 2012 10 AM-3 PM 
Masonic Temple; Miller and Middle Street Portsmouth NH 
HOW MUCH:: $10 in advance; $15 at the door; includes four lectures and lunch of homemade soup, bread and dessert. (See details below)

The Portsmouth Historic House Association announces its annual winter symposium Life and Death in the Piscataqua Region. This year it will be held on Saturday February 11 from 10-3 at the Masonic Temple on Miller Avenue in Portsmouth. Topics include "A Lovely Spot: African American Guest House Culture and Rock Rest" by Jacob Barry, a student at the Cooperstown Graduate program. "Piscataqua in Arms: the 1774 Raid on Fort William and Mary" by Thomas Kehr, attorney and local historian; "Rack em Up: Historic Antlers of Portsmouth" by Gerald Ward, Senior Consulting Curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and “It is a Magnificent Cluster of Memories: A Century of Preservation at the Moffatt-Ladd House” by Barbara Ward, Director/Curator at the Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden. Reservations may be made by calling the Moffatt-Ladd House 436-8221; tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. Lunch is served – homemade soup, bread and dessert. We usually have nearly 100 in attendance so make sure you reserve early.

Portsmouth Historic Houses Associates, Inc. (PHHA) founded in 1946, is a consortium of local historic house museums that includes Historic New England (Jackson House, Gov. John Langdon House and the Rundlet-May House), the Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden, the Portsmouth Historical Society at the John Paul Jones House, Strawbery Banke Museum, the Warner House Association, the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion, and the Wentworth-Gardner and Tobias Lear Association.  PHHA is dedicated to fostering communication among Portsmouth's independent historic house museums to bring to a wider audience the history of Portsmouth, its architecture, its gardens, and its people.  Learn more about PHHA and its activities and other upcoming events at www.portsmouthhistorichouses.org.  For more information or to register for the symposium, please call (603) 436-8221.