Seacoast Blog #72
November 18, 2009

I serve as a late night spy for the Portsmouth Athenaeum. I’m on the Special Collections committee, although I don’t believe I’ve ever attended a meeting. I do my work from home. Well after midnight, when I have finished my writing for the evening, I often reward myself by scanning items related to local history on eBay. Over the years, I’ve become so familiar with the standard items that I can zip thru the list of roughly 300 Portsmouth, NH artifacts like one of those airport x-ray machines. If I see something out of the ordinary, I check it out. Last week a unique item popped up and I was pleased to learn today that the Athenaeum was able to add it to their collection. And here it is. (Click to continue article)

We so rarely see any physical evidence of the bordellos and dance halls that once thrived in Portsmouth’s South End. Among the more bizarre establishments, legend says, was the bar on Four Tree Island owned by Charles E. Gray in the late 19^th century. Today Four Tree Island, just off Prescott Park, is joined to Peirce Island by a 20^th century causeway. It is a popular family picnic area in the summer.

Clues to Gray's Four Tree Island Bordello

The eBay item is a ticket about the size of a playing card. It promotes "Free Dances Tuesday & Friday Evenings" at Gray’s Four Tree Island House. I jumped when I saw the card, since I’ve been outlining a walking guide to Portsmouth that starts at Peirce Island. There is little info in print besides Ray Brighton’s research. Brighton says Gray purchased Four Tree Island in 1877 for $40. His famous "menagerie" reportedly featured an alligator, a stuffed cow that dispensed beer from its udders, and a pair of boots that once belonged to outlaw Jesse James. The "museum" and other buildings burned in a spectacular blaze in 1907. A lengthy legal circus began after Gray’s death when five women claimed to be his widow.

The back of the card includes two connected short poems that are especially intriguing because they actually refer to sexual behavior. This is especially rare in advertising of this era when bordellos were disguised as oyster bars or even ice cream shops. Although everyone in town knew what was going on in the "red light district" along the waterfront, even sideways references like this have not been seen, to my knowledge, in this town.

LAST FALL
A little horsehair sofa,
In a corner stood,
Youth and maiden sparking,
So-fa -- so good　

THIS SPRING
A little baby in a crib,
Giving lots of bother,
Youthful mother making bib,
So-fa -- no father

The poem implies that the brief affair begins on a sofa, like those found in bordellos. It also notes that the couple is very young. Local bordello owners were known to display their latest young teenage residents around town to drum up business. Boys from the Navy Yard as young as 14 were prime targets for these houses of ill fame. An article in a 1912 Portsmouth newspaper notes that a Dover girl was solicited for a Portsmouth bordello. The poem is without simpathy for the teenage mother here, and indicates that the male has abandoned the girl and moved on. Even stranger is the use of the Maine /New Hampshire dialect in "so-fa" for "so far", the same familiar accent made popular by comedians Marshall Dodge and Tim Samples.

SEE bordello owner Cappy Stewart 
READ Red Lights on Water Street 

© Copyright 2009 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.

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