If you weren't there, you missed it. But through the miracle of crummy digital cameras, we bring you a sample of just a few of the many panels that filled hundreds of square feet of illustrated canvas. It was as hard to shoot these pictures in the dark as it was to snap the ice sculpture seen here, so you'll have to use your imagination. The pieces of the mural were assembled back to back outside a wooden structure that included floodlights. The whole thing wobbled strangely in the wind just a few yards from the North Church in downtown Portsmouth while thousands of visitors swarmed around. Our kudos to muralist Leenn Willey who coordinated the epic work of a dozen local artists.

You'll see Wentworth by the Sea, early explorers, runaway slave Ona Staines, local streetwalkers, Washington, the Black Heritage Trail and more. Our favorite is the picture of former mayor Eileen Foley, aged five, snipping the ribbon to open the Memorial Bridge in 1923. We also love the illustration of John Paul Jones riding out of Portsmouth on his horse "Ranger" that the artist later realized as actually a ship and not a horse. History lives! We love them all. A great event we were proud to sponsor. - JDR

Visitors walk down the Portsmouth Timeline Mural on New Year's Eve 2001


We don't know that Martin Pring ever disembarked to meet the locals, but we don't know he didn't.


Pro Portsmouth volunteer crew builds the temporary mural on Pleasant Street, weighing it down against the frigid wind with sand bags.


Wentworth-by-the-Sea didn't look like this in 1874, but it did by the Jones Era two decades later and looks much the same today.


A very postmodern George Washington visits Portsmouth.

CONTINUE THE TIMELINE TOUR

Read "400 Years in Market Square"
Visit Portsmouth Timeline website

Copyright © 2001 SeacoastNH.com. All rights reserved
Photos by J. Dennis Robinson