Public Tour | City of Portsmouth’s NH Walking Tour | 2 hrs.

Father of the American Navy who stayed at the Purcell House while the Ranger and America were being build for the revolution.

Steps from the John Paul Jones House was a former cemetery for the enslaved and free Africans in Portsmouth. We stop by this location to talk about the history of the black community who helped build Portsmouth.

Market Square has been the city's commercial and community hub since the mid-1700s, serving as a site for trade, military training, and as the home of the State Legislature. The square was paved in 1762 after a public lottery and rebuilt with brick after a major fire in 1802, with many historic buildings from the era still standing today, such as the North Church, built in 1854. Despite periods of decline and urban renewal in the mid-20th century, the area was revitalized by developers and is now a vibrant center for arts, dining, and heritage tourism. Market Square has been the city's main economic and community center since the mid-20th century.
A major fire in 1802 destroyed many of the buildings, but they were quickly rebuilt in brick, which now form some of the city's finest examples of early 19th-century commercial architecture.
The North Church, a landmark in the center of the square, was constructed in 1854 on the site of a meeting house that dated back to 1712.

The park was a vision of sisters Josie and Mary Prescott, who used a large inheritance from their brother to transform a run-down waterfront area of Portsmouth into a public park in the 1930s. The land, once filled with warehouses and a red-light district, was purchased to create a beautiful public space. In 1954, the sisters' trust fund officially transferred the park to the city for perpetual use, and it has since become a popular destination for gardens, and the annual summer theater festival. Before the park, the area was a bustling but decaying industrial and maritime hub along the Piscataqua River. By the 1930s, it had become a rundown neighborhood, with warehouses, wharves, and a red-light district. Josie and Mary Prescott, who grew up in the neighborhood, had a dream to clean up and beautify the area for public use and they used a significant inheritance from their brother, Charles, who had achieved great success in Erie. In the 1935, they began purchasing the properties.

The Tobias Lear House is a historic Georgian home built in the 1740s. Its history is linked to the Lear family and a visit from George Washington in 1789, but its connection to Ona Judge is indirect: Judge escaped enslavement from Washington to live in Portsmouth in 1796. While the Lear house and the house where Ona Judge married Jack Staines were both in the city, there is no direct link or evidence she was ever associated with the Tobias Lear House itself. Tobias Lear (George Washington's private secretary), hosted President Washington at the house in 1789 during his Northern Tour. Ona Judge escaped from Mount Vernon to New Hampshire in 1796. She married a free black seaman, Jack Staines, in Portsmouth. They were married at the South Meeting House on the foundation of what is now the Old South Church.
Connection to the Lear house: Judge lived in Portsmouth and Greenland for the rest of her life. She lived on a quarter-acre of land in Greenland, and she is believed to be buried there.

Fitz John Porter, born in Portsmouth in 1822, was a Civil War hero and controversy figure. A West Point graduate and Mexican-American War veteran, he became a brigadier general and helped train the Army of the Potomac. His career was damaged after the Second Battle of Manassas due to accusations of insubordination and association with General McClellan, leading to court-martial and dismissal in 1863. He spent years fighting to clear his name, and in 1886, he was exonerated and restored to his rank by President Cleveland. Portsmouth honored him with a statue in 1904 and a historical marker at his birthplace.

History and technology coexist at Navy's oldest shipyard, established in 1800 in Kittery, near Portsmouth, is the Navy's oldest continuous shipyard. Originally focused on warships like USS Washington (1814), it shifted to submarines around WWI and became a center for submarine design post-WWII. Now, it repairs and modernizes the Navy's nuclear submarines.
1800: Established by President John Adams, oldest Navy yard.
1814: Launch of USS Washington. 1905: Hosts Treaty of Portsmouth, ending Russo-Japanese War. WWI: Begins building submarines, including the first at a U.S. Navy yard, L-8. WWII: Workforce exceeds 25,000; builds over 70 submarines. Post-WWII: Becomes submarine design hub. 1969: Launch of USS Sand Lance, last public yard submarine.
Today: Focuses on overhaul, repair, and modernization of nuclear submarines. Located on Seavey's Island in Kittery, Maine, despite its name and ties to Portsmouth, New Hampshire—subject to a border dispute, resolved by the Supreme Court.