Governor of Newfoundland. One of the results of this summer cruise is
the town of Portsmouth, among whose leafy ways, and into some of whose
old-fashioned houses, I purpose to take the reader, if he have an idle
hour on his hands. Should we meet the flitting ghost of some old-time
worthy, on the staircase or at a lonely street corner, the reader must
be prepared for it.




II. ALONG THE WATER SIDE

IT is not supposable that the early settlers selected the site of their
plantation on account of its picturesqueness. They were influenced
entirely by the lay of the land, its nearness and easy access to the
sea, and the secure harbor it offered to their fishing-vessels; yet they
could not have chosen a more beautiful spot had beauty been the sole
consideration. The first settlement was made at Odiorne's Point--the
Pilgrims' Rock of New Hampshire; there the Manor, or Mason's Hall, was
built by the Laconia Company in 1623. It was not until 1631 that the
Great House was erected by Humphrey Chadborn on Strawberry Bank. Mr.
Chadborn, consciously or unconsciously, sowed a seed from which a city
has sprung.

The town of Portsmouth stretches along the south bank of the Piscataqua,
about two miles from the sea as the crow flies--three miles following
the serpentine course of the river. The stream broadens suddenly at this
point, and at flood tide, lying without a ripple in a basin formed by
the interlocked islands and the mainland, it looks more like an island
lake than a river. To the unaccustomed eye there is no visible outlet.