An important message from Executive Director & Keeper Tom Hardiman:
Many of you have already learned of my decision to take early retirement, effective July 31, after 26 years as your Keeper and Executive Director. We have achieved great things together, including the launch of our integrated digital catalog, which makes our collections accessible to researchers anywhere in the world. We have doubled our footprint on Market Square. The Athenæum is a model of financial and operational strength, with membership numbers and operating budgets nearly triple what they were 20 years ago.
I am particularly proud of the Athenæum’s role in establishing, after 35 years of effort, a legal framework to create a joint collections and research facility for all of Portsmouth’s major repositories of historical documents and artifacts. Planning, funding, and building the Portsmouth Archive Center will be a years-long project. It makes sense for me to pass the baton to someone who can take our team to the finish line.
Rest assured, you will still see me at the Athenæum, enjoying our beautiful historic spaces and delving into the books and documents I have loved and shared with you for so many years.
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📸 Tom Hardiman at the Athenæum`s bicentennial dinner at the Wentworth-by-the-Sea in 2017. Courtesy of Tom Hardiman.
This Valentine`s weekend, love can be found in our archives as archivist Katy Sternberger shares a matrimonial letter from the Halliburton family papers.
In this April 4, 1844, letter to Susan Hamilton Peters, James Pierrepont Halliburton asks for her hand in marriage. He writes, “Mon Cher Ami, It gives me great pleasure to be allowed to express on paper that which I have been unable to communicate verbally & in accordance with your wishes & my promise. I hereby relate in as few words as possible the story of so much interest both to yourself & me; the alphas & omegas of which I will express in one line, ‘Will you receive my hand, accept my heart & become my Bride?’”
James had also purchased a watch for Susan, so he hopes his proposal will explain the story behind the gift and that she will “communicate to me a story equally as interesting.”
The Halliburton family papers, 1809–1900, including this handwritten marriage proposal, were recently processed by archives graduate student intern Mary Saunders.
The couple wed in 1846, and they had two children. Sadly, James died from a lung illness in July 1849, a few months after the birth of their second daughter. Our archives also document Susan`s life as a widow living in the family home on Islington Street. These papers reflect both the income received from rents and investments of her former husband and money paid out for living expenses such as home maintenance, heat, groceries, and doctors` bills. In 1856, Susan remarried. Her second husband was widower George W. Haven, who was also a banker and an Athenaeum Proprietor. They had one son.
Shortly before 6 a.m. on December 4, 1880, a deadly fire broke out on the fifth floor of the six-story Kearsarge cotton mill off Hanover Street in Portsmouth, NH. #thismonthinhistory #145yearsago
Reportedly, an employee was cleaning the piping with a “piece of waste” when it came into contact with a gas jet, igniting. When the worker dropped the flaming waste onto the oil-soaked floor, the fire quickly spread, blocking the staircase. Trapped employees had to leap over the blaze, which resulted in several people being severely burned. During the escape, others were trampled.
Spinner James Greenwood (1827-1880) was reported missing. On January 12, 1881, his remains were found among the ruins. An emigrant from Blackburn, England, James and his family lived on McDonough Street in the 1880 census. His wife, Ellen Whalley, and his three eldest children (Nancy, 26, Margaret, 18, and Nathan, 14) all worked in the cotton mill. He was laid to rest in Harmony Grove alonside three of his children who had died young.
Two other English immigrants suffered severe burns: Nathan Wood (s) and William Warburton.
By age 12, Nathan (1849-1880) had worked as a cotton piecer in England. In Portsmouth, he and his wife, Lydia, worked at the Kearsarge Mills. They resided on Cornwall with their three young children. Six days after the fire, he succumbed to his wounds, age 31.
Born in Stockport, William (1851-1926) arrived in America as a child with his family in the 1850s. He and many family members worked in the mill. He survived his injuries, later becoming a Portsmouth grocer for 22 years.
When the fire broke out, about 40 to 50 people were in the building, but within 20 minutes, the mill would have been in full operation, which could have resulted in more casualties.
Nearby buildings were damaged, including the Freewill Baptist Church (The Pearl). At the jail on Islington, Sheriff Kent had devised a plan to move its 10 prisoners to police headquarters. Windswept embers sparked small fires across the city. The financial loss topped $400,000, and the destruction devastated the Portsmouth economy, leaving 300 to 350 operatives jobless.
The holidays can seem hurried, stressful, and full of lists. At our Athenaeum we can pause and take time to review a list of things for which we can be thankful. First and foremost on that list is you, our members and friends whose support literally makes everything we do possible. In a worrying time in which non-profits throughout our region are struggling, our Athenaeum is thriving thanks to your generous support. We have a very strong board leading us in a strategic, methodical transition to a more effective organization with a very bright future. You already know we have the absolute best staff. If you don’t know that, come in and spend five minutes with them and you will be convinced.
My personal bit of gratitude for the day is for having a place where I can access information that is not pre-filtered by an algorithm. Today I checked our 1771 edition of the Encyclopedia Britanica for “Athenaeum.” It says: “a place wherein the professors of the liberal arts held their assemblies, the rhetoricians declaimed, and the poets rehearsed their performances.” While we do all of those things, I think a more apt definition is in our 1866 Webster’s Dictionary: “an association of persons of literary or scientific tastes for the purpose of mutual improvement.” We are definitely better and stronger together. Thank you!
--Executive Director and Keeper Tom Hardiman
Happy Thanksgiving from the Portsmouth Athenaeum! 🦃 🍂 🍁
Ring in the holiday season with the Boston Bay Quartet, a dynamic woodwind ensemble featuring Matthew Lee, flute; Max Reed, clarinet; Camden Christenson Ward, oboe; and Dr. April Verser, bassoon. The quartet brings a festive program of holiday favorites and chamber classics. 🌲
This free concert is a gift to the community. Donations are gratefully accepted. 🎁
All are welcome, so please invite family and friends.🕯
Holiday Concert with Back Bay Quartet Thursday, December 11, 2025 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm South Church 292 State Street, Portsmouth, NH
This past Wednesday, November 12, the congregation of Christ Episcopal Church celebrated its final liturgy in the building at 1035 Lafayette Road, according to Research Librarian Jessica Zaricki.
The community now transitions to a large-scale redevelopment project with the goal of revamping the property into a multi-use campus. The church, in partnership with violence prevention and support services agency Haven NH and the Portsmouth Housing Authority (PHA), seeks to create an environment combining faith, support, and community. The revisioned property will include a new headquarters for Haven, 44 units of workforce housing, and a new worship space for the Christ Church community.
Christ Church was established in the 1880s as the outgrowth of a Sunday School established by St. John’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth’s West End. The school, and later the church, served and supported the immigrants and working-class families employed in the city’s factories and breweries. For many years, the community continued to serve its neighbors from a Gothic structure located on Madison Street, but on June 19, 1963, that building was lost during a devastating fire.
Through the generosity of church members and members of the greater Portsmouth community, including Langdon heir John Elwyn Stone who donated the property on which the new church was constructed, Christ Church began its ministry on Lafayette Road beginning with its dedication on May 8, 1966. Over the next 70 years, they continued to be known for their support of Portsmouth’s working class–in providing a home for Little Blessings Child Care Center, housing refugee families, and acting as steward of the African Burial Ground at Langdon Farm, part of the Black Heritage Trail.
This latest challenge and great change facing Christ Church shows a people rooted in its continued mission of service to the city of Portsmouth and her residents as it lives its goals of providing support, community, and open doors to those in need.
📸 1. P0001_0811 • 2. P0001_0816 • 3. P15.352 by Douglas Armsden • 4. P0001_0767_03
Yi Qun Xu, winner of the New York International Artists Cello Competition, has been praised for her “masterful technique” and “rich tone” (The Day). A sought-after soloist and chamber musician, she has performed at Lincoln Center, Marlboro Music Festival, and internationally.
Jessica Xylina Osborne, a pianist of exceptional versatility, has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and alongside stars like Hilary Hahn and Ani Kavafian. With a passion for social justice in programming, she highlights historically marginalized composers while celebrating classical masterpieces.
Presented by the Portsmouth Athenaeum Chamber Music, the Piano and Cello Duo concert begins at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 9, 2025, at St. John’s Church, 101 Chapel Street, Portsmouth, NH. This will be a stunning performance in a historic venue. 🎶 🎹 🎻
$30 admission per person or $10 per student at the door. We accept cash, check, credit card, or Venmo.
From the corner of Fleet Street, here is a patriotic view of Congress Street decorated with flags and bunting for the Kearsarge-Alabama celebration, which took place in Portsmouth 125 years ago this week. The three-day celebration commemorated the Civil War victory of the USS Kearsarge over the Confederate raider CSS Alabama. #thisweekinhistory
On Sept. 17, 1900, the Portsmouth Herald described the event: "Portsmouth, for the state of New Hampshire, throws her doors wide open this week, to welcome all. It will be an occasion that has never been equaled in the state, in happy sentiments and national significance.
"A reunion of the north and the south and the association of two historic names in a new sense, is an opportunity that has not been neglected, and we are to celebrate a delightful custom on a broader idea that has ever been attempted before in this section.
"The appearance of the old city grandly shows the great local interest in the occasion. The great North Atlantic squadron, that powerful fleet of handsome ships, is here, and many distinguished guests are to be fittingly honored. The influence that this humble effort of the old Granite State may cast, we sincerely hope, will never be forgotten."
The Mechanics Block decorations included large murals of men on horseback and what appears to be a Civil War battle scene. Most likely, these scenes were directly related to the service of Gen. Gilman Marston (1811-1890) of Exeter, NH. Gilman served as a brigadier general in the Civil War, and he was also a U.S. Congressman. The Gen. Gilman Marston Command, Union Veterans` Union occupied the hall above the Mechanics Block from about 1895 until 1925.
While the bunting obscured many signs, Congress Street businesses like the Pettigrew Bros. shoe store, tailor W. B. Mathes, and optician C. F. Hussey were still visible. The photograph also included the studio of the photographer, L. V. Newell & Co.
[Photo by L. V. Newell & Co. Gift of Wadleigh Woods, PS1650_10]
