Happy 2025!🎉
Here`s a snowy view of the Thomas Neil House, a Gothic cape also known as the Samuel P. Long House, decorated for the holidays in Portsmouth. The photograph was taken on Dec. 28, 1937. #wherewasthisWednesdays🤔
In this photo, the sign next to the door was for the Emma Bilodeau Smith School of Dancing, which would be perfect if you needed to learn a few moves to ring in the New Year. In the 1936 city directory, the house was occupied by two families: Herman C. and Emma Bilodeau Smith and the widow Jennie Sinclair Neil Knowlton (1861-1961). It was Jennie who grew up in the house, and she had returned to her childhood home after living forty years away.
Included is a snapshot of Jennie with her father, Thomas Neil Jr. (1828-1930), on the front steps of the family house, where he lived for 61 years. Thomas, an Athenaeum member, worked for Charles and Alexander Ladd as a young man. Then he partnered with Nathaniel Raynes in the ship chandlery business and Augustus W. Simpson in the flour and grain business. He became the teller at the Rockingham National Bank from 1886 until about 1906. Thomas Neil was Portsmouth`s oldest resident when he died at 101 years, 5 months, and 22 days.
About 1925, which might be when this photograph was taken, Jennie was returning to her childhood home on Middle Street to care for her elderly father. Her husband was an English professor, and the couple had lived briefly in Providence, RI, & Germany, before settling in Madison, WI, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin for ten years until nerves forced him to resign in 1900. When he died several years later, she was left to raise their five children, ranging from 6 to 19. After they were grown, she returned to #PortsmouthNH. So yes, you can home again.😊
According to the centenarian`s obituary in 1961, Jennie was a dedicated naturalist who enjoyed reading about wildlife & the Bible.
In 1971, Crown International Inc. purchased the former Long-Neil house at 297 Middle Street and demolished it as part of the construction of the Portsmouth Housing Authority`s Margeson Apartments, which opened in August 1973.
📸 PS2769_13 & PS2769_11
#collectpreserveshare📖
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