Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

THE OLD BELL TAVERN. 339
RAMBLE CXLIII.
The Old Bell Tavern.
THE old landmarks of a city, if not of great beauty, have
an iiterest which time gives to many things of antiquity.
Four or five successive generations have been wont to
look upon this old tavern, as one of the matters which
formed the hub of the busy Wheel of Portsmouth. In the
recollections of our older inhabitants, the Court House, the
old North Church and the Iell Tavern have an association,
together with? the Parade and the old oak still standing,
which has fixed a lasting picture on the mind.
They have revolutionary associations. When the patriot
Manning on the west Court House steps threw up his hat,
declaring that Aing street should no longer bear that name,
btit in Congress street should in future the Bell Tavern
be found-from that day the name of the street was
changed.
In 1727, the Gains house was built on the west side of
the Bell Tavern lot, having a front yard 40 or 50 feet deep.
In 1738, a building occupied by Robert Macklin, the baker,
who lived to the age of 115 years, was burnt on the present site of Congress Block. Soon after, a portion of the
first meeting house was removed to the spot, from the south
mill dam, and made a dwelling house for John Newmarch,
a merchant. Five years after, in 1743, PaulMarch, who
married a daughter of John Newmarch, built the Bell
Tavern. The building was framed by Hopestill Caswell of
New iMarket, a mulatto, half brother of Paul March. That
it was strongly made, the test of a century and a quarter
has shown. On the completion of the work there was,
according to the custom of the day, a merry gathering to'
commemorate it. Though Hopestill had performed an im.
portant part of the work, he did not venture to approtaca