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 Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents.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

208 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
the New Hampshire Hotel; in this street the Post Office
was located for many years, and also the Custom House.
Here too was the public grammar school of the town. The
street was very narrow and irregular, not averaging much
more than half its present width of sixty feet. Between
Washington and Atkinson streets it was only about twenty
five feet wide —comparing well with Hunking street of the
present day. On the north side of the street, outside of
the side-walk, in front of the Episcopal chapel, can now be
seen the stone covering of a well. This well was in the
front yard of Abraham Isaac's house before the fire.
Measuring the same distance from the opposite side of the
street so as to reduce the width just one-half, will give an
idea of State street before the fire.
This street was the first to be furnished with paved sidewalks, and here was the place of promenade of the elite of
the town. There were continual arrivals at the Pier, of
ships, brigs and schooners; and through this street there
were more goods transported than through any other in
Portsmouth. Then the commerce of our merchants was
extended to Europe, South America and the East and West
Indies. We find that in 1800, no less than twenty-eight
ships, forty-seven brigs, ten schooners and one bark were
employed on foreign voyages, belonging to Portsmouth.
Seventeen of these vessels were built here in the year
1800. Twenty coasting vessels were also employed.
The Portsmoutlh Pier in those days was a corporation of
some magnitude. The company was chartered in 1795.
They constructed the Pier or wharf which still bears the
name, 340 feet in length and averaging sixty feet in breadth.,On the south side of it they built an edifice which
was not at that day equalled by anything in New England,
not excepting the warehouses of Boston of that day. It
was three hundred and twenty feet in length and thirty feet
in breadth-three stories high. It was divided into four