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 Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents.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

NORTH SIDE OF BUCK STREET. 211
of more value than Trin's. By a remarkable providence,
no person suffered severe personal injury except our late
fellow citizen John Smith, who exhibited in his walk ever
afterwards the evidence of the breaking of one of his
limbs on that occasion.
As in opening the ruins of Herculaneum, not only the
remains of edifices but also the little details of the furniture discovered are regarded with interest, so may some
of the details of life, which a half a century ago would
have passed as scarcely worthy of comment, now be
brought out as characteristics or marks of a former age.
We have already spoken of the extent of the ravages of
the great fire of 1813, and described some of the buildings
destroyed. We will now begin at the river on the north
side of State street. Before the Pier wharf wasibuilt, more
than sixty years ago, the cap-sill of Sherburne's wharf on
that site was nearly on a line with the east end of where
Mr. Hall Varrel's cooper's shop now stands. Within a few
feet of the wharf was a carved statue of a man, with extended arm, and from his forefinger a stream of water was
continually issuing. This was a fanciful vent of the Portsmouth Aqueduct, which had recently brought the water
from a fountain two and a half miles distant.
On the northwesterly side of the street, there was a two
story store extending from the river to a narrow passageway for teams to Langdon's wharf. The easterly end was
occupied sixty years ago by Capt. Elisha Lowe as a grocery
store, and the westerly end was improved for the storage
of heavy imported goods.
Next west of the passageway stood a two story store
with the end to the street, which at one time was occupied
by Abel Harris, for cleaning flax seed, of which he shipped
several cargoes to Europe. It was afterwards occupied as
a wholesale crockery ware store by Zebulon Robinson.
West of this store was a small two-story house occupied