SeaZen

I wrote this for a project on NH 1650-1750 hope you like it.

Ca-chunk! Ca-chunk! SSSHHH! SSSHHH! Chop! Chop! Bang! Bang! The sound of the shipyard could be heard all over Portsmouth as the shipwrights worked away. The shipyards built the economy on colonial New Hampshire by harvesting the native oak and white pine for the building of ships and ship parts. In 1653 the 60 families living in Strawberry Bank petitioned to change the name of their city to Portsmouth after Portsmouth, England. One of the deepest harbors in the world was about to become one of the most successful shipyards in the modern world. The harbors’ first ships were mostly fishing schooners, light blockade runners, and small merchant cutters. The three Portsmouth, NH shipyards built several significant warships between 1650 and 1750: the Faulkland, a 54 gun 1^st rate frigate built in 1690; the Bedford, a 32 gun 3^rd rate frigate built in 1696; and the America, a 40 gun 2^nd rate frigate built in 1749.

Surrounding Portsmouth was an immense large oak and white pine forest with many rivers running through it. All the rivers led to Portsmouth harbor. The terrain was perfect for a shipbuilding economy. In the summer the trees came from deep in the forest and were taken out by a team of 20 or 30 men who would stay out for weeks at a time to find masts, yardarms, ribs, spars and keels for the ships being built at the shipyards. The men would search the forest high and low until they found a tree to suffice their needs. They would chop it down and hitch it to a team of oxen, then drag it to a swift river and float it Portsmouth.

In the winter the trees were cut down and the carpenters, shipwrights, riggers and everyone would come to the forest and take everything they needed to build the ship on the spot! The trees would be cut down and the whole ship was made in the woods. When the ship was complete they would set it down on the Piscataqua River and wait for summer.

One of the most amazing stories was when the United States congress in 1749 ordered the America be built. It was in the winter time around January when they got the order to build the 2^nd rate frigate America. The America was 250ft by 40ft. The main mast was roughly 210ft, the foremast roughly 190ft, the mizzen mast 150ft tall. So building the ship was no easy task. The shipyard crew worked around the clock and finished the ship in 3 months. The ship had sails, block and tackle, rigging, yards, rudder, rudder chain, everything to sail. They hitched 200 oxen to the ship and dragged it six miles to Portsmouth. They rolled logs under the ship and kept it level with weights. They dragged it through the woods and into city streets. When the America got to the harbor they dragged it to the dry docks and launched it. A 2^nd rate frigate built in 3 months and launched 3 days after is an amazing feat!

New Hampshire was not regarded as a up and running colony by most of England until the East India Company realized that Portsmouth was putting more shipbuilding equipment such as hemp rope, block and tackle, and timber than they were. The Company sent a representative to New Hampshire to evaluate the situation. The representative was so impressed by the skill and efficiency that he resigned and became one of the most successful timber merchants in the colonies.

Even after 1750 Portsmouth was a thriving port building 3 more warships that served in the American Revolution: the Raleigh, a 74 gun 3^rd rate ship-of-the-line built in 1776 which is the ship on the New Hampshire flag; the Ranger, an 18 gun schooner built in 1777; and the America, a 102 gun 1^st rate ship-of-the-Line built in 1778. Trade of wool, timber, and alcohol was popular and the Portsmouth ships were able to move these goods. However the New Hampshire shipbuilding legacy came to an end, around 1808 when the economy which relied on the building of wooden ships went down the tubes when the steam ship came out. The shipyards could did not have the tools or resources to build the steel steamship stacks, propellers, and many other parts.