For 10 years, long ago, there was an elk outside my bedroom window. It never moved. The life-sized bronze statue stood on a pedestal in front of the Elks Lodge in downtown Portsmouth. I lived across from 93 Pleasant St. I was so fascinated by the giant metal deer that I never paid much attention to the three-story brick building that loomed behind.
I didn’t know it had been a private home and a hotel, and I didn’t believe the rumor that George Washington slept there. Until last week, I didn’t know its official name is the Treadwell-Jenness House. When I read about a proposal to convert the structure into a series of affordable “micro apartments,” I wanted to know more. Here’s a quick overview of what I found.
Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the way recent events are helping Americans come to terms with our checkered past.
Twenty-something years ago, I was chatting with a college professor at Prescott Park when the topic turned to American slavery. I noted, having recently interviewed historian Valerie Cunningham, that the first enslaved African in New Hampshire had arrived at this very spot in 1645.
Slavery is a Southern thing
“That can’t be true,” my scholarly companion replied, or something to that effect. He seemed offended by the very idea. “There was no slavery around here. That was a Southern thing,” he corrected.