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| | | | Penhallow House | | | | | Penhallow House, the only "saltbox" house remaining at Strawbery Banke, and one of very few left in this area, is rich in history. Samuel Penhallow built this house about 1750, the year of his marriage. A highly respected local magistrate and Deacon of the North Church, Penhallow lived here for more than sixty years. As a judge, he was known for his swift and impartial dispensation of the law. Charles Brewster, the nineteenth-century chronicler, claimed that "neither the possession of wealth, nor any advantitious condition of life of the accused, ever influenced 'the old Deacon'." The small room at the southern end of the first floor was his courtroom.
Deacon Penhallow and his wife, Prudence, for many years kept a "penny shop" in this house selling small items such as pins, needles, threads, and snuff. John Paul Jones reportedly frequented their shop while a resident of Portsmouth in 1777 and 1781 supervising construction of war ships which he was to command. A hatchment, a coat of arms, embroidered by Prudence Penhallow is now at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.
| | Deacon Penhallow's grandfather, also named Samuel, was a man of even greater prominence in New Hampshire. Born in Cornwall and the first Penhallow to come to Portsmouth, Samuel served as a King's Councilor and as treasurer and Chief Justice of the province. He is best remembered, however, as the author of The History of the Wars of New England With the Eastern Indians. This now extremely rare book was published in 1726, the year of Penhallow's death. His special interest in the subject is understandable since Ursula Cutt, the widow of the province's first president, John Cutt, who was Penhallow's father-in-law, was killed by Indians at her farm just a few miles upriver from Portsmouth in 1694.
Penhallow House originally stood at the southeast corner of Court and Pleasant Streets. It was moved to its present site in 1862. At that time the tide still flowed into Puddle Dock, and Canoe Bridge spanned its upper end just south of this house on Washington Street. The interior of Penhallow House still retains many original doors, sash, lights of glass, and cornices, as well as several windows with folding shutters and window seats. A portion of Penhallow house today serves as a craft shop. More complete restoration is planned after additional research. At the side of the shed behind the house can be seen some of the wooden pipes from the Portsmouth Aqueduct, the city's first water system.
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