Portsmouth is the place to be on June 6

Mark your calendar for Saturday, June 6, because several community events are happening on the same day, all within walking distance of each other in Portsmouth.

• More than 20 Seacoast-area nonprofits will gather in downtown Portsmouth for the fourth annual Seacoast Local Festival from 1 to 4 p.m.
• Historic New England welcomes visitors with a day of free tours at three well-known Portsmouth homes, the Langdon, Rundlet-May and Jackson houses.
• The Piscataqua Waterfront Festival, presented by Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden and The Gundalow Company, also includes a free museum house tour, as well as gundalow tours and sea shanties.
• The N.H. Leisure Expo on the grounds of Strawbery Banke Museum will offer a ride on the schooner “Fame” out of Prescott Park, with a portion of proceeds going to support the museum.
• Also in the park, the 25th annual all-you-can-eat Chowder Festival will feature food from many area restaurants, kicking off the summer-long Prescott Park Arts Festival.

The Bridge Street parking lot at the intersection of Congress Street and Maplewood Avenue will be temporarily transformed into a pedestrian-only space for the Seacoast Local Festival, where area nonprofit organizations will gather across from the Discover Portsmouth Center.

The festival was created to recognize and increase awareness of the impact nonprofit organizations have on the community. This year, it will again offer fun family activities, such as a salt-water touch tank, and entertainment, including original music, dance and comedy. Local artists playing are The Crab Shack Band, Stranger Than Fiction, The Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival, Elijah Clark and Elsa Cross. For more information, visit www.seacostlocalfest.org.
In conjunction with the festival, the Discover Portsmouth Center is displaying “You Are Here: A Seacoast Photography Exhibit,” an opportunity for residents to show what makes the area special.

The Piscataqua Waterfront Festival runs on Saturday afternoon from 1 to 4:45 p.m. The event offers a chance to visit the Gundalow Company’s replica vessel the Captain Edward H. Adams, which will be docked on the Ceres Street wharf, and browse the booths of local organizations on the street. Guests can also see demonstrations of boatbuilding and timber framing in the newly restored warehouse at the Moffatt-Ladd House at 154 Market St. in Portsmouth.

Designed to celebrate Portsmouth’s maritime heritage, the afternoon will feature music by the UNH Sea Chantey group, traditional maritime artisan demonstrations, free guided gundalow and museum tours, an heirloom plant sale and hands-on activities.

It also marks the grand opening of the Moffatt-Ladd warehouse, which is one of only a few 18th century commercial buildings to survive in the Seacoast region. It is considered one of America’s finest Georgian mansions. During the Revolution, it was the home of General William Whipple, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. At 5 p.m., Jeff Warner will perform a concert, “Songs of Old New Hampshire,” in the warehouse. For more information, visit www.moffattladd.org or call 603-430-7968.

On both Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, the New Hampshire Leisure Expo will showcase over 100 businesses associated with affordable outdoor recreation and leisure throughout the state. The event will take place in the “Puddle Dock” area at Strawbery Banke.

The Expo will serve as a guide to affordable recreation and leisure planning. This includes mountain attractions, sightseeing, boating, fishing, camping, hiking, golfing, biking, resorts, artisans and backyard enhancement exhibits.
Show hours are from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. All of Saturday’s chowder festival patrons will receive a $2 discount to the Expo as well a free raffle ticket for more than $10,000 in prizes, which will be given away at the show. For more information, visit www.nhlexpo.com.

On Saturday only, Historic New England opens its historic house museums with free admission. All seven of the Piscataqua Region museums will offer tours beginning at 11 a.m., and the last tour will be at 4 p.m.

Tours include stories about people of the Seacoast while walking through houses that date back to the 1664 Jackson House in Portsmouth, which chronicles the evolution of rural life over three centuries. The house, at 76 Northwest St., is the oldest surviving wood frame house in New Hampshire. A two-acre apple orchard overlooking North Mill Pond is the last surviving orchard in the state that still abuts tidal water.  

The Rundlet-May House, at 364 Middle St., is a Federal-style mansion built by merchant James Rundlet in 1807. It is filled with most of its original locally crafted 19th century furniture and heating and cooking technologies of the times. The formal garden blooms with fruit trees and flowers along narrow pathways.

The 1784 Governor Langdon House, at 143 Pleasant St., former home to John Langdon, a signer of the Constitution and three-term governor of New Hampshire, is considered to have the best interior carvings north of Boston. The garden features a rose and grape arbor, lawns edged by a colorful perennial border, and a shade garden.  

There is also the Gilman Garrison house in Exeter and the Sayward-Wheeler House in York, Maine. In South Berwick, Maine, there are the Sarah Orne Jewett House and the Hamilton House. For more information call 603-436-3205 or visit www.HistoricNewEngland.org.