the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail adds three historic sites

After 13 years researching and publicizing black history in the Port City, the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail is almost complete. Three bronze plaques went on display at the Gov. John Langdon House on Aug. 25 and will remain there until they are ready to be permanently moved to the historic sites they will mark. The markers give a smattering of background information about the sites, but PBHT president and co-founder Valerie Cunningham offered some further insight into the significance of the final three sites on the trail.

The Sherburne House
This plaque will stand by the Sherburne House at the Strawbery Banke Museum to commemorate two slaves known to have lived in the house during the mid-18th century. Very little is known about the two slaves, but their weights and genders were listed in the property inventory of Joseph and Mary Sherburne. There was a male weighing 200 pounds, and a female weighing just 50 pounds, according to the paperwork. The lack of more specific information about the slaves, such as their names, is not unusual.

“People didn’t write much about their slaves,” Cunningham said. “That wasn’t considered important enough for them to write about, just like they didn’t write about their children, and men didn’t write about their wives. Men mostly just wrote about themselves.”

Cunningham surmises that the man probably worked for Joseph at sea, on the dock, in his store and on outlying farmland, and that the female mostly worked in and around the house, assisting Mary with daily chores. The two slaves probably slept in the attic.

The Samuel Penhallow House
The plaque at the Penahllow House in Strawbery Banke details the importance of this house in the documentation of slaves’ ownership status in Colonial Portsmouth. Slaves came to the house of clerk Samuel Penhallow, on Washington Street, to receive documentation of their freedom once they were released by their owners or had bought their own freedom.

“Especially during the period after the fugitive slave laws were passed, it was important for people to have written evidence that they were actually free,” Cunningham said. “We know of one woman who was married to an enslaved black man and who had several children. She went to the city clerk, Penhallow, to get papers stating that she and her children were free people.”  At this time, law required that children assumed the slave status of their mothers, but Cunningham said many parents wanted documentation, just in case. “Any black person could be taken and sold unless they had papers that proved they were free,” she said. “People just assumed that all black people were slaves. Bounty hunters would just take them and say, ‘This is a runaway slave,’ and, unless they could prove otherwise, they could be sold again into slavery.”

Exactly how many people received this documentation is unknown, but it is assumed that it was a relatively common practice during this time, especially for former slaves who planned to travel alone, making them prime targets for capture under fugitive slave laws. 

Rosary Cooper (1918-1997)
Rosary Cooper first came to the Seacoast as a nanny, working for a family who owned a hotel in Ogunquit, Maine. When the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard started hiring women, she realized she could get a good job at the shipyard that would pay more than her nanny position. She took up a position as a clerk typist, taking the bus to work each day in Portsmouth. She soon married Portsmouth native Owen Finnegan Cooper, who left home shortly thereafter to serve in World War II. With most of the men gone to war, Rosary began operating a crane that loaded keels for making submarines.

“When her husband got back from the war, they bought this huge 16-room house, and they had no children, so they decided to rent out the rooms to men who were working at the Shipyard,” Cunningham said. “She went to beauty school in Boston and got her license in the state of New Hampshire. She opened up her shop right there, attached to the house.” Rosary Cooper was the first licensed black beautician in the state. She operated her shop in Portsmouth during a time when most local whites would not serve the black community.

The commemorative plaque will be located at the Cooper House on Washington Street, which is currently under renovation.

Although the trail marking is now almost complete, Cunningham stressed that the PBHT still has a lot of work to do. “Just because we have finished installing all of the markers doesn’t mean that our work is done,” she said. “Our current project is at the African American Guesthouse in Kittery Point, Maine. Also, one area that hasn’t been included in the trail is the whole west end of Portsmouth. We’re researching the families that lived there, and there might be some trail sites there in the future.” 

Also on the list of ongoing projects is development of a memorial to be placed at the African American burial ground on Chestnut Street. In fall 2003, construction workers unearthed coffins while repairing a sewer line, bringing the site to the public’s full attention. “The funny thing is that our first marker was at that site, before Public Works made its accidental discovery,” Cunningham said. “In 2000, we put a marker on the house on the corner of State and Chestnut streets, because we knew it was supposed to be in that area. They were repairing a sewer line when they bumped into the casket.  Sometimes people don’t hear about things until a backhoe pulls a casket out of the ground.” A few members of the PBHT are working with the city’s African Burial Ground Committee to design a fitting memorial for the site.

For more information about the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, visit www.pbhtrail.org.