February Newsletter

Stratham Event Highlights Historic Taverns

The Stratham Heritage Commission is presenting a program on the town’s historic inns and taverns. The free event, scheduled for Friday, February 17 at 7 PM, will be at the Stratham Fire Station, 2 Winnicutt Rd. Throughout the colonial era and into the early years of the 19th century Stratham’s inns and taverns were centers of the town’s political, social, legal, and business activities. The two leading taverns, identified on the 1793 map of Stratham as “Kennison’s Inn” and “Chace’s Inn,” still stand as witnesses to the town’s early history.

The featured speaker will be Marcia Blaine Schmidt, historian at Plymouth State University, who will talk on the history of taverns and tavern life in New Hampshire with an emphasis on the many women tavernkeepers, including Stratham’s Widow Love Chase. Stratham antique dealer, Ronald Deane, will show photographs of the work he has been doing rehabilitating Kenniston’s Tavern on Portsmouth Avenue. In 2011 Deane purchased the historic house that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. At that time it was foreclosed and at risk of demolition.

Heritage Commission Chair Rebecca Mitchell, who will also speak at the event, observed: “Last year Stratham celebrated the 300th anniversary of the founding of both the town and Stratham Community Church. This year it seems right to shine some light on a third institution that was central to life in early Stratham – the inns and taverns.”

For more information: (603) 778-7979; email Heritage@strathamnh.gov