May 23rd – Stephen Luce talked on the subject of Puritans, Pirates, and Portuguese at the Museum. In 1630 Robert Rich, the 2nd Earl of Warwick, together with other prominent English Puritans, claimed the Spanish island of Santa Catalina, re-named it Providence, and started the Providence Island Company. They envisioned this small, isolated island as […]

Mar 14, 2024 – Christian McBurney spoke on his new book, Machine Guns in Narragansett Bay: The Coast Guard’s War on Rumrunners  (History Press, 2023) During World War I and World War II, Rhode Island was dotted with coastal forts filled with large caliber guns. Yet they were never fired in anger.  By contrast, from

Mar 7, 2024 – The RI Secretary of State participate din Portsmouth’s celebration of Founders’ Day with Showing of the Original 1638 Compact and 1776 Southwick Copy of Declaration of Independence   The Portsmouth Historical Society hosted a celebration of the Town’s 1638 founding with a ceremony at the Town Hall on March 7.   The

Mar 1, 2024 – Craig Clark, Society President appeared on the local TV series Portsmouth This Week

Feb 29, 2024 -Ten teams gathered at the Gulf Stream Bar & Grille for the 2024 PHS History Trivia Contest. It ended in a first place tie with the ‘The Northenders’ beating out ‘Patriots Posse’ in a sudden death playoff .  The winning team was Lois Ryan, Bob Hamilton , Dave and Deb Duggan, Gerry

Dec 6, 2023 Historical Society held its 2023 Annual Meeting and Holiday Gathering The Society held its annual meeting and holiday gathering that featured showing of recently-digitized color and black and white films of Glen Farm and the Newport County Fairgrounds from the 1920’s and 1930’s. Also, official Portsmouth flag were unveiled.

RIPBS is filming a segment for their very successful series Treasures Inside the Museum at PHS. We can’t wait to see the final results sometime this spring.

Many people may be unaware of the influences and contributions of Indigenous peoples, such as the Narragansett and the Pokanoket, in the early history of Portsmouth. There is a general feeling and misconception that once Aquidneck Island was transferred to the English, Indigenous peoples were no longer a part of Portsmouth history. This lecture shed

Some future historians from the 2nd grade at Highland Charter School in Warren came to visit. The Goodwife (Schoolteacher) talked to them about attending a one-room schoolhouse and they got to ring the old schoolbell. Spending time in the Old Town Hall helped them learn about Portsmouth’s agricultural past and they enjoyed our collection in

The Portsmouth Historical Society Museum hosted a remembrance ceremony of the tragic event. On Sunday, October 23, 1983, at about 6:20 a.m., a yellow Mercedes stake-bed truck crashed into the lobby of the barracks of the 1st Battalion 8th Marines before the driver detonated a suicide bomb. The bomb was the equivalent of about 12,000