Historic Homes
Circa History You Can Visit
Saint John's Church (1807)

TO VISIT: St. John’s is located at 101 Chapel Street in Portsmouth, between Bow and Daniel streets near the waterfront. You can attend church services and special events or inquire about an historic tour by calling St. John’s Episcopal Church at 603 436-8283. Visit their detailed web site at www.stjohnsnh.org.

Portsmouth was a loyal British colony when the original Queen’s Chapel was built of wood at the top of Church Hill in 1732. The city’s most aristocratic couples were married here in a town not entirely ruled by Puritans. Royal governors are buried in its high walled churchyard squeezed between narrow one-way streets. Its steeple bell and ornate baptismal font were spoils of wars fought long before the American Revolution. The oldest working pipe organ in the United States, built in England in 1708, stands just inside these walls, renamed St. John’s in 1791.

Thomas Jefferson was president when St. John’s burned to the ground on Christmas Eve in 1806. Gov. John Langdon helped dedicate a new church—this time built of brick—the following year. The font and the bell survived, after a repair by Paul Revere. The organ was safely out of town. Also on display today is a rare 1717 “Vinegar Bible,” named for a passage in which the word “vineyard” is misspelled. A chair, once occupied by George Washington, also survived the blaze.

What I love about New England churches goes beyond their distinctive architecture and joyous worship services. They are museums too, as packed with stories as a family pew on Christmas Eve. Every ornate nook within St. John’s reveals another artifact from history. And as your eyes wander among all these treasures from our colonial past, the church choir sings of a hopeful heavenly future.