Picture 1630, when Captain Walter Neale named this settlement for the wild berries along the Piscataqua River. This is the oldest neighborhood in New Hampshire to be settled by Europeans and the earliest neighborhood remaining in the present-day city of Portsmouth. Its story begins in 1630, when Captain Walter Neale chose this spot for a settlement and named it for the wild berries along the Piscataqua River.
A year later, in 1631, Humphrey Chadborn constructed the Great House — the first permanent English building here. As more houses went up and English ships arrived, the tidal inlet port at Strawbery Banke grew known for its mercantile success, and the area that the museum now encompasses took the name Puddle Dock for the merchants’ wharves. Today you can walk among more than 37 restored buildings built between the 17th and 19th centuries, showcasing Colonial, Georgian, and Federal architecture.
The buildings once clustered around a watery inlet that was filled in around 1900; today that former waterway appears as a large open space. That large open space beside the restored houses is where Puddle Dock once flowed, filled in around 1900.