Charles W. Brewster
Portsmouth, NH


Photo courtesy of J. Dennis Robinson.

Charles W. Brewster (1802-1869) spent almost all of his life in Portsmouth, NH. He remains there still in a family plot in Harmony Grove Cemetery. It is impossible to study the history of Portsmouth with confronting Brewster’s “Rambles About Portsmouth”, a 2-volume collection of 149 historical essays recycle from his newspaper, The Portsmouth Journal. Althought not always accurate (Brewster was a journalist, after all, not an historian), his essays capture the era when those who remembered the American Revolution were being supplanted by those who would fight the Civil War. Considered a dull man personally, his curiosity led him into nooks and crannies that would be forgotten today and about which he has left detailed and often fascinating essays. He loved poetry, gardening, the occult, religion, natural history, business, maritime history, genealogy and just about everything, which is why his collected essays are so rich with detail – and why we are republishing his complete Rambles – all 855 pages, online at SeacaostNH.com.

HOURS: Dawn to dusk
WEBSITE: http://seacoastnh.com/brewster
ADDRESS: Harmony Grove Cemetery Portsmouth, NH 03802
DIRECTIONS: Harmony Grove is part of the South Cemetery at the corner of South and Sagamore. Brewster's grave is toward the South Street side, down the first slope and at the corner of two paths near the slanted tree pictured,
LINKS: INdex to the Rambles Online, ACcording to Brewster,