I have been unsuccessful in locating a copyright-free photograph of The Music Hall. Loew i n the mid-1960s, it remained a Loew’s theater until the early 1980s.
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Specifically designed as movie houses, their competition caused T he Music Hall to struggle.Īuctioned in 1945 to a resident of Kittery, The Music Hall was renamed The Civic. Soon, three new theaters opened in Portsmouth. When Hollywood films became popular between the world wars, the Music Hall was adapted to present movies. The theater became an early stop for many Broadway plays, including Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and No, No, Nanette through the mid-1920s. Among its many famous entertainers was Mark Twain, who spoke here in 1908. Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show performed inside, and the first movie in Portsmouth was shown here on an Edison’s Graphophone in 1898.įrank Jones, the famous industrialist and owner of the largest brewery in America at the time, renovated and restored The Music Hall in 1901. The Pierce family estate purchased the lot and built The Music Hall on the site of The Temple in 1877, and Portsmouth’s new entertainment venue opened in January, 1878. Fire destroyed this historic building in 1876. A performing arts center with two theaters in downtown Portsmouth featuring music, movies, comics, literary events twelve months a year. Prior to the Civil War, black abolitionists spoke here, including Frederick Douglass. This theater, called The Temple, became the most popular lecture and exhibition hall in Portsmouth during the mid- to late-1800s. Starting in 1847, it was briefly owned by the Washingtonian Temperance Society of Portsmouth. The building was then purchased by a group of businessmen who converted it into a 1000-seat amphitheater.
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The Free Will Baptist Meeting House, or Christian Church, was built here in 1803 and served as their place of worship until 1844. In 1781, boys accidentally started a fire in a barn here that soon got out of control, burned the town jail and destroyed the original Rockingham House. Some sources claim the jail stood on The Music Hall's location however, the jail was actually built on the southeast corner of Chestnut and Porter Streets, currently the TD Bank parking lot. Prison Lane was later renamed Chestnut Street, and Fetter Lane became Porter Street. According to the Annals of Portsmouth, by Nathaniel Adams, a two-story “gaol was built in this town, at the corner of Prison-lane and Fetter-lane” in 1759.