Within days of receiving the Democratic party nomination for president, Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned in Portsmouthon July 18, 1932, drawing a crowd to Market Squareestimated at 50,000.
The New Deal candidate did not win the Granite State that November, but he would carry it for the remaining three of his historic four terms.
It's interesting he chose to campaign in Portsmouth, considering Rockingham County was a Republican stronghold, but it was likely picked as a destination in 1932 because the New York governor was returning to Albany from a fishing trip in Maine and it was a convenient stopping point.
A photo of FDR's Market Square appearance with Mayor Fernando W. Hartford — and the July 21 thank-you note from the candidate to Hartford — were donated to the Portsmouth Athenaeum in June by William Upton of Concord, an American decorative arts historian, consultant and appraiser.
He procured the photo and letter from a Massachusetts manuscript dealer.
"I come from a family of collectors," Upton said in a recent phone interview.
He also comes from a family with a history of political involvement. His grandfather, Robert W. Upton, founded a Concord law firm in 1908 that grew into Upton & Hatfield LLP; it now has four locations in the state. He also served as a U.S. senator for New Hampshire from 1953 to 1954.
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William Upton's dad is known as the father of the modern New Hampshire presidential primary.
"Before 1952, voters could only vote for candidates for delegates to the national conventions," William Upton said. "There was nothing to pledge those delegates to vote for a particular candidate at the convention.My father wanted to correct that because he sensed that voter apathy was developing. The turnout in the 1948 primary was quite low, and he thought it reflected voters' frustration."
As speaker of the New Hampshire House, Richard F. Upton was instrumental in getting a law passed that allowed residents to directly vote for the presidential candidates.
It's possible that FDR also decided to stop in Portsmouth that July day in 1932 because he could combine it with a visit to his son and daughter-in-law, James and Betsey Roosevelt, who had a summer home in Little Boar's Head, North Hampton.
The Athenaeum's archives include an undated image of FDR's formidable mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, posing on what appears to be the front porch of that house.
The photograph donated by Upton was likely taken by a Portsmouth Herald photographer — after all, Mayor Hartford (1872-1938) was the owner of the newspaper at the time.
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The Hartford family donated a sizable collection of documents and photographs to the Athenaeum, including scrapbooks, letters and newspaper clippings.
Hartford served as the city's mayor a total of seven terms, and was considered a shining star in the Republican party. So why did he welcome a Democrat to the Port City?
Probably because he was a savvy politician looking out for the interests of Portsmouth, no matter who was elected president. A number of letters in the Athenaeum collection are correspondence between Hartford and President Herbert Hoover's secretary, Theodore Joslin.
Just three months after Roosevelt's 1932 visit, Joslin wrote to reassure Hartford that the Republican president was committed to helping the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
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As president, Roosevelt would become a major supporter of the Navy Yard; photos in the Athenaeum's archives show him visiting the shipyard in the mid-1930s and in 1940, just before the United States entered World War II.
In 2006, former Portsmouth Herald publisher John Tabor (now a city councilor) wrote an essay about Hartford for the Athenaeum exhibit, "Literary Lions: Celebrating 250 Years of Print in the Seacoast."
At 11, Hartford was working in the Manchester textile mills; by 13 he was an "office devil" at the Manchester Union Leader.
"His superiors, impressed with his energy, sent him to Portsmouth three years later to build up circulation on the Seacoast," wrote Tabor. By 1891, he had attracted the attention ofale and railroad tycoon Frank Jones, who put up $2,000 to purchase The Penny Post, setting up Hartford as publisher and editor.
Hartford renamed it The Portsmouth Herald and purchased the newspaper in 1898. He would go on to be a state representative and serve as the city's mayor in the 1920s and 1930s.
In his campaign to be mayor, Hartford described himself as "a graduate of the biggest college in these United States – The College of Hard Knocks."
Hartford's name can be found on the Congress Street building that once served as the Herald's office (former home of Bull Moose music). In the 1980s, a street in The Woodlands subdivision was named in his honor. Appropriately, it connects with Hoover Drive in Portsmouth's Elwyn Park neighborhood.
The Portsmouth Athenaeum, 9 Market Square, is a nonprofit membership library and museum founded in 1817. Its research library and the Randall Gallery are open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. Masks are required. For more information, call 603-431-2538 or email info@portsmouthathenaeum.org.
