Let’s Meet at the Y in 1905

The more one studies Portsmouth history, the more the pieces fall together. Let’s take four pieces seemingly at random: the Music Hall, the YMCA, the Treaty of Portsmouth, and the Portsmouth Herald.

I never ate at the Sake Japanese Restaurant on Congress Street. I never bought a suit at Goodman’s Clothing Store that previously occupied that address. So I never thought much about the old YMCA building until the new owner, Mike Labrie, gave a few historians a tour recently.

It was only after the tour that I made the connection to W.H.Y. Hackett, a Portsmouth banker. It was Hackett who gave the inaugural speech at the opening of The Music Hall in 1878, then promptly died. Hackett bequeathed his large house on Congress Street to the YMCA and for two decades his house actually was the YMCA. The house was later moved to make way for the new YMCA building seen here. At the groundbreaking ceremony, Frank Hackett, son of the late W.H.Y. Hackett, gave the dedicatory speech. But at the time, the YMCA still didn’t have the estimated $35,000 to construct the building. So in 1903 there was a series of fundraisers at, you guessed it. The Music Hall.

Fast forward to early 1905 and the beautiful new YMCA building finally opened. That summer, in an effort to end the bloody Russo-Japanese War, President Theodore Roosevelt invited both countries to send delegates to Portsmouth to work out a treaty. Thanks to a new transatlantic cable, the tense negotiations were broadcast worldwide. Over 100 reporters from around the planet descended on Portsmouth for a month.

No one was happier about the city being in the media spotlight than Fernando W. Hartford, editor and owner of three Portsmouth newspapers, including the Portsmouth Herald. Hartford was also manager and owner of The Music Hall. As the treaty conference began, Hartford invited all the newsmen to a free seafood dinner. They ate on the stage of the newly renovated Music Hall. Following dinner, the reporters enjoyed a free vaudeville performance at the theater. Then they wandered over to the Rockingham Hotel where about three dozen of them posed on the front steps. FW Hartford can be seen at the center of the photo holding a small dog in his lap.

Which brings us to today’s photograph from the summer of 1905. When they were not sitting around the conference table at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, or hanging out at the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel, the delegates had a lot of downtime. Many of the foreign newsmen were housed at either the Rockingham or the Kearsarge Hotel adjacent to The Music Hall. The new YMCA building became a favorite hangout for the Japanese, seen here, prior to the historic signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth. Amid tense negotiations with their Russian counterparts, the visiting Japanese and reporters could be seen playing billiards at the YMCA. The renovated building is now home to Jimmy’s Jazz and Blues Club.

Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.