Placenames of Portsmouth

By Nancy W. Grossman
Back Channel Press, 2005/2011, paperback

Talk about a labor of love! Nancy W. Grossman ​spent countless hours tracking the history of every street, key building, and landmark in our fair city of Portsmouth, NH. PLACENAMES is grouped by neighborhood. Nancy included a zillion black and white images (actually 200) to her highly readable, anecdotal text. No one can keep up with the ever-changing landscape, but we’ll always have the past.  This book is one of my key references and is proof that paper is often more effective for quick research than pixels. Essentially a one-town encyclopedia, it covers 466 streets and four centuries, and can be read as history or just for fun. Notably, Nancy Grossman assembled this book in the dawning days of digital self-publishing.  Anyone serious about Portsmouth history owns a copy. There is a companion volume with the street names of South Berwick, Maine. Nancy and her husband John Grossman, arrived in Portsmouth from the other half of the country in 1991 to manage the Governor’s House Bed & Breakfast. Their imprint, Back Channel Press, helped dozens of locals create their own books at an affordable rate. She is also a skilled ceramic tile painter.