portsmouthhistorynotes

As I research Portsmouth during Revolutionary times, I frequently come across a mention of the Redwood House. It was a place marker on West Main Road. The first shots fired during the Battle of Rhode Island were close to the Redwood House. What was special about the Redwood House and what happened to it.

The history of the house starts with Abraham Redwood Jr. The Redwood family had a large sugar plantation in Antigua. Abraham Redwood, Jr. was born in 1709 and he was active in the family sugar business from his teenage years. When his father died, the planation – along with the over 200 slaves that worked it – were signed over to Abraham Redwood, Jr. Some sources say he settled on his father’s estate in Portsmouth in 1727. It was known as Redwood Farm. Other sources say that in 1743 he purchased 140 acres of land in Portsmouth that was part of the Coggeshall land grant. It may be that he added to the land he had inherited from his father. He had a great interest in horticulture and he cultivated rare plants, shrubs and trees. He built a greenhouse, hothouse and a serpentine walk through a meadow. From the West Indies he imported orange and fig trees along with guava and pineapple roots. Redwood described a greenhouse 22 feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet high so he could raise West Indian fruits.

Samuel Drowne described the gardens in 1767.
“Mr. Redwood’s garden. . . is one of the finest gardens I ever saw in my life. In it grows all sorts of West Indian fruits, viz: Oranges, Lemons, Limes, Pineapples, and Tamarinds and other sorts. It has also West Indian flowers—very pretty ones—and a fine summer house. It was told by my father that the man that took care of the garden had above 100 dollars per annum. It had Hot Houses where things that are tender are put for the winter, and hot beds for the West India Fruit. I saw one or two of these gardens in coming from the beach.”

The Redwood Farm estate stayed in the family until 1882. In her book “This Was My Newport,” Maud Howe Elliott (daughter of Julia Ward Howe) describes the garden when she was a child in the 1850s and 60s.

“The garden at “Redwood” was a marvel of taste and neatness. The high bush blackberries that topped the wall were known to every child within a radius of miles. At the corners of the long beds were enormous clumps of peonies. Flowers, fruit and vegetables amicably shared the sunny garden — a pair of acres in size — gooseberry and currant bushes forming the borders, while pear trees were planted at intervals in the center of the beds. There was a little garden-house where Miss Rosalie, the youngest daughter, held a Sunday school for children of the neighboring farmers. I have had cause all my life to bless Miss Rosalie for her gentle ministrations. The seeds of culture and breeding she sowed in the minds of her boys and girls have borne fruit and sweetened the life of generations.”

You can still see the “little garden-house.” It was moved to the grounds of the Redwood Library in 1917. It was originally designed by famed architect Peter Harrison for the Redwoods in 1766.

Through the years the Redwood House was allowed to deteriorate. Newspaper accounts in 1937 say that wealthy Bradford Norman was trying to restore the house, but it was demolished in the 1940s.