As Portsmouth finds its way onto top-vacation-spot lists in glossy magazines and travel websites, and as new development projects rise up next to historic homes, it’s easy to forget that the city’s past is full of scandals and seedy business. They’re the sort of stories that don’t play well on historical plaques — but, for George Hosker-Bouley, they’re vital to understanding how Portsmouth came to be what it is today.
“There’s a lot underneath the cobblestones,” he says.
He should know. For the last 13 years, Hosker-Bouley has been dishing out Portsmouth’s hidden history, along with what he says are “some of the worst jokes known to man,” every summer as part of his Portsmouth Underbelly Tour. This year, he’s branching out with a new tour, dubbed the Other-Belly Tour, and with it, he’s digging deeper for more tales of murder, mayhem, and political chicanery.
The Other-Belly Tour kicks off on Sunday, June 28 at 6 p.m. Hosker-Bouley calls it the “bastard child” of the long-running Underbelly Tour. The new tour takes groups from the Underbelly Tour’s traditional starting point at The Rusty Hammer on Pleasant Street through Market Square, up Daniel Street, to the John Warner House, and to the waterfront.
“We’ve had so many people (take the tour) multiple times over the years that we felt it was time to give them something new to see,” Hosker-Bouley says. “But the tone is the exact kind of irreverent, snarky, scandalous stories we’ve always told.”
The Other-Belly Tour also helps make groups more manageable, according to Hosker-Bouley. As more tourists flock to Portsmouth, his nightly groups have grown larger. Last year, it wasn’t uncommon to have a tour with 40 or 50 people. “It’s a lot of fun, but it’s a different animal” than a smaller tour, he says. “Our focus is to make a connection with every person, and that’s really hard to do when you have so many people.”
The genesis of the Underbelly Tour is itself a slice of Portsmouth history. Hosker-Bouley’s long career as a playwright and actor also included a stint as the artistic and executive director of the Prescott Park Arts Festival. He was in that post some 16 years ago, when the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary. That year, the festival’s board of directors asked him to write a history of the park.
“I started doing all the research, but it was so dry and uninteresting and it left out the real characters of the people who made up the history of the city,” he says.
He left his job at the festival a few years later. Around the same time, he was training guides at Strawbery Banke, teaching them how to add theatrical flair to their tours. It was then that inspiration struck. He and writer Laura Pope started working together on what would become the Underbelly Tour, a vaudeville-esque blend of scandalous and forgotten history, outrageous characters, and lots of bawdy jokes. Hosker-Bouley, as accused Revolutionary War-era spy Silas Dane, and Sarah Shanahan, as tavern wench Olive Madberry, guide the tour.
George Hosker-Bouley and Sarah Shanahan regale visitors with scandalous tales and bawdy jokes.
“All of the history is correct,” Hosker-Bouley says, though what counts as Portsmouth history does get stretched a little bit. The Other-Belly Tour includes a digression into the history of the condom, which Hosker-Bouley admits only has a slight tie to Seacoast history. “We more or less talk about the people who didn’t use them — some of the larger families,” he says.
The Other-Belly Tour also includes a look at the saga of the city’s old statehouse and what happened to the building after Concord usurped Portsmouth as the state capitol, as well as the story of the three fires that swept through the city in the early 19th century. And, of course, there’s plenty of scandal — tales from the city’s infamous red light district, which, at its height, was visited by some 1,500 men a night, according to Hosker-Bouley, and a host of hangings, murders, and questionable marriages among the upper-class.
“Everybody talks about the hero, but all people … have two sides,” he says. “It’s not a full picture if you only tell one side of the story. (The tours are) all about pulling up the rug and showing what’s underneath it.”
The Portsmouth Other-Belly Tour runs Sundays at 6 p.m. at the corner of State and Pleasant streets (outside The Rusty Hammer) from June 28 through September. The Underbelly Tour runs Saturdays and Mondays at the same time and location. Recommended for adults only. Call 978-683-7745 or visit underbellyports.net for reservations.