NH celebrates 115th anniversary of Portsmouth Peace Treaty

PORTSMOUTH — A small group of physically-distanced citizens gathered in Market Square Saturday, Sept. 5 to celebrate the 115th anniversary of the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty.

Others gathered in church steeples and beneath cherry trees around the state to join the traditional Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day bell-ringing at the moment the treaty was signed at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1905.

President Theodore Roosevelt chose Portsmouth to host the peace conference seeking an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

Charles B. Doleac, Portsmouth Peace Treaty Forum moderator and senior partner for Boynton, Waldon, Doleac, Woodman and Scott PA, welcomed the group and reminded them of the importance of the day to New Hampshire history and the role of New Hampshire citizen diplomats.

“People ask, ‘Why Portsmouth?,’" he said. "It is clear that Roosevelt knew he could rely upon the security and protocol of the Navy at the shipyard, the state of the art communications afforded by the then-new, trans-Atlantic telegraph cable connection, the accommodations at the grand Wentworth Hotel and the hospitality and positive atmosphere provided by the people of New Hampshire in welcoming their international guests."

In Market Square, Assistant Mayor Jim Splaine read Gov. Chris Sununu's Proclamation of Portsmouth Peace Treaty Day. The commemoration was established in 2010 thanks to the Legislature’s unanimous passage of legislation co-sponsored by then-Rep. Splaine.

In addition to proclamation letters from each member of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation – Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, and Reps. Chris Pappas and Ann Kuster – were read aloud.

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard saluted the treaty with its whistle blast at 3:47 p.m., the moment the treaty was signed, and at that signal church bells throughout the area rang, joined by the participants in Market Square.

The staff of Wentworth By the Sea Hotel, where the Russian and Japanese delegates stayed, gathered under their Portsmouth Peace Treaty Memorial Cherry Tree to ring bells, as did residents where other cherry trees are located in Dublin, Hanover, Lancaster, Manchester, Meredith and Milford.

Visitors to The Fells in Newbury, home of Roosevelt's Secretary of State John Hay, joined the celebration for the first time this year. And in Nichinan, Japan, Portsmouth's sister city and hometown of Baron Komura, lead diplomat from Japan to the peace conference, the mayor and director, faculty and students of Nichinan Gakuen Junior-Senior High School rang bells, too.

"We must make every effort to celebrate and value the rich history of the Granite State, and the citizen diplomacy that contributed to the successful Portsmouth Peace Treaty is no exception,” Shaheen wrote in her letter.

Participating in the Seacoast bell-ringing were Unitarian Universalist (South) Church, Portsmouth First United Methodist Church, Portsmouth Temple Israel, Wentworth by the Sea Hotel (where the Russian and Japanese diplomats stayed), the Portsmouth Historical Society John Paul Jones House (Portsmouth Peace Treaty exhibit) and Strawbery Banke Museum.

For more information, visit PortsmouthPeaceTreaty.org.