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About UsAbout the PearlHolding Functions
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photo: courtesy of the Portsmouth Athenaeum The Pearl Street Church was erected in the city's newest industrial district in 1858 for a Free Will Baptist congregation and enlarged by adding a new entry bay and steeple in 1868. In 1915, Black members of the Seamen's Aid Society pooled their Navy pensions to help raise the $2000 it took to purchase the structure. It then became the home of People's Baptist Church, at that time the first and only Black congregation in the state. New Hope Baptist Church, the successor to People's Baptist, sold the building in 1984. During the 1980s and 90s, Portsmouth had become a gentrified community with a nationally famous historic district, displacing long-term residents and institutions such as the Pearl Street Church. The former church was converted to an upscale restaurant while New Hope Baptist planned and built a new church, proudly paying off their mortgage in only eleven years. In 1952 Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the Pearl Street Church as have many other Black leaders, and the Portsmouth Branch of the NAACP, the first chapter in the state, received its charter there in 1958. Because of the historic association, people from the entire Seacoast region gathered there to celebrate the long-awaited passage bill by the state legislature of the Martin Luther King holiday. A capacity audience gathered there recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of King's preaching in the sanctuary. Among the first colonies to record legalized slavery and the first state in the national presidential primary, New Hampshire was the last in the nation to declare Martin Luther King's birthday a state holiday. The State of New Hampshire helped the Friends of The Pearl restore the belfry of this African American landmark and return it to its rightful place in Portsmouth's skyline. The recapture of this building stabilized and beautifed a neighborhood in transition while providing expanded function to the larger community, but will make newly visible a culture and a history that has existed in obscurity for far too long.
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