As a living history museum, Strawbery Banke allows visitors to tour historic buildings constructed between 1695 and 1954.
Credit Amanda Loder / for NPR
Re-enactor Alena Shellenbean plays Mrs. Shapiro, a Jewish-Ukranian immigrant from the early 1900's and one of the historic characters populating Strawbery Banke.
Credit Amanda Loder / New Hampshire Public Radio
Tom Richter moved to Strawbery Banke so that he could concentrate on creating a new album of folk songs based on imagery of historic Portsmouth, N.H.
Credit Amanda Loder / New Hampshire Public Radio
Eva Boice moved to Strawbery Banke from New York to be closer to her family. A retired social studies teacher, she appreciates the nuances of her new home, like the mismatched paint on her door panel. During renovations, contractors uncovered paint layers dating to the early 1800s.
All it takes to enter a time warp in New Hampshire is $15 and a summer afternoon. Spanning more than 250 years of American history, Strawbery Banke is the oldest neighborhood in the state's oldest city, Portsmouth.
It's kind of like Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg — lite. Stationed inside many of the 37 homes are re-enactors in different period garb. Inside a hulking white house, it's 1872.
The attractiveness, and simplicity, of Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan — a nine percent federal income, corporate and sales tax — has catapulted the Georgia businessman to the head of the Republican presidential field. But for some states, such as New Hampshire, which doesn't have a sales tax, 9-9-9 wouldn't be simple at all.
People in New Hampshire, to put it mildly, dislike taxes.
"New Hampshire is definitely an anti-tax state," says Andy Smith, director of the Survey Center at the University of New Hampshire.
