Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1973. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“First Presbyterian Church is a historic church at 221 Court Street in Portsmouth, Ohio.”
Wikipedia article First Presbyterian Church (Portsmouth, Ohio), CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 36 National Register listings in Scioto County · listed in 1973 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.73001532- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Portsmouth is situated on the Ohio river, 116 miles above Cincinnati, at the mouth of the Scioto river, which flows from the centre of this great State through valleys unequalled in fertility, and of such extent as to add largely to our National exports. It is also the southern terminus of the Ohio Canal, thus affording a direct water communication between the South and West, and North and East; also of the Hocking Valley Railroad, long since constructed, and the Scioto Valley Road, now being completed from Columbus to this city. It will also necessarily form an important point in the extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, now completed from Norfolk, Virginia, to Huntington, West Virginia, on the Ohio river, forty-five miles above this city, in its connection with the Northwest, and its point of divergence to strike the Southern Pacific Railroad. It is also probable that, either by public or private means, the James River and Kanawha Canal will be completed at no distant day,, and Portsmouth will then be the central point of three great water lines to the sea, and, as we shall proceed to show, naturally and artificially, the best entrepot of the trade, of a large and rich district of country, as it now is.
While, as we have said, Portsmouth is one hundred and sixteen miles nearer than Cincinnati to the Atlantic seaports, the navigation of the river from New Orleans to the former is as good as to the latter, in all stages of water, while there is no important point above to which it is not obstructed by low water, or ice. None, in fact, approaching it in business or population, nearer than Wheeling, two hundred and seventy miles above,
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 132 fires within 5 miles of First Presbyterian Church between
1997 and 2020, burning about 4,779 acres in total. None started naturally. 24 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
64
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
35
Arson/incendiarism
24
Recreation and ceremony
6
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Smoking
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,326 specimens
collected within 10 miles of First Presbyterian Church between 1884 and
1975: 1,207 Animalia, 69 Plantae, 43 Fungi, 4 Protozoa, 2 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, Ahles, H.E., Anson A. Hinkley and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
4 workings within 5 miles of First Presbyterian Church: 2 producers, 1 plant, 1 prospect.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Clay, Iron, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Portsmouth, the town this property stands in, in 98 storm reports between 1995 and 2024: 44 thunderstorm wind, 27 hail, 14 flash flood, 12 flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Numerous roads across the county were flooded and closed. Vehicles in Portsmouth were stranded in high water, and portions of Clay and Vernon Townships were also significantly affected by the flooding. A retaining wall collapsed next to a home in Rosemount.
1 paper published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues,
0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
4,308 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
In 1865 five of the original six chimneys were removed, the building was lengthened by about 16 feet, and the cupola, which had been blown off in building, in the same style as the main building, was added to the north- the lower hall, and the first floor south windows have been altered. narthex the size of the vestibule below, a balcony above it, and the NOV 1 2 1973 CONDITION Ruins REGISTER Fair NATIONAL are the original solid walnut ones with their original cushions and pew with Latin crosses supporting the divisions of leaded stained glass. floor windows.The rectangular second floor windows are tall and narrow There is a denticulated cornice and an octagonal wooden cupola mounted on smooth dressed local sandstone foundation and stone sills and lintels. its corners rounded.
Exterior:The First Presbyterian Church is a Greek Revival style building, J.W.Steere and Co.tracker organ in 1892 for its 75th anniversary.For Moved lower floor consists of a vestibule that runs the width of the church and built 1849-1851 and measuring approximately 57by 99 feet.Ithasa The two doors at the west side of the vestibule lead down three steps to the organ a walnut choir loft was built and the pulpit moved forward and (Check One) X Good has north and south stairways with severely simple, handmade balustrades. a short hall, flanked by classrooms of equal size, to the hall which fills always been painted and now show the warping of the 1937 flood.
The pews Excellent RECEIVED been both painted and papered previously.The original wood floors were west corner.The original red and white rectangular panes of glass in the second floor windows were replaced with stylized symbolic scenes.
Center was begun in 1970 and the church now houses the Retired Senior The solid construction of the building enabled it to withstand the floods in 1823.The bell and clock from that church were moved to the present beams in the church yard and rung during the Civil War for war aid organized May 24,1817,also built the first church building in Portsmouth Invention In 1860 a tornado ripped the cupola off but deposited the bell and clock Other SPECIFIC DATE(S) (If Applicable and Known) AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) floor, and 1937 when water covered the second floor, making it necessary safely on the east side of the street.
The bell was set on heavy wooden 1849-1851 NOV121973 NOV Art Volunteer Program.The Presbyterians are now considering a merger which, The congregation, it as having the finest accoustics in the city.Begum in 1849 and built structure.The sanctuary will seat more than 5o0,and musicians praise church dedicated for use and still in use in the city.T of 1883,1884,1907,1913 when the water reached nearly to the second Church. 1817-1973. 150th Anniversary, 1817-1967.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 73001532, 23 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
Block
