FRANK JONES’S HOTELS Funding for this historic marker was provided by the City of Portsmouth, 2012. www.cityofportsmouth.com FRANK JONES “King of the Alemakers” This, the only known portrait of Jones, was probably painted during one of his terms as a member of the U.S. Congress (1875-1879). Oil painting by Nellie Mathes Horn in 1901, after a photograph of Frank Jones from the mid-1870s. Courtesy of Portsmouth Athenæum. A HOTEL REBUILT Jones’s 1870 hotel was heavily damaged by fire in 1884. Ever-resilient, he promptly rebuilt it in essentially the same form as it was before the fire (and as it now stands). High up on his reconstructed hotel Jones added terra cotta bas reliefs of Woodbury Langdon (on the left) and himself (on the right); below them are stylized renditions of the four seasons, all designed by Massachusetts artist F. Mortimer Lamb. In 1905 newspapermen from all over the world filled the Rockingham Hotel during the Russo-Japanese negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Portsmouth. WOODBURY LANGDON MANSION Woodbury Langdon, a distinguished member of Portsmouth’s prominent Langdon family, built a mansion on this site in 1795. In 1830 it was converted to an inn called the Rockingham House. Cabinet card, Old Rockingham House, circa 1860. Courtesy of Portsmouth Athenæum. ROCKINGHAM HOTEL In 1870 Jones purchased the Rockingham House. He leveled the inn and constructed an elegant, 130-room hotel on the site (shown above), retaining only some of the fine walnut paneling from the original Langdon mansion. The paneling is still found in the current building, which is now a condominium. The same four lions have guarded the entrances since 1872. Color lithograph, The 1870 Rockingham Hotel, ca. 1872. Private Collection. FRANK JONES (1832-1902) WAS A BARRINGTON-BORN FARMBOY who came to Portsmouth as a teenager and literally rose from rags to riches in a remarkably short time. A man of boundless energy and daring, he parlayed the fortune he amassed as a brewer of ale into vastly greater wealth through investments in a myriad of enterprises, including banking, insurance, and shoe manufacturing. Among his most successful ventures were his Rockingham and Wentworth hotels.