All summer long, Portsmouth is celebrating the Portsmouth Peace Treaty Centennial with exhibits, tours, a 15-week concert series, Portsmouth Athenaeum lectures, a NH Humanities Council Chautauqua at Strawberry Banke www.nhhc.org. Pontine Theatre performances of an original play www.pontine.org and tributes from the US Navy, Governor Lynch and others. 

As noted on the “Treaty” Web site, this peace effort exemplified “the ability of local citizens to mediate informally international disputes. As hosts for 30 days in August 1905, the State of New Hampshire, the people of Portsmouth, and the United States Navy fostered goodwill between Russian and Japanese Delegates during the critical peace negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War.”  One hundred years later, the month of celebrations and events culminates with the Sept. 5 anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth. 

Just as lawyers played a key role in the peace process early in the last century, several members of the Bar from the Seacoast area have been heavily involved in the commemoration of this historic event, including Charles Doleac, Terrie Harman, John Lyons, Tom Watson, Rob Ciandella and Portsmouth District Court Judge Sowako Gardner.

President Theodore Roosevelt, who played a key behind-the-scenes role in convening the leaders of the warring nations for the talks and helping to overcome a negotiating impasse, became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peacemaking efforts. (Roosevelt’s role as a mediator is detailed in a New Hampshire Bar Journal article, to be published this month, by author and NH attorney James E. Fender. Fittingly, the article provides a historical dimension to the theme of the Summer 2005 theme of the Bar Journal - ADR and Mediation. If you haven’t received your copy yet, visit www.nhbar.org to read the Bar Journal online.)

For information on the treaty centennial celebration in Portsmouth, visit http://www.treatyofportsmouth.com/.

President Theodore Roosevelt became the first American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his peacemaking efforts.