By mere chance, thirty or forty years ago, some long-hidden paintings on the walls of this lower hall were brought to light.  In repairing the front entry it became necessary to remove the paper, of which four or five layers had accumulated.  A one place, where several coats had peeled off cleanly, a horse’s hoof was observed by a little girl of the family.  The workman then began removing the paper carefully; first the legs, then the body of a horse with a rider were revealed, and the astonished paper-hanger presently stood before a life-size representation of Governor Phipps on his charger.  The workman called other persons to his assistance, and the remaining portions of the wall were speedily stripped, laying bare four or five hundred square feet covered with sketches in color, landscapes, views of unknown cities, Biblical scenes, and modern figure-pieces, among which was a lady at a spinning-wheel.  Until then no person in the land of the living had had any knowledge of those hidden pictures.  An old dame of eighty, who had visited at the house intimately ever since her childhood, all but refused to believe her spectacles (though Supply Ham made them(1.)) when brought face to face with the frescoes. (1.  In the early part of this century, Supply Ham was the leading optician and watchmaker of Portsmouth.)

The place is rich in bricabrac, but there is nothing more curious that these incongruous printings, clearly the work of a practiced hand.  Even the outside of the old edifice is not without its interest for an antiquarian.  The lightening-rod which protects the Warner House to-day was put up under Benjamin Franklin’s own supervision in 1762—­such at all events is the credited tradition—­and is supposed to be the first rod put up in New Hampshire.  A lightening-rod “personally conducted” by Benjamin Franklin ought to be an attractive object to even the least susceptible electricity.  The Warner House has another imperative claim on the good-will of the visitor—­it is not positively known that George Washington ever slept there.

The same assertion cannot be made on connection with the old yellow barracks situated in the southwest corner of Court and Atkinson streets.  Famous old houses seem to have an intuitive perception of the value of corner lots.  If it is a possible thing, they always set themselves down on the most desirable spots.  It is beyond a doubt that Washington slept not only one night, but several nights, under this roof; for this was a celebrated tavern previous and subsequent to the War of Independence, and Washington made it his headquarters during his visit to Portsmouth in 1797.  When I was a boy I knew an old lady—­not one of the preposterous old ladies in the newspapers, who have all their faculties unimpaired, but a real old lady, whose ninety-nine years were beginning to tell on her—­who had known Washington very well.  She was a girl in her teens when he came to Portsmouth.  The President was the staple of her conversation during the last ten years of her life, which she passed in the Stavers House, bedridden; and I think those ten years were in a manner rendered short and pleasant to the old gentlewoman by the memory of a compliment to her complexion which Washington probably never paid to it.