Do you know of Portsmouth ???

This page is an orphan - a placeholder until we can discover more about Portsmouth. When we encounter a name that is new to us, we add it to our Gazetteer with the hope that we'll discover more information in the future. Such is the case with Portsmouth.

Our sources for Portsmouth (see Mentions and References below) indicate that it was a community with a post office by the same name. Unfortunately our sources aren't clear about the location of Portsmouth other than they indicate that Portsmouth would be found somewhere in Bay County, Michigan.

From the Blevins / Hellbock List: The post office opened in 1857 and closed in 1895.

This entry could have originated in error. It might be that a source had a misprint, was simply wrong or we made a transcription error while referencing it. Many of the documents we reference are from the 1800s and the early 1900s, with some easier to read than others.

Part of the difficulty in identifying whether a name is a post office or a community lies with how Post Offices were named. We've prepared an article with our understanding of how post offices were named: Naming of Post Offices.

Communities Also Named Portsmouth ...

We found nine communities that share the name Portsmouth.

Within Michigan, the name Portsmouth is unique.

Beyond Michigan, we know of another nine communities that are located throughout in the United States and Canada. Of these nine communities, eight are located in the United States and one is in Canada.

Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
- Iowa
  - Shelby County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Iowa community of Portsmouth [Shelby County].
- Kentucky
  - Breathitt County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Kentucky community of Portsmouth [Breathitt County].
- New Hampshire
  - Rockingham County
  - Please visit our profile page for the New Hampshire community of Portsmouth [Rockingham County].
- North Carolina
  - Carteret County
  - Please visit our profile page for the North Carolina community of Portsmouth [Carteret County].
- Ohio
  - Scioto County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Ohio community of Portsmouth [Scioto County].
- Ontario
  - Please visit our profile page for the Ontario community of Portsmouth.
- Rhode Island
  - Newport County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Rhode Island community of Portsmouth [Newport County].
- Virginia
  - Norfolk City
  - We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Virginia community of Portsmouth [Norfolk City].
  - Portsmouth City
  - Please visit our profile page for the Virginia community of Portsmouth [Portsmouth City].

Miscellaneous References and Mentions for Portsmouth ...

We've created the following list to keep track of the sources that proved useful in adding to our knowledge about Portsmouth:

Found in a comprehensive list of Post Offices that was created by Cameron Blevins and Richard Helbock.<2>

Along The Tracks, A Directory of Named Places on Michigan Railroads
Written by: Meints, Graydon M.
Published by Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University - 1987
(Available from Amazon.com)

Business Atlas and Shippers' Guide (1895)
Published by Rand McNally & Co.

A note taken from the Shipper's Guide for Portsmouth - Services available: had a Post Office, no Railroad mentioned

List of Post Offices in the United States (1870)
Published by the Government Printing Office

More Orphans in Bay County ...

Can you help?

As we explained above, when we encounter a name that might be a community or a post office we add it to our Gazetteer. If we have little information to go with the name, we call them Orphans. Below are Orphans that we believe to be located in Bay County.

Footnotes ...

<1>

If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Rock Creek to see Pete ... Rock Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Portsmouth could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.

<2>

A copy of their list with background information can be found at:

https://cblevins.github.io/us-post-offices/data-biography/