This settlement, with jurisdiction over all the territory now included in Portsmouth, New Castle and Greenland, and most of that in Rye, was known as " Strawberry Banke " until 1653, when it was incorporated (by the government of Massachusetts) under the name of Portsmouth.
Although Lake Champlain could not be reached by;boat up the Piscataqua, and although the enterprise was ulti mately a failure, the company sent over colonists who occupied the house left standing by Thomson, and, not far away, built " Mason Hall " or the " Great House " in what is now Portsmouth, a name (for the entire settlement) that replaced " Strawberry Banke " in 1653.
Puritan Massachusetts was naturally hostile to the Antinomians at Exeter as well as to the Anglicans at Strawberry Banke.
Although Exeter, in 1639, Dover, in 1640, and Strawberry Banke, not later than 1640, adopted a plantation covenant, these settlements were especially weak from lack of a superior tribunal, and appeals had been made to Massachusetts as early as 1633.
Dover submitted in 1641, Strawberry Banke (Portsmouth) soon afterwards and Exeter in 1643.
