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Skyhaven Airport — Circa 1943
Newington Neighbor, Volume 28, No. 120, Winter 1999, Page 8
By Lulu Pickering
Long before the federal government came into Newington and raped and pillaged the land, burned the houses and evicted the townsfolk, there was a sleepy little airport called Skyhaven. It was located on the other side of the hill at the end of Airport Road and is fondly remembered by Billy Beals, Barbara Baird and Dick Spinney. Barbara's grandfather, Charles Badger, owned a 300 acre farm in the location of Echo Avenue in Portsmouth. His woods ran down to the runway on the Portsmouth side of Skyhaven opposite Airport Road. Dick Spinney can remember taking one of his working horses from where he now lives on Fox Point Road across town and over to Stacy's blacksmith shop on Badger's farm to be shod.
Photo Courtesy of Dick Spinney
Along the way, at the four comers of what was then Ham Road (Newington), Gosling Road and Sherbourne Road (Portsmouth) was a gravel pit belonging to the City of Portsmouth. A picture taken in February 1943 shows the "sandbank" as it existed then. A similar gravel pit was located in Newington belonging to Archie DeRochemont. It took Archie a "lifetime to dig out this hole," but the airforce filled the "hole thing in" in a matter on 2 1/2 days using all of its huge equipment.
Photo Courtesy of Dick Spinney
Across the road from the Portmouth sandbank in Newington were four houses. The Spinney farm was the third house from the four comers. The fourth house sitting on 11 acres of land was the last one built before the Air Force swooped in. It belonged to Dick's uncle. Along the length of Gosling Road towards the Piscataqua River, there were no other houses until you came to Ira Coleman's house at Woodbury Avenue. In the 1970's this white farmhouse was sold and demolished to make way for the first mall in town.
Getting back to Skyhaven airport, the two pictures shown were taken in February 1943 and show the flat used for the airport and the hanger building. When the airforce moved into town, this building was moved down Gosling Road to its present location by Sears merchandise pick-up.
Photo Courtesy of Dick Spinney
During WWII, Dick and his Mother, Marion, were "spotters" at Skyhaven. They taped the top part of their headlights with black tape to prevent the cars being seen from above. There was a separate little building off the hanger used by the spotters, who normally volunteered for 2 hour shifts. The planes were all prop planes then, and you could often hear them before seeing them. They counted the number of planes and engines and noted the type of plane and its heading direction, South, West, Southeast, etc. Barbara Baird's father, Orville C. Badger, was also a spotter at Rye Beach.
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