PORTSMOUTH, a city of south-eastern Virginia, U.S.A., on the Elizabeth river (an estuary of Hampton Roads) opposite Norfolk; the county seat of Norfolk county, but independent of it. It is on Federal highway 117, and is served (either directly or through the industrial Belt Line which encircles Portsmouth and Norfolk) by the Atlantic Coast Line, the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Norfolk Southern, the Norfolk and Western, the Pennsylvania, the Seaboard Air Line, the Southern and the Virginian railways, and by interurban trolleys, motor-bus and truck lines, ferries and steamship lines. Pop. in 43% negroes, and was 45,704 Federal census 2930. On the eastern water-front is the Norfolk navy yard, the oldest, and one of the most important, in the country. It has an area of 45o ac., 212 buildings with 5o ac. of floor-space, 3o berths totalling 9,00o ft., and six dry-docks ranging in length from 324 to 1,011 feet. On a promon tory about a mile west is the U.S. naval hospital. Trinity church (1762) is the oldest building in the city. Portsmouth is a ship ping point for large quantities of oysters, vegetables and farm produce. Its manufactures in 1927 were valued at $10,227,
Commercially Portsmouth is an integral part of the great port of Hampton Roads. (See NORFOLK.) The city operates under a commission-manager form of government. The assessed valuation for 1927 was Portsmouth was established in 1752 by act of the Virginia assembly, incorporated as a town in 1852 and chartered as a city in 1858. The navy yard, established by the British shortly before the Revolution, was confiscated by Virginia during the war and in 1801 was sold to the United States. In April 1861, it was burned and abandoned by the Federals, and then for a year was the chief navy yard of the Confederates. They raised the frigate "Merrimac" and transformed her into the iron-clad "Virginia" which on March 9, 1862, fought the famous battle with the "Monitor" in Hampton Roads (q.v.). Two months later (May 9) the Confederates abandoned the navy yard and evacuated Norfolk and Portsmouth.