Back then we still had a landfill down in Island Park and our highway department was a two-car garage in an old schoolhouse on Schoolhouse Lane.”

Hubert "Huck" Little

PORTSMOUTH — Hubert “Huck” Little doesn’t know where the time all went, but he sure knows how much things have changed in Portsmouth over the past 50 years.

The Union Street resident was first elected to the Town Council in 1966, spending a total of 26 years on that panel and another six as state representative in the 1990s. He’s seen the town transform dramatically over the past five decades.

“The population then was only 5,300 and now it’s 18,000. A lot has changed since then,” said Mr. Little as he sat in a back room of his Li'l Bear Sports Pub in Tiverton, which he first opened in 1982.

Many of those changes had to do with the town’s infrastructure.

“Back then we still had a landfill down in Island Park and our highway department was a two-car garage in an old schoolhouse on Schoolhouse Lane,” said Mr. Little. “The police department was in Town Hall and the fire department was in a little two-car garage with a little addition in back of the Town Hall.”

Mr. Little was a member of the town’s building committee when the new police and fire stations and DPW buildings went up many years ago, and he was also chairman of the building committee overseeing the senior citizens center after the Anne Hutchinson School was closed. 

In addition, he was voted onto the building committee when the middle school was constructed, and was appointed by the School Committee to serve on panels overseeing renovations to Hathaway and Melville schools as well as the high school.

Does he think the town has changed for the better?

“When I first was elected, of course there was a lot of open space, a lot of farms. I definitely miss that, but I think we have a nice community. I think it’s being run real well,” he said.

The lifelong Republican said he’s proud of the work he did on the Town Council, which was a five-member board when he was first elected in 1966.

“Four years later we got the town administrator, and I was the council president when we switched over to a seven-member council in 1970,” he said. “John Thayer became our first town manager. He was my first opponent when I ran for council. We were real good friends then.

“One of my best accomplishments on the council was when I signed the sales agreement to buy Glen Farm. I was council president then. Also during my time there, we acquired Melville Campgrounds from the Navy.”

All about the people

Helping the little guy is what he misses most about his time on the council. 

“A lot of people had little problems that we could take care of, and I was noted as the people’s candidate because I was always there to do what I could,” Mr. Little said. “I enjoyed all of it; I had a good time.”

It wasn’t the same when he served as state representative in the ’90s, he said.

“To be honest, I didn’t like that as much. You weren’t close to the people, and being a Republican you couldn’t get as much done as the Democratic Party did,” said Mr. Little.

After returning to the Town Council, he decided to retire from politics in 2010. He still comes into Li’l Bear every day, although his son Brad has taken over operations. “I’m getting older now; I’m going to be 82,” Mr. Little pointed out.

“Fifty years have gone by fast, I’m telling you. I can’t believe it’s been that long.”