According to family legend, in the late 40s early 50s, my grandfather William Dawson (a.k.a. “Bill”) was a salesman for WHEB. His job was to knock on doors and sell radio ads. He lived here in Portsmouth with his wife and two new daughters, both of whom were born at Portsmouth Hospital, a building which is now City Hall, one of whom was attending the Haven School, now converted to condos.
Selling radio ads is hard work, apparently. Ad campaigns don’t just sell themselves. One of my grandfather’s target accounts (and favorite restaurant) was Yoken’s Restaurant, which operated from 1947 until 2004 on Lafayette Road near Market Basket in a plaza now housing Five Guys, Newburyport Bank, and Rite Aid.
My grandfather tried to sell the owners of Yoken’s an ad campaign, but they were not interested. He kept pestering them, the way good salespeople do; but they were just not interested in spending the money. Bill had to try something different. He worked with the creative department at WHEB to see if they had any ideas of how he could sell Yoken’s a radio ad campaign.
The creative department came up with the idea of declaring Yoken’s gift shop as “New Hampshire’s largest” and suggested a whale logo to coincide with the “whale” of a gift shop Yoken’s was operating. Soon that gave rise to the idea for a slogan “Thar She Blows!” to promote both the restaurant and gift shop.
My grandfather went back to Yokens’ and pitched them the whole package—a radio ad campaign centered around their new slogan “Thar she blows!” to promote their gift shop and restaurant. They loved the idea and adapted the slogan whole-heartedly. Supposedly my grandfather introduced them to someone who made the famous sign, which stood in front of the restaurant for about 50 years.
The restaurant closed its doors in 2004 and the sign came down when the bulldozers leveled the restaurant. But 4 Amigos—the developers of the site—and Newburyport Five Cents Savings Bank, which was building a branch there, together paid about $40,000 to revamp the sign and reinstall it.
Bill Dawson died in 1973 and is buried in the South Street cemetery. Not much of what he did with his life is still remembered, but one thing remains… the Thar She Blows! sign he sold to Yoken’s to get them to buy a radio ad.
Photo credits: Yoken’s Facebook page
