Benning Wentworth’s Residence (1753-1770)
Benning Wentworth (1696-1770) was the eldest son of Lt. Governor John Wentworth, the founder of the Wentworth dynasty in Portsmouth. A merchant like his father and his brothers, he was active in the transatlantic trade, as well as being a member of the Royal Council. When one of his ships was lost on a journey to Spain, he went to England in 1741 seeking compensation. His reward was the appointment as the first Royal Governor of the Province of New Hampshire. He served in this capacity for twenty-five years.
Holding the additional office of Surveyor of the King’s Woods, he oversaw the lumber trade and the provision of masts for the Royal Navy, a lucrative position. He also freely granted proprietorships of unincorporated land in New Hampshire and later the area of Vermont, leading to some conflict with New York, which also claimed Vermont. Many of the new towns, such as Bennington or Wentworth, were named after him or his connections.
For the first twelve years of his governorship Benning and his first wife Abigail Ruck lived in the Warner House in Portsmouth, which the province rented from his sister. He tried for several years to have the province buy the house and fit it out for him, but that project never came to fruition. Finally in 1753 he moved to his mother’s land at Little Harbor as a ploy to get the Assembly to fix up the Warner House for him. It failed, and he decided to build himself a mansion there. Benning’s son John was living on the property at the time, but his house was elsewhere on the property. John was farming the land, but until his death in 1760 his father took no part in agricultural activities. With John’s death Benning’s wife and three sons were gone, leaving him a wealthy widower.
Benning began to assemble the house from other freestanding elements by 1753. The kitchen wing and its chamber were originally a shop or warehouse, while the dining room and parlor wing was another structure joined to the kitchen wing. The north section containing the large hall and secondary rooms is the only section which Benning built from the ground up. It is in these rooms that the fine paneling and carved mantelpiece which made the house architecturally significant are found.
Michael and Martha Wentworth and Family (1770-1815)
Benning Wentworth made himself a subject of local scandal when he married his 23-year-old housekeeper Martha Hilton, an incident made famous by a poem of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A few months after Benning’s death in 1770 she married a putative Wentworth cousin, Colonel Michael Wentworth, an Englishman who had come to New Hampshire in 1767. Michael was an accomplished musician and gardener, as well as a veteran soldier. It is possible that he was responsible for the extensive garden near the house. He played no part in the Revolution but was commanding the local militia in the 1780s. George Washington stopped briefly at the estate in 1789 when he landed there after a fishing expedition. The visit was so brief that Washington did not mention it in his diary.
Martha Hilton Wentworth and Michael Wentworth had one child, a daughter also named Martha. She and her mother remained in the house after Michael’s death in 1795. Confusingly, Martha the daughter also married a Wentworth, Benning’s grandnephew John Wentworth. This couple attempted to sell or rent the property after Martha Hilton’s death in 1805. The advertisements in the local paper give a good description of the estate with its extensive garden and “30 beds of asparagus.” Finally, after some brief rentals the whole property was sold in 1816 to Charles Cushing of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Martha and John moved to England.
History written by Wentworth-Coolidge Commissioner Elizabeth Aykroyd.
For more details on Benning Wentworth and his role as New Hampshire’s first Royal Governor, read this indepth article by Russell Bastedo, former Wentworth-Coolidge Commissioner & retired NH State Curator.