“These tales you tell are one and all
Of the Old World,” the Poet said,
“Flowers gathered from a crumbling wall,
Dead leaves that rustle as they fall;
Let me present you in their stead
Something of our New England earth, ...”
—Lady Wentworth.
It was almost as original in Colonial New Hampshire to be a Wentworth as it is today to be a Biddle in Philadelphia. The descendants of Samuel Wentworth, the first of his name in the province, were conspicuously numerous in the small population of their community. As individuals they were energetic, persevering, and not without a certain amount of dignity. To say that they were politicians is to say that they were business men. Individually they were better than average citizens, collectively they contributed enough to the progress and the story of New Hampshire to invite a glimpse into the house which is today the chief memorial to the family.
Except for its size you might pass it by in a countryside full of rambling buildings silvered by the weather. It has neither the warm, open-armed welcome of Doughoregan Manor, nor the smug comfort of Cliveden, nor the exalted location of Monticello, nor the decorative dignity of its rival, the Pepperrell House across the harbor. A plain man built it somewhere back in the seventeenth century, built it close by the bright water of Little Harbor because there were codfish there as sacred to New Hampshire revenue as any goldfish that ever inspired faith in Massachusetts. Built it out of big timber to cut the northeasters whipping in over the Isles of Shoals, built a sharp roof to shed snow. Built it to live in. Another generation, with perhaps a larger family, wanted more room, and built on. When Mark Hunking owned it he did the same. In the south our colonies’ increased demands upon the facilities of a growing estate were met by outbuildings set well apart from the great house, but in this sharp climate outbuildings raised the unpleasant prospect of wading to and fro through shoulder-high drifts, and involved separate heating-plants and no end of inconvenience. So gradually the house sprouted a plain ell here and a humble jog there, a shed around the corner, and enough additions to effect a total of nearly fifty rooms. I like to think of the house as a family group of all the Wentworths, of each little addition to the original nucleus as one of the useful but obscure members posed kneeling or sitting on the outskirts of the family as it pyramids up to the great bulk of the council-room Benning Wentworth built, the council-room being in my mind’s eye none other than the formidable, homely, well-fed and hard-drinking Benning himself.
To paint for yourself the picture of the prime of the house you must recall certain facts about the Portsmouth of the beginning of the eighteenth century. Twenty miles inland Indians scalped white men and women, and white men scalped Indians. As many miles to the eastward, and more, the men of Portsmouth sailed in ships for fish and returned with a catch to pay the storekeeper’s bill for groceries and clothing—a bill which always seemed just out of reach, and which kept these men sailing until they died, while the merchants prospered. From the outer world came small-pox. Over on Great Island, at the Walton place, there were genuine witches; if you don’t believe this you may read it in a pamphlet published in London in 1698, whose title says it is
“an Exact and True Account of the various actions of infernal Spirits, or (Devils Incarnate) Witches, or both; and the great Disturbance and Amazement they gave to George Walton’s Family at a place called Great Island in the Province of New Hampshire in New England, chiefly in throwing about (by an Invisible hand) Stones, Bricks, and Brick-bats of all sizes, with several other things, as Hammers, Mauls, Iron-Crows, Spits, and other domestick utensils, as came into their Hellish Minds, and this for the space of a Quarter of a Year.”
The Province, though a royal property as distinguished from a chartered colonial settlement, was not encouraging to the farmer, not ready for the miller. Its governorship was for the king’s favorite candidate, and in size and importance it was a homely stepsister of the well-to-do colony of Massachusetts to the southward.
John Wentworth bought the lieutenant-governorship and made it profitable until he died. From his widow, Mark Hunking’s daughter, Benning Wentworth inherited the Mansion at Little Harbor. As a young graduate of Harvard who had brought home a Boston bride, and as the owner of a prosperous business and a fine house, he was popular enough, and his path was paved into politics. The Assembly applauded his protests against the Governor of Massachusetts who also governed New Hampshire. As a member of the council his youthful oratory soon moderated to the whisper of the boss who is learning how to do things smoothly, for there was much to be gained if London could be persuaded to appoint a distinct governor for New Hampshire who would not be responsible to Massachusetts. In 1744 the opportunity came to prove his point.
Benning Wentworth sold a cargo of lumber to an agent of the King of Spain. When it reached Cadiz the agent had resigned, and his successor refused the cargo. On the return voyage the ship foundered, and Wentworth and a handful of sailors counted themselves lucky to be rescued. He went at once to London to beg the government to enforce his claim on Spain. With similar complaints from other British merchants a bill was presented at Madrid which Spain honored but did not pay, and under economic pressure England declared war upon her. At home, meanwhile, Governor Belcher had fallen into every trap his enemies set for him, and was removed, but not before the King had been prevailed upon to separate Massachusetts and New Hampshire once and for all, re-survey their boundaries, and set up a new governor not only in Boston but in Portsmouth.
Theoretically, John Thomlinson, the agent of New Hampshire in London, brought this about, but, as a matter of fact, it was Thomlinson’s good aim and Benning Wentworth’s timely cartridges which shot Governor Belcher’s support from under him. What more natural, therefore, than that Benning Wentworth return to Portsmouth as governor of New Hampshire. He was received with cheers, and made a hearty address to his Assembly, suggesting that they make him a guaranteed annual grant of salary. The Assembly replied with fulsome cordiality and said they would grant him whatever they found themselves able to pay. It proved to be £500 a year, and to this Thomlinson presently managed to add the job of Surveyor of the Woods, which he bought from the previous surveyor for two thousand pounds and turned over to Wentworth for a consideration not mentioned. In order to accept the post the Governor had to surrender his claims for $56,000 against the Court of Spain, and the prospects were so bright in his new position that he was glad enough to do it in favor of additional income of £800, and to settle down to a smooth program of political patronage.
It happened that he was not to be allowed to forget the Court of Spain, nor to get rich without making enemies. England’s war with Spain dragged France in, and Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, full of enthusiasm for his new charge, looked on a map for the nearest French stronghold, found it to be Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island, and shouted for money, arms, and men for an expedition. Benning Wentworth, who liked Shirley and often asked his advice, heard the cry, and offered New Hampshire help. Shirley took the help, and appointed a rival merchant in Portsmouth, William Pepperrell, as general in command.
Here was a delicate situation. Shirley, having securely appointed Pepperrell, wrote: “It would have been an infinite satisfaction to me, and done great honor to the expedition if your limbs would have permitted you to take the command.” Wentworth was so charmed with the idea that he forgot his gout and volunteered! To this Shirley replied, with more truth than tact, that “any alteration of the present command would be attended with great risque, both with respect to the Assembly and the soldiers being entirely disgusted.” “You was made General,” wrote a friend to Pepperrell, “being a popular man, most likely to raise soldiers soonest. The expedition was calculated to ESTABLISH Shirley and make his creature Wentworth Governor of Cape Breton, which is to be a place of refuge for him from his creditors. Beware of snakes in the grass and mind their hissing.” About four thousand men rallied, a fleet of a hundred vessels assembled, and the voyage began, planned by a Governor, and commanded by a merchant, to storm a citadel called the “Gibraltar of America.”
Contemporaries called it a “Cambridge commencement,” and without a wild sort of undergraduate enthusiasm it must have failed. An enthusiastic preacher gave Governor Shirley a plan for investing the fortress which he had worked out himself. Another amateur gave him a model of a flying bridge to be used in scaling the walls—it only needed twelve hundred feet of rope to operate, and a thousand men might pass over it in four minutes. Shirley took his own counsel, drew his own beautifully-timed plans, and designed his own scaling ladders and pikes. The men were growing restless when George Whitefield, the eminent Newburyport counterpart of our own Billy Sunday, devised a motto “nihil desperandum Christo duce,” and the expedition sailed like fanatic crusaders out of Boston Harbor, unscathed by a severe epidemic of small-pox in the port.
Every plan Shirley made went wrong. The fortress, instead of being surprised by the fleet, woke up the morning of April 29 to see it lying off the harbor. Yet on June 17 the well-scared commander of the citadel hauled down the French flag. The Yankees took the city, hauled the Tricolor up again, and lured several valuable prizes into port in this way. Pepperrell was made a Baronet, Commodore Warren an Admiral. England forced France to make peace, and gave Louisburg back. Do you, perhaps, see now why they called it a Cambridge commencement?
Governor Wentworth, though not a participant, shared vicariously in the glory of the expedition, and kept busy at home directing the fighting in the west against French Indians who raided the frontier stockades from the New York lakes. Gradually and thoroughly he installed his relatives in lucrative positions of the provincial government. An occasional quarrel with his Assembly brought forth a protest to the King to remove him and place Pepperrell in his stead. Unruffled, he would call his council to the mansion at Little Harbor, set out an enormous punch-bowl on the council-room sideboard, and conduct the affairs of state as swiftly as a governor should who wants to move on to the card-rooms for a friendly game.
From his office above he could keep a weather eye on the ships out for the West Indies with lumber and livestock and fish and oil, and could tick off those inward-bound with molasses and coffee and rum. Toward town he could glimpse the stocks where more ships were building to tie his wilderness province, with its twenty miles of seacoast, to the outside world. If the Assembly lost its manners and had to be attended to, he stepped to the landing at the council-room door, and was royally wafted away to town in his official barge. His aims were not all selfish by any means. He gave a grant of land in the Connecticut valley on which to build Dartmouth College, he drew from the Assembly a grant of 300 pounds to restore a part of the burned library of Harvard. If his wife and his son had been spared to him, his life would have been very happy. But they were not spared, and thus innocently they contribute to the story of the house its most entertaining episode.
The kindly poet in the Craigie House told it in the Tales of a Wayside Inn. Shorn of its poetic embellishments, it is this: The Governor grew lonely in the great house. He had lost his wife, his boy, his figure. A maid of Portsmouth caught his eye, but she loved a sailor, and would have none of the Governor and his city ways. Accordingly, the sailor was caught by a press-gang and shipped to sea. Benning Wentworth grew lonelier, until one day he summoned to his house a number of guests, among them the Reverend Arthur Brown. After a good dinner he fixed a firm eye upon the dominie; and said: “You are here, sir, to marry me.” The company was astounded, and asked for the bride, whereupon the Governor turned and introduced as his blushing betrothed a maid-of-all-work in the house, Martha Hilton. And so, as so often happens, they were married.
“The rector read the service loud and clear:
‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,’
And so on to the end. At his command
On the fourth finger of her fair left hand
The Governor placed the ring; and that was all:
Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall!”
The son of the present owner of the house, Mr. J. Templeman Coolidge, tells me that marrying Martha did not necessarily indicate a loss of caste on the Governor’s part, for it was customary in those days for girls of good families to work in the households of other good families. Further, there are none of the poet’s “stacks of chimneys rising high in air,” nor oaken panels and tapestries. Further still, it is doubtful whether Martha, as a barefoot child about the streets of Portsmouth, ever resolved that some day she would marry the
“... portly person with three-cornered hat,
A crimson velvet coat, head high in air,
Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair
And diamond buckles sparkling at his knees,
Dignified, stately, florid, much at ease.”
But so many inaccurate legends have been edited to make dull facts that it is a real pleasure to concede the Hall to Martha, and Martha to her husband.
It was a fine house, there is no gainsaying that. Its fifty rooms must have pleased her, for they outranked in number any house in the whole countryside. There were queer proportions to them, and unexpected turns, one went up two steps into this room, and down three into that. A secret staircase led from the main portion of the house down to the water, which may have been built so that the Governor could escape an angry populace, or not, as you prefer. There was a big pantry to warm any woman’s heart, and a still to make rum to warm any man’s. It is a temptation to visualize the interior as filled with an oriental profusion of decorative objects, but the probability is that although Benning Wentworth had a florid taste for the creature comforts, and the ships handy to import them, he was still a native of New Hampshire and restrained in his notions of decoration. A guess—and it must be a guess, for no record exists—is that the house has much the same aspect today, with good portraits, like Copley’s of Dorothy Quincy, good Windsor chairs, good Sheraton, good china, good wall-paper—and not too much of any ingredient to leave you surfeited. In the council-room we know that there was a heavily carved mantel which was strong and handsome, for it is so today; that the guns of the governor’s guard were racked there, for they are there still; that there were paneled doors and wainscoating fit for a room in which to entertain Washington, as Martha Hilton Wentworth did entertain him here in 1789.
In 1766 Benning Wentworth resigned the governorship. He had seen the Stamp Act committed and repealed, and although he had treated with political daintiness the unpopular measures which were breeding trouble, he had held office longer than any other provincial governor, and had served his people in a way which encouraged their commercial growth. The office passed to his nephew, John Wentworth. In 1770 Benning Wentworth died, leaving Martha to marry Colonel Michael Wentworth, and a daughter, Martha, whom Governor John Wentworth married.
Five years later the storm broke at Lexington. The news sped to Portsmouth and every man armed himself and began drilling. Governor John was powerless to resist the tendency. He tried to pack the Assembly with favorable delegates from new towns, and the Assembly angrily threw them out. When one of them insulted the Assembly, the Assembly chased him until, breathless, he slammed the three-inch door of the Wentworth mansion in their faces. The crowd brought a field-piece, pointed it at the door and demanded his surrender. He gave himself up, and the Governor, outraged at the affront, fled to the fort. His last official act was to prorogue the Assembly. Royal government in New Hampshire came to an end, and in John Wentworth the people lost a leader who had been energetic in the extension of learning, in the building of good roads, and in the development of agriculture. He lived on at Little Harbor until Martha Hilton died in 1805, and then went to England, and the house passed out of the family.
Its history for the past century has not been eventful. A critic who has traveled over certain of New Hampshire’s roads may suggest that Governor John Wentworth was the last man who improved them, but that is neither here nor there, and such comment is only likely to call down upon the scoffer’s head one of the ghosts without which no American colonial mansion is properly furnished. Jack Coolidge, as a boy, used to lie up in the loft and moan like a regulation ghost when disagreeable tourists asked to be shown about the house, and any one of them will tell you that the place is haunted. Infrequent ships still pass the house like phantoms from the great days, outward bound in lumber, and pass in with coffee and molasses. But no rum, and if Benning Wentworth knows, he is where he cares not. There is still some codfish—but it is dry, and salty.
When Washington came to Portsmouth he was of course entertained and fully instructed on the resources of the section. A part of the ceremonial of his reception was a fishing expedition. In his diary he complains of his luck. A band was blaring in his honor, and every fish in that portion of the Atlantic had retreated beyond the Isles of Shoals. A rod and line was handed to the general, and instantly he felt a tug. Up came twelve pounds of glittering cod. Huzzas from the crowd, congratulations for the chief, uproar from the band.
A canny fisherman, before yielding the rod to Washington, had quietly attached the fish to the hook. Was there ever nicer hospitality?