“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.