Benning Wentworth
Encyclopedia
Benning Wentworth was the colonial governor of New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 from 1741 to 1766.

Biography

The eldest child of the John Wentworth
John Wentworth (Lieutenant-Governor)
John Wentworth served as Lieutenant Governor for the Province of New Hampshire from 1717 to 1730.-Biography:...

 who had been Lieutenant Governor, he was born and died in Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire in the United States. It is the largest city but only the fourth-largest community in the county, with a population of 21,233 at the 2010 census...

. Wentworth graduated from Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 in 1715. He became a merchant at Portsmouth, and frequently represented the town in the provincial assembly. He was appointed a king's councillor, October 12, 1734. When in 1741 New Hampshire was made a distinct province, Wentworth became its governor on December 13 of that year.

Wentworth was authorized by the crown to grant patents of unoccupied land, and in 1749 began making grants in what is now southern Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

, enriching himself by a clever scheme of selling land to developers in spite of jurisdictional claims for this region by the Province of New York
Province of New York
The Province of New York was an English and later British crown territory that originally included all of the present U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, along with inland portions of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, as well as eastern Pennsylvania...

. He often named the new townships after famous contemporaries in order to gain support for his enterprises (e.g. Rutland after John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland
John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland
John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland KG PC was an English nobleman, the eldest son of John Manners, 2nd Duke of Rutland and Catherine Russell...

; Bennington he named after himself). In each of the grants, he stipulated for the reservation of a lot for an Episcopal church. Ultimately, this scheme led to a great deal of contention
New Hampshire Grants
The New Hampshire Grants or Benning Wentworth Grants were land grants made between 1749 and 1764 by the provincial governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth. The land grants, totaling about 135 , were made on land claimed by New Hampshire west of the Connecticut River, territory that was also...

 between New York, New England, and the settlers in Vermont. The dispute long outlived Wentworth's administration, lasting until Vermont was admitted as a state in 1791.

Fort Wentworth
Fort Wentworth
Fort Wentworth was built by order of Benning Wentworth in 1755. The fort was built at the junction of the Upper Ammonoosuc River and Connecticut River, in Northumberland, New Hampshire, by soldiers of Colonel Joseph Blanchard's New Hampshire Provincial Regiment including Robert Rogers. In 1759,...

 built in 1755 at Northumberland, New Hampshire
Northumberland, New Hampshire
Northumberland is a town located in southwestern Coos County, New Hampshire, U.S., north of Lancaster. It is part of the Berlin, NH–VT micropolitan statistical area...

 was built by his order and named after him. Wentworth also gave important government positions to relatives and gave them extensive grants of land. Growing annoyance with his administration's corruption, taxes, and mismanagement and neglect of the crown's timber interests, forced his resignation in 1767. After his resignation as governor, he gave Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 500 acres of land on which the college buildings were erected. His nephew John Wentworth
John Wentworth (governor)
Sir John Wentworth, 1st Baronet was the British colonial governor of New Hampshire at the time of the American Revolution. He was later also Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia.-Early life:...

 succeeded him as governor.

Family

He married Abigail Ruck in Boston in 1719. She died November 8, 1755. They had three children who lived to maturity, but none married or survived their father. On 1760, at age 64, he married his much younger housekeeper, Martha Hilton. She had been brought up in the family and was housekeeper at the time of his first wife's death. The marriage was the subject of considerable scandal at the time, and also the subject of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...

, “Lady Wentworth.” His second wife was the sole heir of his large property.

External links

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