Compiled by Russell Bastedo
State Curator
1998

Royal Governor John Wentworth (1767-1775). John Wentworth II (1737-1820) was the second and last Royal governor of the colony of New Hampshire, 1767-1775. Born at Portsmouth (NH), he was the son of Mark Hunking Wentworth, who represented John Thomlinson, the London-based agent for New Hampshire. His mother was the daughter of John Rindge, who had preceded Thomlinson as New Hampshire's London-based agent.

John Wentworth II graduated from Harvard College (Class of 1755). After three years' experience as a Portsmouth merchant he returned to Harvard for his M.A. degree. He went to London in December 1763 with a letter of introduction from Theodore Atkinson (whose portrait is at the Legislative Office Building, front lobby), and Thomlinson introduced the young man to the Board of Trade, and to members of Parliament.

When John Wentworth arrived at London there were conflicting provincial claims to mast trees and ships' timber being cut along the Connecticut River. Connecticut had sent Jared Ingersoll, an important citizen of that colony, to be their London-based agent in this matter. Ingersoll argued that these trees should be Connecticut's. They should be floated down the Connecticut River and shipped to London from New London (CT).

Governor Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire (governor 1741-1767) also claimed these trees, however, and he invoked his power as Surveyor of the King's Woods in North America to cut these trees and to harvest them for New Hampshire.

The political battling between the two colonies was fierce. Benning Wentworth was old, and he had grown imperious and impervious to changing times over the years. A major London buyer of masts, John Henniker, supported Ingersoll and Connecticut; and in 1765 the Board of Trade decided Benning Wentworth should be retired. It took two more years, but in 1767 John Wentworth became the second Royal governor of New Hampshire.

John Wentworth II was popular in New Hampshire. As Surveyor of the King's Woods in North America he spent months in the saddle and on foot, getting to know the western lands. He helped develop a grant of land purchased from the Masonian Proprietors, at what became Wolfeboro (NH), and he developed an estate there. He worked with Jeremy Belknap, New Hampshire's first historian, to find the right site for Dartmouth College; and when he decided on the correct Connecticut River site, at Hanover (NH), he gave the College 44,000 acres of land as a source of future wealth.

But John Wentworth II as governor faced the Townsend Acts, imposed on the colonies by Parliament. He and his wife were forced to leave New Hampshire in 1775. They returned to British North America in 1792, when Wentworth became Surveyor of the King's Woods in North America again, as well as Royal governor-but this time both posts dealth with Nova Scotia, in Canada. Wentworth served as Royal Governor of Novia Scotia 1792-1808.

Location: State House, Second Floor, Executive Council Chambers
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1873, after portrait by Copley, 1768.
The portrait is artist U.D. Tenney's late 19th century copy of John Singleton Copley's portrait, "taken" c. 1770. It was presented to the State in 1874