Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion
Home of New Hampshire’s first colonial governor and the longest-serving colonial governor in the United States
Site Details
Pin location is approximate.
375 Little Harbor Rd
Portsmouth, NH 03801
Family Friendly?
Yes
Visitors Per Year
8,000
- The guided tour lasts about an hour. Guides rely on largely the same information but differ in emphasis and presentation. The grounds can be walked at any reasonable hour in a self-guided manner, but the mansion is only open at select times and seasonally for guided tours. The tour includes informational displays within an outbuilding and visits to various rooms on two floors of the mansion.
- The mansion itself, with its asymmetrical outward appearance, interior architectural quirks, and location surprisingly close to the water, serves as the main attraction. It should never have been built, and yet it still stands. The inside provides a snapshot of how the wealthy lived during the 1700s in rural locations. At the same time, its unique design does not lend itself to making extrapolations about how people lived hundreds of years ago. Visitors tour much of the first two floors, which include such peculiarities as closets with windows and a series of labyrinthian rooms. Other parts of the mansion are inaccessible due to a degraded basement and 18th-century stairwells that do not meet 21st-century building codes.
- The headquarters for the site’s employees and volunteers, amid various small exhibits, displays an ancient copy of 1714’s addendum to the Treaty of Portsmouth, which established a peace between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, on the one hand, and the Eastern Abenakis, on the other.
Fewer people lived in New Hampshire around the time of the mansion’s construction than now live in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, so documentation remains scarce. The stewards of the property date the mansion to around 1750. The items in the mansion include antiques added to the interior to provide it an 18th-century feel. Both new paint and reproduction wallpaper and paintings attempt to recreate the original conditions. The bones of the house, though, predate the republic. The Union Jack, sans St. Patrick’s Saltire, flies true to the period.
The house’s original occupant is remembered because he gave his name to Bennington, Vermont, which New Hampshire claimed as its own during Benning Wentworth’s governance.
The guided tours and the displays offered no attempt to use history as a cudgel to make a contemporary political point. In fact, the guide noted with pride New Hampshire’s unique laws, which include no requirement for seatbelts or motorcycle helmets, no income or sales tax, liquor sales restricted to state stores, and the most representatives (at the lowest pay) per capita of any lower chamber in the Union. The bias mostly relates to the original occupant of the house, Benning Wentworth, who behaved corruptly as a royal governor and continues to engender bad feelings more than 250 years later.
The Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion sits nestled on the water about two miles from downtown Portsmouth, which overflows with small shops and dining. The property offers a 1.5-mile scenic loop for walkers, grassy areas overlooking the water for picnickers, and even spots to enjoy a swim. No dogs are allowed on much of the property. The mansion itself features uneven floors and sketchy staircases, so folks with mobility impairments may choose to opt out of a visit.
Given its proximity to the water and New Hampshire’s climate, visitors might want to consider the season and weather before a visit. Although the grounds open at dawn and close at dusk year-round, tours of the mansion occur only during the more temperate months. Ample parking exists.
The Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion preserves a place in time: the home of the first royal governor of New Hampshire and the longest-serving in American history, Benning Wentworth. The structure provides a look at how America’s elite lived during the colonial era. It remains, strangely, given its proximity to corrosive salt water and a tidal river prone to periodically invading the shoreline, one of the last intact homes of a colonial-era governor.
Later owners, the Coolidge family from Boston, used the 40-room mansion as a summer home. The waterside structure, the outbuildings, and the grounds became an artists’ colony. Visitors included portrait painter John Singer Sargent, arts benefactor Isabella Stewart Gardner, and historian Francis Parkman.
Owned By: New Hampshire
Operated By: New Hampshire’s Bureau of Historic Sites
Government Funded: Yes
Did you know?
Beatrix Potter dedicated The Fairy Caravan to a young Henry P. Coolidge, whose family owned the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion after the Civil War into the 1950s.
Recommended Reading
- Once I Was Very Young by Mary Coolidge Perkins
Reviewed By
Daniel Flynn
Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Senior Editor for The American Spectator, and Author of The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer
The opinions expressed above are those of the Reviewer who is providing a good-faith historical assessment to educate the public. Reasonable opinions can vary, and the Reviewer’s opinion is not necessarily the opinion of The Heritage Foundation or its affiliates.