Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast Part 24

Built in 1750, it commands a view up and down Little Harbor, though concealed by an eminence from the road. I had a brief glimpse of it while going on Great Island _via_ the bridges. It is said it originally contained as many as fifty-two rooms, though by the removal of a good-sized tenement to the opposite island the number has been diminished to forty-five. There is, therefore, plenty of elbow-room. The cellar was sometimes used as a stable: it was large enough to have accommodated a troop, or, at a pinch, a squadron.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE WENTWORTH HOUSE, LITTLE HARBOR.]

Prepared for an interior as little attractive as the outside, the conjecture of the visitor is again at fault, for this queer old bundle of joiners' patchwork contains apartments which indicate that the old beau, Benning Wentworth, cared less for the rind than the fruit.

"Within unwonted splendors met the eye, Panels and floors of oak and tapestry; Carved chimney-pieces where on brazen dogs Reveled and roared the Christmas fires of logs; Doors opening into darkness unawares, Mysterious pa.s.sages and flights of stairs; And on the walls in heavy gilded frames, The ancestral Wentworths with old Scripture names."

The council chamber contains a gem of a mantel, enriched with elaborate carving of busts of Indian princesses, chaplets, and garlands--a year's labor, it is said, of the workman. The wainscot is waist-high, and heavy beams divide the ceiling. As we entered we noticed the rack in which the muskets of the Governor's guard were deposited.

But what catches the eye of the visitor soonest and retains it longest, is the portraits on the walls. First is a canvas representing the Earl of Strafford[129] dictating to his secretary, in the Tower, on the day before his execution. At his trial, says an eye-witness, "he was always in the same suit of black, as in doole" (mourning). When the lieutenant of the Tower offered him a coach, lest he should be torn in pieces by the mob in going to execution, he replied, "I die to please the people, and I will die in their own way."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY HANc.o.c.k'S PORTRAIT (BY COPLEY) IN THE WENTWORTH HOUSE.]

Here is a portrait from the brush of Copley, who reveled in rich draperies and in the accessories of his portraits quite as much as in painting rounded arms, beautiful hands, and shapely figures. This one in pink satin, with over-dress of white lace, short sleeves with deep ruffles, and coquettish lace cap, is Dorothy Quincy, the greatest belle and breaker of hearts of her day. It was not, it is said, her fault that she became Mrs. Governor Hanc.o.c.k, instead of Mrs. Aaron Burr. When in later years, as Madam Scott, she retained all the vivacity of eighteen, she was fond of relating how the hand now seen touching rather than supporting her cheek, had been kissed by marquises, dukes, and counts, who had experienced the hospitality of the Hanc.o.c.k mansion; and how D'Estaing, put to bed after too much wine, had torn her best damask coverlet with the spurs he had forgotten to remove.

Other portraits are--Of Queen Christina of Sweden, who looks down with the same pitiless eyes that exulted in the murder of her equerry, Monaldeschi; one said to be Secretary Waldron, a right n.o.ble countenance and martial figure; and of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Sheaffe.

I could be loquacious on the subject of these portraits, the fading impressions of histories varied or startling, of experiences more curious than profitable to narrate. In their presence we take a step backward into the past, that past whose lessons we will not heed.

Hawthorne, standing before a wall covered with such old counterfeits, was moved to say: "Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy, of a family being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct, than these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits."

The old furniture standing about was richly carved, and covered with faded green damask. In the billiard-room was an ancient spinet, quite as much out of tune as out of date. Doubtless, the flashing of white hands across those same yellow keys has often struck an answering chord in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of colonial youth. Here are more portraits; and a buffet, a sideboard, and a sedan-chair. Punch has flowed, and laughter echoed here.

The reader knows the pretty story, so gracefully told by Mr. Longfellow, of Martha Hilton, who became the second wife of Governor Benning,[130]

and thus Lady Wentworth of the Hall.

We can see her as she goes along the street, swinging the pail, a trifle heavy for her, and splashing with the water her naked feet. We hear her ringing laughter, and the saucy answer to Mistress Stavers in her furbelows, as that buxom landlady flings at her, in pa.s.sing, the sharp reproof:

"O Martha Hilton! Fie! how dare you go About the town half-dressed and looking so?"

The poet's tale is at once a history and a picture, full of pretty conceits and picturesque situations. Fancy the battered effigy of the Earl of Halifax on the innkeeper's sign falling at the feet of Mrs.

Stavers to declare his pa.s.sion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNOR BENNING WENTWORTH.]

But Benning Wentworth, governor though he was, was none too good for Martha Hilton.[131] It was the pride of the Hiltons made her say, "I yet shall ride in my own chariot." The widowed governor was gouty, pa.s.sionate, and had imbibed with his long residence in Spain the hauteur of the Spaniard. He left office in 1766 in disgrace.

The last of the colonial Wentworths was Sir John, in whose favor his uncle had been allowed to screen himself by a resignation. There are some odd coincidences in the family records of both uncle and nephew.

The former's widow made a second marriage to a Wentworth; the latter married his widowed cousin, Frances Wentworth.[132]

The mansion of Sir John may be seen in Pleasant Street, Portsmouth. He was the last royal governor of New Hampshire. John Adams mentions that as he was leaving his box at the theatre one night in Paris, a gentleman seized him by the hand: "'Governor Wentworth, sir,' said the gentleman.

At first I was embarra.s.sed, and knew not how to behave toward him. As my cla.s.smate and friend at college, and ever since, I could have pressed him to my bosom with most cordial affection. But we now belonged to two different nations, at war with each other, and consequently were enemies."

The king afterward gave Sir John the government of Nova Scotia. The poet Moore mentions the baronet's kind treatment of him in 1805, during his American tour. He is said to have kept sixteen horses in his stable at Portsmouth, and to have been a free-liver. A man of unquestioned ability to govern, who went down under the great revolutionary wave of 1775, but rose again to the surface and struck boldly out.

There is now in the possession of James Lenox, of New York, a portrait of the baronet's wife, by Copley, painted in his best manner. The lady was a celebrated beauty. The face has caught an expression, indescribably arch, as if its owner repressed an invincible desire to torment the artist. In it are set a pair of eyes, black and dangerous, with high-arched brows, a tempting yet mocking mouth, and nose a little _retrousse_. Her natural hair is decorated with pearls; a string of them encircles her throat. The corsage is very low, displaying a pair of white shoulders such as the poet imagined:

"She has a bosom as white as snow, Take care!

She knows how much it is best to show, Beware! beware!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARON STEUBEN.]

In 1777 Baron Steuben arrived in Portsmouth, in the _Flamand_. Franklin had snubbed him, St. Germain urged him, but Beaumarchais offered him a thousand louis-d'or.[133] On the day the baron joined the army at Valley Forge his name was the watchword in all the camps.

FOOTNOTES:

[123] The Act of Corporation, though well preserved, appeared little valued; it hung by a corner and in a light that was every day dimming the ink with which it had been engrossed.

[124] The reader will do well to consult Belknap's admirable "History of New Hampshire," vol. ii.; Adams's "Annals," or Brewster's "Rambles about Portsmouth." Some sort of defense was begun here very early. In 1665 the commissioners of Charles II. attempted to fortify, but were met by a prohibition from Ma.s.sachusetts. In 1700 there existed on Great Island a fort mounting thirty guns, p.r.o.nounced by Earl Bellomont incapable of defending the river. Colonel Romer made the plan of a new work, and recommended a strong tower on the point of Fryer's (Gerrish's) Island, with batteries on Wood and Clark's islands. In December, 1774, John Langdon and John Sullivan committed open rebellion by leading a party to seize the powder here. The fort was then called William and Mary. Old Fort Const.i.tution has the date of 1808 on the key-stone of the arch of the gate-way. Its walls were carried to a certain height with rough stone topped with brick. It was a parallelogram, and mounted barbette guns only. The present work is of granite, inclosing the old walls. The new earth-works on Jaffrey's Point and Gerrish's Island render it of little importance.

[125] Governor of New Hampshire from 1682 to 1685. The house is the residence of Mr. Albee.

[126] Odiorne's Point is in Rye, New Hampshire. The settlement began under the auspices of a company, in which Gorges and Mason were leading spirits. Their grant covered the territory between the Merrimac and Sagadahoc rivers. Under its authority, David Thompson and others settled at Little Harbor, and built what was subsequently known as Mason's Hall.

Disliking his situation, Thompson removed the next spring to the island now bearing his name in Boston Bay. From this nucleus sprung the settlements at Great Island and Portsmouth. The settlement at Hilton's Point was nearly coincident.

[127] Peace with the thirteen colonies was proposed under the administration of Rockingham, about the last official act of his life.

His name is often met with in Portsmouth.

[128] The house stands at the north end of Manning, formerly Wentworth Street, and is thought from its size to have been a public-house. The same house was also occupied by Lieutenant-Governor John, son of Samuel Wentworth. Samuel was the son of William, the first settler of the name.

He had been an innkeeper, and had swung his sign of the "Dolphin" on Great Island. Hon. John Wentworth, of Chicago, is the biographer of his family.

[129] His second wife was Henrietta du Roy, daughter of Frederick Charles du Roy, generalissimo to the King of Denmark.

[130] Bennington, Vermont, is named from Governor Wentworth.

[131] Her grandfather, Hon. Richard Hilton, of Newmarket, was grandson of Edward, the original settler of Dover, New Hampshire, and had been a justice of the Superior Court of the Province.--JOHN WENTWORTH.

[132] Frances Deering Wentworth married John just two weeks after the decease of her first husband, Theodore Atkinson, also her cousin, and in the same church from which he had been buried--matter for such condolence and reproof as Talleyrand's celebrated "Ah, madame," and "Oh, madame." Benning Wentworth's widow married Colonel Michael Wentworth, said to have been a retired British officer. He was a great horseman and a free liver. Once he rode from Boston to Portsmouth between sunrise and sunset. Having run through a handsome estate, he died under suspicion of suicide, leaving his own epitaph, "I have eaten my cake." Colonel Michael was the host, at the Hall, of Washington. In 1817, the house at Little Harbor was purchased by Charles Cushing, whose widow was a daughter of Jacob Sheaffe.

[133] "Paul Jones shall equip his _Bonne Homme Richard_; weapons, military stores can be smuggled over (if the English do not seize them); wherein, once more Beaumarchais, dimly as the Giant Smuggler, becomes visible--filling his own lank pocket withal."--CARLYLE, "French Revolution," vol. i., p. 43.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WITCH HILL, SALEM.]

CHAPTER XIV.

SALEM VILLAGE, AND '92.

_Banquo._ "Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten of the insane root, That takes the reason prisoner?"--_Macbeth._

Salem Village has a sorrowful celebrity. It would seem as if an adverse spell still hung over it, for in the changes brought by time to its neighbors it has no part, remaining, as it is likely to remain, Salem Village--that is to say, distinctively antiquated, sombre, and lifeless.

A collection of houses scattered along the old high-road from Salem to Andover, decent-looking, brown-roofed, though humble dwellings, a somewhat pretending village church, and pleasant, home-like, parsonage; old trees, partly verdant, partly withered, stretching naked boughs above the gables of houses even older than themselves, embody something of the impressions of oft-repeated walks in what is known as the "Witch Neighborhood."