A wealthy and influential man named John Wentworth lived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A lovely maid, his cousin Frances Deering Wentworth, fell in love with John.

John had graduated from Harvard, and a career was strongly on his mind. And so to Frances' dismay, he “went to England, no positive pledge of marriage passing between them.”

Yet another charming cousin, Theodore Atkinson Jr., took advantage of John Wentworth's absence, and wooed fair Frances, winning her heart. He proposed to her, and they married on 13 May 1762 when she was 16 years old. She sat for her portrait at the age of nineteen.

Alas, their happiness did not last long. After only a few years Theodore developed a “lingering illness,” and was expected to die. Mrs. Atkinson's former suitor had, in the meantime, returned to the Province of New Hampshire. As now Governor of the colony, John Wentworth was even more prominent and influential than Atkinson.

The Wentworth and Atkinson families lived in houses within view of each other. If the ancient gossip is true, Frances had various methods of communicating to John how her husband's health was faring, by hanging a handkerchief out of her window.

On 28 October 1769 Theodore Atkinson Jr. died. Then the event that followed caused at least a few colonial jaws to drop.

“On one day Theodore breathed his last. His burial took place on the following Wednesday; by the Governor's order all the bells in town were toiled, flags were hung at half-mast, and minute-guns were fired from the fort and from the ships-of-war in the harbor. On Sunday the weeping widow, clad in crapes, listened in church to the funeral eulogies; on Monday her affliction was mitigated; on Tuesday all the fingers of the seamstresses of the country roundabout were flying; and on the next Sunday, in the white satins and jewels and fardingales [hooped skirts] of a bride, she walked up the aisle the wife of Governor Wentworth.” [from New England Legends by Harriet E.P. Spofford, 1871]

Facts support the legend. Governor John Wentworth indeed ordered an expression of colonial sympathy for the departed Theodore Atkinson Jr. that included a salute from the ship Beaver, then anchored in Portsmouth harbor. And on 11 November 1769, thirteen days after the death of her husband, Mrs. Frances Atkinson became the wife of her cousin, Governor John Wentworth. They married in the same church from which her first husband had been buried.

A happy “Lady Wentworth” (as she was now often called), went to live in John's nearby home.* This building may be seen today on Pleasant Street in Portsmouth New Hampshire. (Theodore Atkinson's home unfortunately was taken down years ago).

John Wentworth remained enamored of his wife. When the time came to approve the creation of new townships in New Hampshire, he named two of them specifically after her, i.e. Francestown and Deering “as an expression of his gratitude for her acceptance of his hand at the end of two sad, lonely weeks of widowhood.” [NEHGS Register 27:378]

The advent of the American Revolution insured that John was the last royal governor of the New Hampshire colony. After fleeing the country, Frances was appointed a lady-in-waiting at the court in England, and John was given the governorship of Nova Scotia as a reward for his loyalty.

Janice

*The Gov. John Wentworth House, also known as John Fisher House, is located at 346 Pleasant St. in Portsmouth, NH. It is of the Georgian style, and is listed on National Register of Historic Places. Note that Gov. Wentworth had other homes in New Hampshire.

This article was written as a submission to the 33rd Edition of the CARNIVAL OF GENEALOGY, with the topic of “Family Wedding Stories & Traditions.” This Carnival will be posted on October 4, 2007 at the Creative Gene. (Note: as far as I know, I am not related to John or Frances Wentworth).