Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion

At the end of Little Harbor Road is the farm of Royal Governor Benning Wentworth (1696-1770). Appointed in 1741 by George the Second, Wentworth governed the province of New Hampshire for 25 years, promoting expansion as far west as Bennington, in present-day Vermont. The Cushing family acquired the farm in 1816, and by the 1840s begin to show the mansion as one of America's first historic houses open to the public. In 1886, John Templeman Coolidge (1856-1945) of Boston purchase the site for a summer home. In 1954, his widow, Mary Abigail Parsons Coolidge, donated it to the state of New Hampshire.