John Wentworth (March 30, 1719 – May 17, 1781) was a jurist, soldier, and leader of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

. He was often referred to as the Judge or as Colonel John to distinguish him from his cousin, the John Wentworth who was the colony's governor. He is descended from early New Hampshire settler

William Wentworth William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures of early colonial New South Wales. Throug ...

and is a great grandfather to John Wentworth (Illinois).John Wentworth (1878), ''Wentworth Genealogy: English and American'', p. 41. Accessed 3 August 2013 at OpenLibrary.org.

Biography

This John Wentworth was born in

Dover, New Hampshire Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,741 at the 2020 census, making it the largest city in the New Hampshire Seacoast region and the fifth largest municipality in the state. It is the county se ...

. After service in the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

, he moved to Somersworth and was elected to the colonial assembly from 1768-1775. In that assembly he served several terms as speaker. He served as a judge of

common pleas A court of common pleas is a common kind of court structure found in various common law jurisdictions. The form originated with the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, which was created to permit individuals to press civil grievances against one ...

, and starting in 1776 as a justice in the New Hampshire supreme court, in spite of the fact that he neither studied nor practiced law. As the revolution neared, he was active in the committees of correspondence, and later the Committee of Safety. After the Assembly was prorogued in 1774, a rebel counterpart met as the

Exeter Convention Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal com ...

. At their first meeting, on July 21 he was elected president. He died in Somersworth.

Family

John survived his third wife, and left nine out of fourteen children. John's son, John Wentworth Jr., represented New Hampshire in the

Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America, and the newly declared United States just before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. ...

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wentworth, John 1719 births 1781 deaths People of colonial New Hampshire People from Dover, New Hampshire People of New Hampshire in the French and Indian War American judges People from Somersworth, New Hampshire