Template:Wp-Wentworth, Grafton County, New Hampshire-History

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It was granted by Governor Benning Wentworth on November 1, 1766, to John Page and 60 others. Named for the governor himself, Wentworth was settled and incorporated the same year. Many of the settlers arrived from Massachusetts, particularly Salisbury. With a pretty New England common set atop an elevated tongue of land, the village has been noted since the 19th century for its charm; while in "... beauties of landscape, Wentworth has a more than ordinary share."

Farmers cultivated the rich soil on the intervales. The Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad diagonally crossed the town. With abundant water power from the Baker River, Wentworth developed into a lumber-producing town with nine sawmills. But disaster struck on August 6, 1856, when dams on the Upper and Lower Baker ponds in Orford breached during a flood, releasing a wall of water down Pond Brook to the Baker River. It raced down the steep, rocky channel, then undermined and washed away Wentworth's riverside mills, houses, barns, sheds and roads. It widened the river by nearly .^[1]