Cemetery: Cheswell Family Cemetery, Newmarket New Hampshire

News: Newmarket pays tribute to one of its early heroes

The first Newmarket Front Porch Community Concert was on June 22, 2003 on the front porch of the Alperin Family. This article in Foster's Daily Democrat describes the event which was held to benefit the Wentworth Cheswell Cemetery Restoration Fund. For more information on this fund and how to donate, contact Richard Alperin.

The gentleman in the photo is Richard Alperin, the current owner of the property that the Cheswell Family Cemetery rests on. He was kind enough to send me these photos and the fascinating story of Wentworth Cheswell that follows:

In May of 2000 my wife and I purchased an old home in Newmarket which has been in the Carpenter family since it was built by Edwin Carpenter in 1913. Edwin was a Hopkinton native, who purchased this 125 acre property in 1899. In 1908 a magazine called the Granite Monthly published a profile of Edwin explaining that his lumber business had earned over 100 thousand dollars in 1907! Edwins 1st wife, Hattie Mudge, died in 1892 and later,was re-married to Laura Belle Hendrick. Edwin is buried here in Newmarket with his 2nd wife Laura. When I spoke to Edwins grand-daughter a 91 year old woman named Harriet Varney neither she or her 82 year old brother knew where their biological grandmother was buried. To make a long story short I found Hattie buried in The Contoocook Village Cemetary buried with Edwins parents! Two weekends later my wife and I took Harriet up to the cemetery to visit her grandmother, AND great-grandparents for the 1st time in her life! Video and photos tell the story of a warm reunion.

I have become very interested in the history of this property. So interested in fact, I have spent many enjoyable hours at the Rockingham County Registrar of Deeds, researching this property back to the mid 1700's.It came to my attention that my house was built on the foundation of Wentworth Cheswell's home. Which according to the book "Old Newmarket" by Nellie Palmer George, printed by The News-Letter press in 1932, was built in 1766. I went to the NH Records Archive in Concord NH, where I held in my hands the authentic will of Wentworth Cheswell whose family cemetary is about 100 feet from my house. It truly gave me goose bumps when he stated that the will was in his own handwriting,and that he wished his family cemetary to be surrounded with a stone fence which he had already started building himself. He ended his will " In witness whereof I do hereunto set my Hand & Seal this Seventeenth day of March A.D. 1807". Imagine....... this paper will be 200 years old in 4 years! Wentworth Cheswell played a vital role in the development and history of both Newmarket and the state of NH. If one were to execute a search on Google, one of the most popular internet search engines, and type in the name Wentworth Cheswell, the very first link at the top of the page will lead you to a PBS website, of one of their most well known series "Frontline". http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/cheswell.html

Many years ago Frontline produced a show called "Secret Daughter", which this website documents. Secret Daughter among other things takes a look at the blurred racial lines of famous families, and the factors that determined how whites identified and perceived people of color.

Light skin color, wealth, education, and familiarity within his community, helped prompt Wentworth Cheswell's individual success and caused his contemporaries to identify him as "white". Only in hindsight, after notions of race became more clearly defined in the United States, did politicians and scholars identify Cheswell as "black" and refer to him as "remarkable".

Richard Cheswell, a man identified as "Negro", was one of the earliest settlers of the lands that eventually became Newmarket, New Hampshire. Although little is known about Richard Cheswell, it is probable that he was the father of Hopestill Cheswell and the grandfather of Wentworth Cheswell. Wentworth Cheswill was born in Newmarket on April 11, 1746, the only child of Hopestill and Catherine Keniston Cheswell. Hopestill Cheswell was a well known housewright who built The John Paul Jones house,The Samuel Langdon house, and the Bell Tavern, all well known landmarks in Portsmouth.

Wentworth acquired "book learning" at Dummer Academy, thirty miles away from Newmarket in Byfield, Massachusetts. His education was, an unusual privilege for a country boy of that time. Few people in the colonial era were formally educated, mostly due to cost and lack of inexpensive public schooling. However Hopestills reputation allowed him the financial freedom to ensure Wentworth received the best education available at the time. Education of any formal sort in colonial New England carried a degree of social status.

Wentworth Cheswell returned to Newmarket from Dummer Academy and took up work as a teacher. By the middle of the 1760s, Wentworth Cheswell was formally educated, owned nearly thirty acres of landed property, and held a pew in the Newmarket meetinghouse .By 1770 he owned 114 acres of land and fashioned himself solely as a "Yeoman".

As the Revolution approached, Wentworth Cheswell played an active part in the community's political and social affairs. The town of Newmarket was decidedly for the patriot cause and Cheswell was no exception. He signed the Association Test administered in April of 1776, along with 162 of the town's men above the age of twenty-one. As early as October 1775, Wentworth Cheswell had aligned himself with the revolutionary cause. Wentworth Cheswell is honored as a Revolutionary hero rather closely modeled on the figure of Paul Revere. He was elected town messenger for the Committee of Safety, and he too, had made an all-night ride back from Boston to warn his community of the impending British invasion. Cheswell utilized his skills and learning in local affairs. He took an active role in all affairs of local government and, "when any important committee was chosen in town or church affairs Wentworth Cheswell was sure to be a member of it."

Excepting the year 1788, Cheswell was elected to a position in town government every year from 1775 until his death in 1817. He served six years as assessor and seven years as town auditor. During two of his years as assessor, he also worked as a coroner. He once represented the town of Newmarket at a county meeting, and he served seven years as moderator of town meetings (primarily during the last years of his life). However, Cheswell's election to the position of town selectman offers the best means by which to see how his peers identified him. Selectmen were the recognized heads of local government. Selectmen are annually chosen in each town, [they] are entrusted with its general concerns". Selectmen, are commonly styled FATHERS of the town, a name expressive of their prudential character, and of the confidence which is reposed in them by people. Cheswell was no exception. The people of Newmarket "entrusted" him with the welfare of the town, providing him with considerable powers as a leader and town "father."

Cheswell diligently served as Rockingham County's Justice of the Peace for Newmarket from 1805 until his death. As a Justice of the Peace, Wentworth Cheswell was expected to "fulfill the duties of government and to maintain the peace." He executed deeds, wills, and other legal documents, and acted as a justice in the trial of causes." He also helped to settle disputes within the town, and the community honored his decisions. In the concise words of Nellie Palmer George, "He held the esteem and confidence of his fellow townsmen."

He actively collected materials and stories to ensure the survival of the town's past. Sometime after the Revolution, Cheswell gathered together all the town records of Newmarket extant at that time and copied them into a large folio which is stored at The Dimond Library Special Collections Department at UNH. His work as a scribe provides us with a glimpse of both his intellect and character. In 1776 Cheswell was one of five men chosen to work on "a Committe to regulate the school through out the whole town." On at least two occasions he brought the poor conditions of Newmarket's schools to the attention of the town. Cheswell helped start and incorporate the Social Library in Newmarket (1801).Modeled upon the principles of other like establishments throughout New Hampshire, the Social Library of Newmarket was created on the premise that: "the diffusion of knowledge tends to strengthen the bonds of society, soften the manner, & increase the happiness of man.

It should be noted that Wentworth Cheswell also was the subject of a national accolade which he had received during a Congessional debate in 1820 over the Missouri Compromise. In his address opposing the legislation that prevented mulattos from attaining Missouri citizenship, Senator Morril of New Hampshire stated that "In New Hampshire there was a man by the name of Cheswell, who, with his family, were respectable in point of abilities, property and character. He held some of the first offices in the town in which he resided, was appointed justice of the peace for the county, and was perfectly competent to perform with ability all the duties of his various offices in the most prompt, accurate and acceptable manner. But this family are forbidden to enter and live in Missouri."

Wentworth Cheswell died "lamented" on March 8, 1817. For seventy years he was a vital, important, and influential part of Newmarket's community.

When I began to research the life of Wentworth Cheswell, My first stop was the "Frontline" webpage I referred to earlier. Then I met Sylvia Getchell past president of the Newmarket Historical Society. Then I contacted Erik Tuveson, who in 1995 was a student at UNH working on his Masters degree in history. Erik wrote a 55 page thesis on the "The Study of Race and Racial identification in NH,during the years 1750-1825" Wentworth Cheswell alone was the topic of almost half of the entire thesis. As I gathered information it convinced me that if any one man could be called the father of Newmarket, it was Wentworth Cheswell. When I thought about his headstone broken off at the bottom and laying in 7 pieces, It bothered me that a man who meant so much to this town in its earliest years, could be so forgotten. Together with the Newmarket Historical Society, I will help to raise up to $3000 to repair the existing headstone, display it in the Newmarket Historical Society Museum,and have a replica made to erect in place of the original. Several months ago I received a letter addressed to "Current Resident" from a woman named Sandy Bressler in Sacramento Ca, whose husband is the 8th generation descendent of Wentworth Cheswell. She had no idea that I'd already begun my research into Wentworth and his family. When she asked me to find out where Wentworths son Thomas was buried, (her husband is from this line) we were all astounded that Thomas' monument was no more than 80 feet directly in front of the house I've lived in for the past 14 years, over on Elm street in Newmarket, by the Riverside Cemetery. I have just recently made a presentation to the board of directors at The Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, and they have assured me that with the next printing of the brochure, Wentworth Cheswell will be included! I am hoping that with February being Black Heritage Month that you feel that this story is a valuable story to share with the citizens of New Hampshire.I would also like to suggest that you review an article which includes Wentworth Cheswell, my research,and my attempts to repair his headstone, place the original in the Historical Society,and place a replica over his gravesite. Museum which was printed in the Sunday Portsmouth Herald, on December 22nd 2002. It can be seen online at http://www.seacoastonline.com/2002news/exeter/12222002/news/4447.htm

Richard Alperin