Bottle

Object Name:

Bottle

Object ID:

2023.001

Place of Origin:

England

Date:

1754

Description:

Wine bottle. Dark green hand-blown glass with raised glass seal, "MH / WENTWOR[TH] / 1754". Bottle has a concave base with pontil mark. Typed label pasted to bottle reads: "This wine bottle was found in the wine / cellar of the house once occupied by / Mark Hunking Wentworth (father of John / Wentworth, the last Royal Gov. of the / Province of N.H.). The house was razed / on June, 185[5], the site being used for / the new high school building (present / city hall bldg., on Daniel St. Ports. N.H.)".

Material:

Glass

Dimensions:

H-10.75 Dia-4.125 inches

Provenance:

Mark Hunking Wentworth (1709-1785) was a wealthy landowner and merchant in Portsmouth, NH. By the 1750s, Mark acquired a large mansion on the corner of Daniel and Chapel Streets. The basement either already had a wine cellar or he installed one. The mansion was demolished in 1855 for the construction of a school (now Old City Hall). In Charles Brewster's Rambles About Portsmouth (1859), he noted that the now-demolished house's "spacious arrangements for the wine-cellar, show that in old times ample provision was made to lay in a year's supply to meet any emergency." Brewster also noted that "the remains of the 'old house on the corner' were sold at public auction" on August 2, 1855. It is plausible that empty wine bottles from the cellar were sold at this time or bottles were found during demolition. This bottle was passed down through the family of Garland William Patch Sr. (1905-1971) of Portsmouth, NH.

Credit Line:

Gift of Deborah (Patch) Wilson

People:

Wentworth, Mark Hunking (1709-1785)

Subjects:

Wine cellars, Wine