Last week’s photograph showed the Peirce family dressed up like it was the 1700s. That must have been all the rage, because here we go again. This group of actors must be part of a stage performance some time in the late 1800s, but I’ve yet to track down the precise show or identify the dramatis personae.
The only identified cast member is John Templemann Coolidge, who appears to be one of the men in the center. Coolidge was a Harvard grad, independently wealthy, and talented. He married Katherine Parkman, the daughter of the famed American historian Francis Parkman. Returning to the Boston residence after five years in Paris, the Coolidges bought the rambling 1760 Gov. Benning Wentworth Mansion and 15 acres of land off Little Harbor Road for only $5,000. It became their summer retreat and a gathering point for artistic friends and acquaintances.
The Coolidges restored much of the rambling old mansion during their 50 summers at Little Harbor, pulling it back from the brink of destruction. Trained as an artist, Templeman painted in oil, drew, carved in wood and built model ships. More importantly, his charm, wit, and bohemian lifestyle drew such cultural icons as painter John Singer Sargent, his father-in-law, Francis Parkman, and Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose world art collection of 2,500 pieces launched the Boston museum named in her honor.
The Coolidges were a cultural magnet for a Supreme Court justice, delegates to the Russo-Japanese Peace Treaty in 1905, men of letters, and even a surprise visit by President Theodore Roosevelt. As an accomplished amateur artist, Templeman relished playing host to talent greater than his own. His Portsmouth mansion with its dock, sailboats, gardens, and expansive lawn was the ideal lure for seasonal guests. Coolidge kept his little yacht “Theo,” purchased from his millionaire neighbor Arthur Carey, moored nearby, with the elite Wentworth Hotel visible in the distance.
Summers at the Wentworth-Coolidge House were idyllic. It is a fair bet that the old governor’s mansion was never livelier than when the Coolidge clan was in residence. Templeman and Katherine had five rambunctious children who were brought up steeped in the arts. The children spoke French, posed for their father’s paintings, and put on dramatic plays in the pine forest. Eldest daughter Molly, whose bedroom was once Gov. Wentworth’s dressing closet, rode her horse, swam in the creek, and traveled the grounds in a two-wheeled sulky pulled by Billy the Goat.
Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved. Photo: Portsmouth Athenaeum
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