Nonfiction

Shrouded in myth, mystery, and misinformation, the true story of New Hampshire's founding family has never been fully told–until now. Why do we know so little about David and Amias Thompson of Plymouth, England? And why is what we think we know so often wrong? Barely three years after the Mayflower landed in Massachusetts, a wholly different plan for America was in play. Popular journalist J. Dennis Robinson exhumes the facts and connects the dots to reveal a forgotten journey that will challenge your perception of how New England was born.

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Strawbery Banke Museum is a rich core sample of an ever-changing America. The ten-acre museum campus, New Hampshire's earliest neighborhood, began as a British plantation on a tidal inlet. Abandoned by its founders in 1635, the settlement "accidentally" named Strawberry Bank survived to become New Hampshire's only seaport.

A century later the bustling Portsmouth waterfront was home to royal governors, tall ships, skilled artisans, and wealthy merchants. When the maritime economy crashed and the city burned in the nineteenth century, the "Puddle Dock" neighborhood drew waves of immigrant families to its ancient low-rent buildings.

Then in the twentieth century, fearful of urban "blight," a federal redevelopment project went off here like a neutron bomb. The population and the junkyards disappeared, but a grassroots preservation movement saved many historic buildings from the bulldozers of progress.

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When the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel opened in 1874, it joined dozens of other resorts dotting the northern New England landscape. Today, it remains among the few grand hotels in this region. Over the decades, the hotel has undergone early success, bankruptcy, and resurgence under the guidance of a Gilded Age tycoon In 1905, it was the focus of an international peace conference. Then, after decades as a prominent family resort and convention center, it languished for 20 years, only to rise again as a beloved upscale hotel and spa. Author J. Dennis Robinson tells tales of the Wentworth’s owners, its loyal employees, and the quests who make it memorable.

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