Benning Wentworth (1696-October 14, 1770) was the colonial governor of New Hampshire from 1741 to 1766. Wentworth enriched himself by a clever scheme of selling land now in the state of Vermont to developers, in spite of jurisdictional claims for this region by the Colony of New York. Fort Wentworth built in 1755 at Northumberland, New Hampshire was built by his order and named after him.