Thomas Horsefield Wentworth was born on August 24, 1837, in Orneville, Maine, to Sina Wentworth and Sarah Horsefield. His father was a farmer who owned $500 of real estate in 1850. Wentworth grew up and attended school in Orneville. By 1860, he was living in Corinth, Maine and working as a joiner.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on December 17, 1861, and he mustered in as a sergeant in Company H of the 15^th Maine Infantry later that day. The regiment spent the next few years stationed in the Department of the Gulf, and the army transferred it to the Army of the Shenandoah in the summer of 1864. Wentworth was promoted to 2^nd lieutenant sometime in 1863, and then to 1^st lieutenant on November 8, 1863. He mustered out on March 13, 1865.

 

Wentworth corresponded with Abigail Elizabeth Wheeler throughout the war, and they probably got married around 1865. They had at least two children: Thomas, born around 1866; and Stella, born around 1869. He earned admission to the bar in 1867 and began working as a lawyer soon afterward. They settled in Bradford, Maine, and by 1870, he owned $290 of personal property. He was elected to the state legislature in 1877 and won a seat in the state senate six years later. He remained in Bradford for the rest of his life, and he died there of chronic endocarditis on January 26, 1917.

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