Henry B. Worth, a local historian and lecturer active during the early twentieth century, remains as well regarded today as he was when he first began meticulously tracking the region's history nearly 100 years ago.

Bob Maker visited the Russells Mills Schoolhouse this week as part of the Dartmouth Historical and Arts Society’s Sunday speaker series. Maker focused his talk on Henry B. Worth, who was a member of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society since the group first assembled in 1903.

Worth is noted for his work “Old Dartmouth Sketches,” which explored the homes of the region.

“Henry Worth was from an old Nantucket family. Henry was born in 1858 and went to Amherst College then studied for the bar,” said Maker. “When he passed the bar, he moved to New Bedford and became a lawyer specializing in real estate law. Specializing in real estate meant that he spent a lot of time looking at old deeds and wills.”

Worth researched those documents back to the 1600s, which helped inform his work as a historian. But he also culled information from Town Meeting records, maps, Quaker records, state records, court records, newspaper articles and advertisements and diaries.

In the early days of the Historical Society, one member would typically give a talk at the quarterly meetings. Those talks would be transcribed and published as a “sketch.” While most members would write one or two, Worth wrote 20.

Worth teamed up with photographer Fred Palmer to document some of the oldest houses scattered throughout Old Dartmouth, which encompasses the area of Dartmouth, Westport, Fairhaven, and Acushnet and New Bedford.

“During King Philip’s War, all of the houses in Old Dartmouth were destroyed. But after the war was over, there was a wave of building and rebuilding that took place,” said Maker.

In Worth’s lifetime, he realized that the only buildings remaining from this period of rebuilding were starting to fall into disrepair. He decided to focus his writing on these buildings to preserve their legacy. Worth’s first “Old Dartmouth Sketch” was based on a speech he gave titled “Ten Ancient Homes.” This became the blueprint for his later work.

His other sketches included titles such as “Head of Westport and its Founders,” “The Homesteads at Apponegansett Before 1710,” “The First Settlers of Dartmouth and Where They Located.” Maker said, for a New Bedford-based historian, Worth wrote relatively little about the whaling industry.

Worth’s chronicling of historic houses became a weekly column in the newspaper The Mercury for about a year and a half and was accompanied by Palmer’s photography.

“These sketches about these houses was very popular. When the series finally finished its run, there were a couple of members of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society who put them together into a book,” said Maker.

That book remains part of the collection of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society to this day, he said.

Maker said that Worth was a well-respected by other historians and researchers. Maker read from several authors who praised the historian and his sketches.

“A great service has been done by Henry B. Worth who has been indefatigable in seeking out the histories of the ancient homes in Old Dartmouth,” wrote William Wing.

Worth served as the secretary of the Old Dartmouth Historical Society during the last decade of his life. He died in 1923.

Worth’s historical sketches can be accessed online through the New Bedford Whaling Museum website at: http://www.whalingmuseum.org/explore/library/publications/old-dartmouth-historical-sketches

The Dartmouth Historial and Arts Society will be hosting guest speaker “Cukie” Macomber on Sunday, Feb. 7.