Harriet A. Bentley was born on May 29, 1848, the fifth child of Cornelius Bentley, and Mary Brayton Bentley.
The first Bentley to America was William, who left England in 1671 and landed in Boston, Massachusetts. William married and went to Rhode Island; according to George Selleck “he was a man of some consequence in Rhode Island. In 1705, he was granted land by the town of N Kinston to erect a house suitable to carry on his trade as a tanner.”
Tragedy struck the Bentley family in January 1859 when Phebe, Harriet’s sister, died at the age of nineteen. Harriet looked up to her older sister and emulated her, she sorely missed Phebe.
Cornelius bought the Moreau farm in 1866, where Harriet continued her education at the Glens Falls Academy where she became more serious about drawing and painting. She had a strong desire to learn and an unbridled curiosity about everything. By the time she was twenty, Harriet’s artistic ability was apparent. She did so well that she started teaching art, giving private lessons at her nearby studio. Much of Harriet’s work was in watercolors, but she also did pencil sketches and oil painting. Some of her work is exhibited at the Parks Bentley Place.
Harriet Bentley was a remarkable woman, especially for her time when women were generally relegated to the role of housewife and mother. She was a multi-faceted individual with varied talents. Her many accomplishments besides being an artist of note included being an art teacher for at least fifty years, a historian, an author, a cartographer and an inventor. “Martha Mason” currently hangs in a room here at the Parks Bentley Place; it is a very large oil painting and possibly her most ambitious undertaking. She also wrote “The Old Military Road,” a booklet on local history detailing the route from Fort Edward to Lake George in 1755 and Burgoyne’s route from Quebec to Saratoga in 1777. She wrote two children’s short stories which are on file at the Chapman Museum in Glens Falls. The maps Harriet drew were detailed military ones highlighting historical points of interest; they were used in many schools.
International patents were held by Harriet on a substance she invented for coating photographs or prints of any kind so they may painted with transparent oil colors. She prepared liquid rubber for use in repairing such items as boots, bicycle tires, hot water bottles and many other rubber goods.