Chapter XI: Introduction: By George Perry Morris (9)

surrounded the chimney-piece of the parlor. But the parlor remains unchanged, with its low ceiling and uneven floor; the old staircase is there, the old trees, and, in spite of the tooth of time and the worse spoliation of man, enough is left to hint at the days of its early repute and to make the place worth a visit.

One more glimpse through the mist before we come to the new times of this our Isle of Peace. It is just half a century since Berkeley, his baffled scheme heavy at his heart, set sail for Ireland. The fog is unusually thick, and lies like a fleece of wool over the sea. Absolutely nothing can be seen, but strange sounds come, borne on the wind from the direction of Block Island--dull reports as of cannon signals; and the inhabitants of Newport prick up their ears and strain their eyes with a mixture of hope and terror; for the French fleet is looked for; English cruisers have been seen or suspected hovering round the coast, and who knows but a naval engagement is taking place at that very moment. By and by the fog lifts, with that fantastic deliberation which distinguishes its movements, and presently stately shapes whiten the blue, and, gradually nearing, reveal themselves as

the frigates _Surveillante_, _Amazone_ and _Guêpe_, _The Duke of Burgundy_, and _The Neptune_, “doubly sheathed with copper”; _The Conquerant_, _The Provence_, _The Eveillé_, also “doubly sheathed with copper”; _The Lazon_ and _The Ardent_, convoying a host of transports and store-ships; with General Rochambeau and his officers on board, besides the regiments of Bourbonnais, Soissonais, Saintonge and Royal Deux Ponts, five hundred artillerists and six hundred of Lauzan’s Legion, all come to aid the infant United States, then in the fourth year of their struggle for independence. Never was reinforcement more timely or more ardently desired. We may be sure that all Newport ran out to greet the new arrivals. Among the other officers who landed on that eventful 11th of July, was Claude Blanchard, commissary-in-chief of the French forces--an important man enough to the expedition, but of very little importance now, except for the lucky fact that he kept a journal,--which journal, recently published, gives a better and more detailed account of affairs at that time and place than any one else has afforded us.

It is from Blanchard that we learn of the three months’ voyage; of sighting now and again the vessels of the English squadron; of the Chevalier de Fernay’s refusal to engage them, he being intent on the safe-conduct of his convoy; of the consequent heart-burnings and reproaches of his captains, which, together with the stings of his own wounded pride, resulted in a fever, and subsequently in his death, recorded on the tablet which now adorns the vestibule of Trinity Church. The town was illuminated in honor of the fleet. “A small but handsome town,” says Blanchard, “and the houses, though mostly of wood, are of an agreeable shape.”

The first work of the newly arrived allies was to restore the redoubts which the English had dismantled and in great part destroyed. It was at this time that the first fort on the Dumplings, and the original Fort Adams, on Brenton’s Reef, were built. The excellent Blanchard meanwhile continues his observations on climate, society and local customs.

One of his criticisms on the national characteristics strikes us oddly now, yet has its interest as denoting the natural drift and result of the employment of a debased currency.

“The Americans are slow, and do not decide promptly in matters of business,” he observes. “It is not easy for us to rely upon their promises. They love money, and _hard_ money; it is thus they designate specie to distinguish it from paper money, which loses prodigiously. This loss varies according to circumstances and according to the provinces.”

Later we hear of dinners and diners:

“They do not eat soups, and do not serve up ragouts at their
dinners, but boiled and roast, and much vegetables. They drink
nothing but cider and Madeira wine with water. The dessert is
composed of preserved quinces and pickled sorrel. The Americans eat
the latter with the meat. They do not take coffee immediately after
dinner, but it is served three or four hours afterward with tea;
this coffee is weak, and four or five cups are not equal to one of
ours; so that they take many of them. The tea, on the contrary, is
very strong. Breakfast is an important affair with them. Besides
tea and coffee, they put on table roasted meats, with butter, pies
and ham; nevertheless they sup, and in the afternoon they again
take tea. Thus the Americans are almost always at table; and as
they have little to occupy them, as they go out little in winter,
and spend whole days alongside their fireside and their wives,
without reading and without doing anything, going to table is a
relief and a preventive of _ennui_. Yet they are not great eaters.”

On the 5th of March, 1781, General Washington arrived in Newport. Blanchard thus records his first impressions of the commander-in-chief: “His face is handsome, noble and mild. He is tall--at the least, five feet eight inches (French measure). In the evening I was at supper with him. I mark, as a fortunate day, that in which I have been able to behold a man so truly great.”

After the war came a period of great business depression, in which Newport heavily shared. The British, during their occupation of the town, had done much to injure it. Nearly a thousand buildings were destroyed by them on the island; fruit-and shade-trees were cut down, the churches were used

MADE BY HOUDON IN 1785.]

as barracks, and the Redwood Library was despoiled of its more valuable books. Commerce was dead; the suppression of the slave-trade reduced many to poverty, and the curse of paper money--to which Rhode Island clung after other States had abandoned it--poisoned the very springs of public credit. Brissot de Warville, in the record of his journey “performed” through the United States in 1788, draws this melancholy picture of Newport at that time:

“Since the peace, everything is changed. The reign of solitude is
only interrupted by groups of idle men standing, with folded arms,
at the corners of the streets; houses falling to ruin; miserable
shops, which present nothing but a few coarse stuffs, or baskets of
apples, and other articles of little value; grass growing in the
public square, in front of the court of justice; rags stuffed in
the windows, or hung upon hideous women and lean, unquiet
children.”

Count Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, writing ten years later, calls the place “_cette ville triste et basse_,” and further ventures on this remarkable criticism of its salubrity:

“The healthfulness of the city of Newport and its environs is
doubtless the result of the brilliancy and coolness of its climate,
but this coolness proves fatal to its younger inhabitants, and the
number of young men, and, above all, of young women, who die yearly
of consumption is considerable. It is noteworthy that the
inscriptions on the tombstones in the cemetery indicate in almost
all cases that the person interred is either very young or very
old--either less than twenty years of age or more than seventy.”

Whether this statement of Count Rochefoucauld’s bears the test of examination would be impossible now to determine, for the century since his visit has made changes in the city of the dead as marked as those effected in the city of the living. But the “cool and brilliant” air with which he finds fault has since been proved by many invalids to be full of health-giving properties. Consumptives are more often sent to Newport for cure, nowadays, than away from it. Asthma, diseases of the chest and throat, nervous disorders, insomnia, excitability of brain, are in many cases sensibly benefited by the island climate, which, however, is less “brilliant” than sedative. This is attributed to the relaxing effects of the Gulf Stream, which is popularly supposed to make an opportune curve toward the shore and to produce a quality of air quite different from that of other New England seaside climates. Whatever may be the truth as to the bend of this obliging current, it is certain that something has given to the place an exceptional climate, pure, free from malaria and exempt equally from the fiercer heats of summer and the severer colds of winter.

It was not till about the year 1830 that the true source of Newport’s prosperity was realized to be her climate. Since then she has become more and more the Mecca of pilgrims from all parts of the country. Year by year, the town has spread and broadened, stretching out wide arms to include distant coigns of vantage, until now the summer city covers some miles in extent, and land, unsalable in the early part of the century, and but twenty years ago commanding little more than the price of a Western homestead, is now valued at from ten to fourteen thousand dollars an acre! Every year adds to the number of cottages and villas and to the provision made for the accommodation of strangers. The census, which in winter counts up to less than twenty thousand, is during the four months of “the season” swelled by the addition of thousands of strangers, many of whom are in a manner residents of the place, owning their own houses and preserving their domestic privacy.

A walk in the older and more thickly settled parts of the town is not without its rewards. There are to be found well-known objects of interest,--the Jewish burial-ground, with its luxurious screen of carefully tended flowers; the Redwood Library, rich in old books and the possession of the finest cut-leaved beech on the island; and the old Stone Mill, on which so much speculative reasoning in prose and verse has been lavished. Some years ago, those ruthless civic hands which know neither taste nor mercy, despoiled the mill of the vines which made it picturesque, but even thus denuded, it is an interesting object. There is old Trinity, with its square pews and burial tablets, and a last-century “three-decker” pulpit, with clerk’s desk, reading-desk and preaching-desk,

all overhung by a conical sounding-board of extinguisher pattern--a sounding-board on which whole generations of little boys have fixed fascinated eyes, wondering in case of fall what would become of the clergyman underneath it. And, besides these, each westward-leading street gives pretty glimpses of bay and islands and shipping, and there is always the chance of lighting on a bit of the past,--some quaint roof or wall or doorway, left over from Revolutionary times and holding up a protesting face from among more modern buildings.

Winter or summer, the charm which most endears Newport to the imaginative mind is, and must continue to be, the odd mingling of old and new which meets you on every hand. A large portion of the place belongs and can belong to no other day but our own, but touching it everywhere, apart from it but of it, is the past. It meets you at every turn, in legend or relic or quaint traditionary custom still kept up and observed. Many farm-hands and servants on the island still date and renew their contracts of service from “Lady-Day.” The “nine-o’clock bell,” which seems derived in some dim way from the ancient curfew, is regularly rung. The election parade, dear to little boys and peanut-venders, has continued to be a chief event every spring, with its procession, its drums, its crowd of country visitors, and small booths for the sale of edibles and non-edibles pitched on either side the State-House Square, which, in honor of this yearly observance, is called familiarly, “The Parade.” One of the oldest militia companies in New England is the Newport Artillery, and _The Mercury_, established in 1758 by a brother of Benjamin Franklin, is the oldest surviving newspaper in the United States. Newport also possesses a town-crier. He may be met with any day, tinkling his bell at street corners and rehearsing, in a loud, melancholy chant, facts regarding auction-sales, or town-meetings, or lost property. And, turning aside from the polo-play or the Avenue crowded with brilliant equipages, a few rods carries you to the quiet loneliness of a secluded burial-place, with the name of an ancient family carved on its locked gate, in which, beneath gray headstones and long, flowering grasses, repose the hushed secrets of a century ago. Or, fresh from the buzz and chatter, the gay interchange of the day, you may chance on an old salt spinning yarns of pirates and privateers, phantom ships or buried treasure, or an antiquary full of well-remembered stories whose actors belong to the far-gone past,--stories of the extinct glories of

the place, of family romance and family tragedy, or tragedy just escaped. What could be finer contrast than tales like these, told on a street-corner where, just before, perhaps, the question had been about Wall Street or Santiago, if the French frigate were still in the bay, or when would be the next meeting of the Town and Country Club! Indeed, it is not so many years since visitors to Newport might have held speech with a dear old lady whose memory carried her back clearly and distinctly to the day when, a child six years old, she sat on Washington’s knee. The little girl had a sweet voice. She sang a song to the great man, in recompense for which he honored her with a salute. “It was here, my dear, and here, that General Washington kissed me,” she would say to her grandchildren, touching first one and then the other wrinkled cheek; and to the end of her life, no other lips were suffered to profane with a touch the spots thus made sacred.

In a country whose charm and whose reproach alike is its newness, and to a society whose roots are forever being uprooted and freshly planted to be again uprooted, there is real education and advantage in the tangible neighborhood of the past; and the Newport past is neither an unlovely nor a reproachful shape. There is dignity in her calm mien; she looks on stately and untroubled, and compares and measures. The dazzle and glitter of modern luxury do not daunt her: she has seen splendor before in a different generation and different forms, she has shared it, she has watched it fade and fail. Out of her mute, critical regard, a voice seems to sound in tones like the rustle of falling leaves in an autumn day, and to utter that ancient and melancholy truth, _Vanitas vanitatum_! “The fashion of this world passeth away.” We listen, awed for a moment, and then we smile again,--for brightness near at hand has a more potent spell than melancholy gone by,--and turning to our modern lives with their movement and sunshine, their hope and growth, we are content to accept and enjoy such brief day as is granted us, nor “prate nor hint of change till change shall come.”

PROVIDENCE

THE COLONY OF HOPE

BY WILLIAM B. WEEDEN

The capital of Rhode Island, the second city of New England,--an agricultural village in the seventeenth, a commercial port in the eighteenth, and a centre of manufacturing in the nineteenth century,--lies at the head of Narragansett Bay. The mainland of the State westward to Connecticut, according to Shaler, rests on very old rocks of the Laurentian and Lower Cambrian series. The greater part of the bay and the land near Providence is upon rocks belonging to the Coal measures. These rocks, softer than the older ones, have been cut away and afford the inlets of the bay. The surface of the State and the sloping hills of Providence have been profoundly affected by the wearing course of the glaciers.

The original village skirted along the western side of the ridge, by which ran the little Moshassuck and Woons-asquetucket Rivers. Eastward the ridge stretched in a plateau to the larger Seekonk, which cut off the peninsula. On the eastern side of the Seekonk, Roger Williams had settled and planted, when Plymouth Colony significantly advised him to move on. In June, 1636, with five companions, he crossed the Seekonk and landed on the rock, since raised to the grade of Ives and Williams streets. Here, as the tradition runs, Indians greeted him cordially, “What Cheer, Netop! What Cheer!” He had arranged with the Narragansett sachems, Canonicus and Miantinomi, for deeds of the lands about these rivers and the Pawtuxet, with certain undefined rights extending westward and northward.

The canoe kept away from What Cheer or Slate rock, south and westward around Tockwotton and Fox Point, up the Providence River, to land near where St. John’s Church stands. The spring of water attracting the pioneer and kept as public property is in the basement of a house on the northwest corner of North Main Street and Allen’s Lane. North Main was the “Towne Streete,” occupied by

FROM THE SOUTH.]

the little band of settlers. Williams’s “home-lot” stretched easterly, including the land of the Dorr Estate, at the corner of Benefit and Bowen Streets. A stone in the rear of the buildings marks the spot where Roger Williams was buried.

In this man was the germ of Providence, the adumbration of the little commonwealth of Rhode Island. Whatever drove him from Massachusetts, however the Puritans enforced their narrow political scheme, the result was a free State founded on new principles of government. In the words of Thomas Durfee:

“Absolute sincerity is the key to his character, as it was always
the mainspring of his conduct.... He had the defect of his
qualities;--an inordinate confidence in his own judgment. He had
also the defects of his race;--the hot Welsh temper, passionate and
resentful under provocation, and the moody Welsh fancy.”

The “Plantations of Providence” began in these “home-lots,” reaching eastward from the “Towne Streete.” It was intended to give each settler five acres. Some had, moreover, meadow-lands, and there were common rights, as in all the plantations of New England. Chad Brown, John Throckmorton, and Gregory Dexter were the committee who made

FROM A DESIGN BY A. H. WRAY.]

the first allotment. The land had been conveyed from the Indian sachems, and Williams gave it by “initial deed” to his twelve companions, making thirteen original proprietors.

“Probably in the autumn of 1638, and certainly prior to the 16th of March, 1639,”[68] the settlers formed the first Baptist church in America. Williams was pastor for about four months, with Holyman as colleague. Chad Brown was ordained in 1642 with William Wickenden. The latter was succeeded by Gregory Dexter. The present church, adapted by James Sumner from designs of James Gibbs, architect, was built in 1775. Earlier than this, though the date is not fixed, the proprietors had made the following agreement, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated:

“We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the town of
Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or passive
obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for
public good of the body, in an orderly way, by the major assent of
the present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together
into a town-fellowship, and such others whom they shall admit unto
them only in civil things.”

Here was laid the foundation of soul liberty. Let us refer to Diman: “Thus, for the first time in history, a form of government was adopted which drew a clear and unmistakable line between the temporal and spiritual power, and a community came into being which was an anomaly among the nations.” It was a pure democracy, controlling the admission of its members.

They soon found that some delegation of power was needed for civil administration, and in 1640 they elaborated their system somewhat, and established rudimentary courts. They perceived that they could not remain safely between the unfriendly colonies of Massachusetts on one side, and the alien Dutch of New York on the other. They sent Williams to England, whence he returned in 1644, bringing a parliamentary charter. Under this, the towns of Providence, Portsmouth and Newport were united, with the name “The Incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England.” In 1645 there were, according to Holmes, 101 men in Providence capable of bearing arms. Staples thinks this estimate includes the population of Shawonet or Warwick. In 1663 John Clarke of Newport obtained the royal charter, which was adopted by the freemen of the towns, and the commonwealth was entitled the “Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” The oldest tax or rate bill extant dates from 1650, when Roger Williams was assessed £1.13.4. In 1663 the whole tax was £36. assessed in “Country pay,” which performed such important functions in the currencies of New England, viz., wheat at 4_s._ 6_d._, peas, 3_s._ 6_d._, butter, 6_d._

An important factor in the daily life of Providence has always been in the crossing of the main stream which limited the early village on the west. Mr. Fred. A. Arnold’s careful investigation[69] shows that a bridge at Weybosset, “formerly Wapwayset,” or “at the narrow passage,” was built before 1660. It was repaired and renewed at various times. In 166-7/8 Roger Williams undertook, in a most interesting document, to maintain it by co-operative labor from the townsmen and tolls from strangers. It was enlarged until, in the middle of our century, tradition claimed it to be the widest bridge in the world. Other bridges spanned the river, and in the present year the old Weybosset is being replaced by an elaborate steel structure laid on piers of granite.

In 1675-1676 King Philip’s War, in which the Narragansetts joined, raged through southern New England, and our little plantation was devastated. The women and children generally, with the greater part of the men, sought safety in Newport, Long Island or elsewhere. Thirty houses were burned, chiefly in the north part of the town. After the Indians were beaten, the village was slowly rebuilt. At this time the administration of the settlement was in the hands of the Friends. Their influence was second only to that of the Baptists, until after the Revolution. The only original house standing is the interesting Roger Mowry[70] tavern, built in 1653 or earlier, called also the Whipple or Abbott house. Guarded by a large elm, it stands on Abbott Street, which runs eastward from North Main. The town council met there, and tradition says Williams conducted prayer-meetings in it.

Some of the sites of the early planters are interesting. Richard Scott, a Quaker and antagonist of Williams, lived on the lot next north of St. John’s churchyard. Mary Dyre went from here to be hanged on Boston Common. Near Dexter’s (afterward Olney’s) lane lived Gregory Dexter. Chad Brown, the ancestor of so many men of mark, lived on land now occupied by College Street. The purpose of the original allotment was to give fronts upon the “Towne Streete” and river, and equal shares of farm-lands. According to Dorr[71]:

“This attempt at democratic equality only created a multitude of
small estates widely separated, and in some instances nearly or
quite a mile apart. Besides his home-lot of five acres, each
proprietor had a ‘six-acre lot,’ at a distance from his abode; and
in a few years one or more ‘stated common lots,’ which he acquired
by purchase from the Proprietary, or by their occasional land
dividends among themselves.”

The chief holdings were on “Providence Neck,” but they gradually extended into “Weybosset Neck.”

The latter years of Roger Williams were largely occupied by controversies with his neighbors, including his especial opponent, William Harris. The germs of a new State, rendered indestructible by the complete separation of church and state, if slumbering, yet lived in spite of the petty social stagnation of an agricultural community.

Early in the eighteenth century, the plantation took a new departure. Nathaniel Browne, a shipwright, had been driven out from Massachusetts, because he had become “a convert to the Church of England.” In 1711 the town granted him one half-acre on “Waybosset Neck on salt water,” and again another half-acre for building vessels. His vessels were among the first to sail from Providence for the West Indies. Horse-carts and vehicles had been used before 1700 by the wealthy, but Madame Knight’s journey to New York from Boston in 1704 shows that the saddle and pillion were the common conveyance along the bridle-paths. Galloping on the Town Street was prohibited in 1681. Through Pawtucket, the Bostonians came by the present North Burying Ground into the Town Street, then crossed Weybosset Bridge on their way toward the southwest. In the wider part of Weybosset thoroughfare, there stood a knoll, which has been levelled away. The road swept around and created the bulging lines of the street. Travel went on through Apponaug and North Kingstown, over Tower Hill and by the Narragansett shore, over the Pequot path toward New York. At this period, the road was opened toward Hartford, and improved communications were made with the surrounding towns. It was not until 1820 that a direct turnpike was opened from Providence to New London.

Of more importance even was the way into the world outward, through the bay. Pardon Tillinghast had been granted land twenty feet square for a storehouse and wharf “over against his dwelling-place,” in 1679-80, at the foot of the present Transit Street. There was struggle and competition for “lands by the sea-side,” or “forty-foot lots, called warehouse lots,” throughout this time, and complete division of the shore privileges was not effected until 1749. All these restless movements showed that the town was waking up and sending its commerce abroad into foreign countries. The first effectual street regulations were in 1736.

The next church organized after the First Baptist followed the faith of the Six-Principle Baptists. The Friends, as they were expelled from Massachusetts, settled in various towns of Rhode Island. Mention has been made of Richard Scott. In 1672 George Fox visited Newport, and he held a meeting “in a great barn” at Providence. Here was a contestant worthy of our doughty champion, Williams. They disputed with voice and pen, recording their angelic moods in these argumentative titles: _The Fox Digged out of his Burrowes_ begged one side of the question; this was answered with equal logic in _A New England Firebrand Quenched_. The Friends built a meeting-house about 1704.

The First Congregational Pedobaptist (now Unitarian) Society was formed about 1720. They built a house for worship in 1723, at the corner of College and Benefit Streets, where the Court House now stands. This building became the “Old Town House,” when the society moved to its present location at the corner of Benevolent and Benefit Streets. Meanwhile the adherents of the Church of England, yet to become the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, were gathering in our town. There is some dispute as to the first movements, but Dr. McSparran of Narragansett affirmed that he “was the first Episcopal minister that ever preached at Providence.” The society thus formed finally took the name of “St. John’s Church, in Providence.” The church was raised in 1722, on the spot where the present building succeeded it in 1810. It will be observed that these new ecclesiastical developments moved along with the broader commercial life which was animating the community.

Any historical student should examine Rhode Island for what it is, and even more for what it is not. Roger Williams and his fellows tried a “lively experiment” as daring as it was fruitful. They severed church and state, cutting off thereby the help of an educated clergy. They founded a political democracy, tempering it with the best aristocracy to be obtained, without the ordinary facilities of education derived through such help. Neither the Williams Independents nor the Quakers followed the common formulas of education, which were generally in the hands of Anglicans or Presbyterians. This does not prove that societies can safely drop scholastic education. Many communities have failed for lack of such education. It does prove that the Anglo-American stock engaged in political and economical development will educate itself. At first sight, it was hardly to be expected that isolated and unlettered Providence would be prominent in resisting England, or in forming a new government. But she did this, in full share, and the embodiment of her citizenship, the type of her republican character, was in one man, Stephen Hopkins--“great not only in capacity and force of mind, but also--what is much rarer--in originative faculty.”

Born a farmer in 1707, removing to Providence in 1731, a member of the General Assembly in 1732, Chief Justice in 1739, one of the committee to form Franklin’s plan of colonial union at Albany in 1754, a signer of the Declaration in 1776--we have here the full measure of a republican citizen, whether by the standard of Cato, or by the later models of Franklin and Washington. “A clear and convincing speaker, he used his influence in Congress in favor of decisive measures.”

FROM “APPLETONS’ CYCLO. OF AM. BIOG.” COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY D. APPLETON & CO.]

In 1758 the first postmaster was appointed by Dr. Franklin. The State House on North Main Street was erected in 1759; the Fire Department began in 1763; a “vigorous effort” was made for free schools in 1767.

A great change was wrought about 1763 by the opening of Westminster Street. A town named for Mr. Fox’s political district had been projected on the west side. It was strangled by the influence of the southern counties. Finally the way across the marsh was laid out. As late as 1771, there were only four houses on the southern and one on the northern side of Westminster Street.

Joseph and William Russell, Clark and Nightingale, with James Brown, the father of the four brothers mentioned below, were among the prominent merchants before the Revolution.

Next to the political change of colony into State, the greatest monument of the larger Rhode Island is the University. Rhode Island College, to become Brown University in 1804, was located under President Manning at Warren in 1766. By the “resolute spirits of the Browns and some other men of Providence,” University Hall was built in 1770. A government stable and barrack during the Revolution, it has been a beacon-light ever since.

We said not much might have been expected of little Rhody, by common rules of historic proportion, but the overt acts of the American Revolution began right here in 1772. The oppressive colonial administration, begun by Grenville, was especially vexatious in Narragansett Bay. The British cruiser _Gaspee_, attempting an illegal seizure, ran aground on Namquit, since known as Gaspee Point. The news ran like lightning through the town, that the _Hawk_ was fettered on our shore. Four brothers, Nicholas, Joseph, John and Moses, descended from Chad Brown, were all prominent merchants. John was a man of the time. Afterward, his powder, seized in a raid in the British West Indies, arrived in time to be issued in the retreat from Bunker Hill. Brown planned a daring attack on His Majesty’s vessel in James Sabin’s inn. The historic room has been transferred bodily by the Talbots to their home at 209 Williams Street. Eight long-boats were provided by Brown and moved under the command of Abraham Whipple, afterward a commodore in the Revolutionary navy. A boat from Bristol joined the party. Lieutenant Duddingston answered the hail of the patriot raiders and was severely wounded,

shedding the first British blood in the War of Independence. Whipple’s men boarded the cruiser, drove the crew below, took them off prisoners, then fired and destroyed the vessel. It shows the firm temper and new American loyalty prevailing in the town, that large rewards brought out no information which would effectively prosecute Brown and Whipple or their fellow offenders. Brown was arrested and imprisoned during the occupation of Boston, but for want of sufficient proof he was discharged.

Providence contributed its full share to the Revolution. Stephen Hopkins signed the Declaration of Independence with a tremulous hand, but a firm heart. Troops were freely furnished and privateers brought wealth to the town. The second division of the French contingent passed the winter of 1782 in encampment on Harrington’s Lane. The street is now known as Rochambeau Avenue. Newport, hitherto the more important port, lost her commerce through the British occupation. The natural drift of commerce to the farthest inland waters available was precipitated by these political changes. Newport never recovered her lost prestige, and Providence developed rapidly after the peace. Voyages, which had been mostly to the West Indies with an occasional trip to Bilbao and the Mediterranean, soon stretched around the world to harvest the teeming wealth of the Chinese and Indian seas. The _General Washington_, the first vessel from Providence in that trade, sailed in 1787. Edward Carrington sent out and received the last vessels in 1841. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the profits of the Oriental trade were very great.

The manufacture of cotton was attempted by several parties, but it was not established in Providence. Samuel Slater located in Pawtucket in 1790. He was induced to come to our State through the sagacity, enterprise and abundant capital of Moses Brown. After about a year, a glut of yarns occurred, and Almy, Brown and Slater had accumulated nearly six thousand pounds. Brown said: “Samuel, if thee goes on, thee will spin up all our farms.” The manufacture extended rapidly and became the chief source of the prosperity of the State. It absorbed the capital, which was gradually withdrawn from commerce and shipping.

An important element in the development of our city has been the free banking system. The first institution in our State and the second in New England was the Providence Bank, chartered in 1791.

Newspapers only slightly affected the life of the eighteenth century. They began, in a humble way, the great part they were to play in later, modern development. _The Providence Gazette and Country Journal_ was first published in 1762 by William Goddard. _The Manufacturers’ and Farmers’ Journal_, still continuing its prosperous career, appeared in 1820. The _Gazette_ was enlivened by advertisements in verse, of which this is a specimen, from the year 1796:

“A bunch of Grapes is Thurber’s sign,
A shoe and boot is made on mine,
My shop doth stand in Bowen’s Lane,
And Jonathan Cady is my name.”

Housekeepers in our day consider the servant-girl question a hard problem, but hear the complaint a century ago. There had been taken away

“from the servant girls in this town, all inclination to do any
kind of work, and left in lieu thereof, an impudent appearance, a
strong and continued thirst for high wages, a gossiping disposition
for every sort of amusement, a leering and hankering after persons
of the other sex, a desire of finery and fashion, a never-ceasing
trot after new places more advantageous for stealing, with a number
of contingent accomplishments, that do not suit the wearers. Now if
any person or persons will restore that degree of honesty and
industry, which has been for some time missing,”

then this rugged censor offers $500 reward.

In 1767 the first regular stage-coach was advertised to Boston. In 1793 Hatch’s stages ran to Boston and charged the passengers a fare of one dollar, the same sum which the railway charges to-day. In 1796 a navigable canal was projected to Worcester, John Brown being an active promoter. The project was not carried through until 1828, when the packet-boat _Lady Carrington_ passed through the Blackstone Canal. The enterprise had poor success. John Brown built Washington Bridge across the lower Seekonk, connecting the eastern shore to India Point, where the wealth of Ormus and of Ind was discharged from the aromatic ships. In this period the first steamboat came from New York around Point Judith and connected with stages to Boston.

The international disputes concerning the embargo and non-intercourse with Great Britain, which led up to the War of 1812, found Providence opposed in opinion to the Executive of the United States. But the opposition was loyal and the government received proper support. Peace was very welcome when it was proclaimed in 1815. This year, a tremendous gale swept the ocean into the bay and the bay into the river, carrying ruin in their path. The waters were higher by some seven feet than had ever been known. The fierce winds carried the salt of the seas as far inland as Worcester. Thirty or forty vessels were dashed through the Weybosset Bridge into the cove above. Others were swept from their moorings and stranded among the wharves. Shops were smashed or damaged and the whole devastation cost nearly one million of dollars--a great sum in those days. It was a radical measure of improvement. New streets were opened and better stores rose amid the ruins. South Water and South West Water Streets date hence, and Canal Street was opened soon after.

In 1832 the city government was organized, with Samuel W. Bridgham for mayor. A serious riot occurring the previous year had shown that the old town government was outgrown. The railways to Boston and Stonington changed the course of transportation. In 1848 the Worcester connection, the first intersecting or cross line in New England, gave direct intercourse with the West.

We sent out Henry Wheaton, one of the masters of international law, and we adopted Francis Wayland,--a citizen of the world,--who set an enduring mark on Rhode Island. President of Brown University, 1827-1855, his work in the American educational system has not yet yielded its full fruit. He brought teacher and pupil into closer contact by the living voice. He projected a practical method for elective studies and put it in operation at Brown University in 1850. Started too soon, and with insufficient means, it opened the way to success, when the larger universities inaugurated similar methods after the Civil War. Nine hundred and forty-six students now attend where Manning and Wayland taught.

An armed though bloodless insurrection in 1842 brought our State to the verge of revolution. The old charter of 1663 limited suffrage to freeholders and their oldest sons. Thomas Wilson Dorr was the champion of people’s suffrage. His party elected him governor with a legislature, by irregular and illegitimate voting. They mustered in arms and tried to seize the State arsenals in our city. Dorr had a strong intellect; he was a sincere and unselfish patriot, though perverse and foolish in his conduct of affairs. The suffrage was widened by a new constitution in 1843, which has just been revised by a constitutional commission.

The early cotton manufacture was fostered by the well-distributed water-power of Rhode Island. The glacial grinding of the land had left numerous ponds and minor streams,--admirable reservoirs of water-power,--just the facilities needed for weak pioneers. As the century advanced, greater force was needed. About 1847 George H. Corliss bent his talents and energies to extend the power of the high-pressure steam-engine. He adapted and developed better cut-off valves, which preserved the whole expansive force of the steam, stopped off before it filled the cylinder. It was a new lever of Archimedes, and Corliss’s machines went over the whole world. This new mastery of force stimulated all industries.

Our little community showed its customary military spirit in 1861. Governor William Sprague mustered troops with great energy. After the famous Massachusetts 6th, the Rhode Island 1st Militia with its 1st Battery were the first reinforcements which arrived at Washington. In field artillery, our volunteers were especially proficient.

The growth of the population of Providence is shown in the following table:

1708 1,446

1730 3,916

1774 4,321

1800 7,614

1810 10,071

1820 11,745

1830 16,836

1840 23,172

1850 41,513

1860 50,666

1870 68,904

1880 104,857

1885 118,070

1895 145,472

We could not notice all parts of Providence in this cursory survey. Small as well as large implements of iron, jewelry and silver, the invention and immense production of wood-screws, india-rubber, worsted,--all these complicated industries have built up an extending and encroaching city, until now three hundred thousand people dwell within a radius of ten miles from our City Hall.

Old Providence, the home of Williams and the Quakers, is fading away. The “Towne Streete,” its meandering curves gradually straightening, will hardly be recognized a century hence. The Mowry house, the homes of Stephen and Esek Hopkins, are small, when compared with the mansions of John Brown, Thomas P. Ives, Sullivan Dorr and Edward Carrington; while the solid comfort prevailing in the eighteenth century, as embodied in these houses, is surpassed, though it may not be bettered, by the more pretentious domestic architecture of our day. The Independent worshipers in the First Baptist and First Congregational churches would feel strange under the domes of the beautiful Central Congregational. The Anglicans of the first St. John’s would be bewildered by the pointed arches of St. Stephen’s. The few Catholic immigrants, bringing the Host across the seas with tender care, and resting at St. Peter and St. Paul’s, would be amazed by the swarm of

well-to-do citizens clustering beneath the massive towers of the Cathedral.

The industrial and economic evolution is fully as great as the æsthetic and architectural. The crazy little organism of Almy, Brown and Slater is replaced by the long, whirling shafts, the spindled acres of the Goddards’ Ann and Hope Mill at Lonsdale. The homely security of the market house (present Board of Trade), the Providence Bank and the “Arcade” is overshadowed by the City Hall, the Rhode Island Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital Trust Company. University Hall burgeons into the fair arches of Sayles Hall. No medieval builder worked more reverently than Alpheus C. Morse, as he devotedly wrought at his task, getting the best lines into stone and lime.

Not always does the work of the modern builders tend toward beauty. The masterly brick arcades of Thomas A. Teft kept the city’s approaches for a half-century. Swept away by the more convenient passenger station of the New York and New Haven Railway, they will leave behind many regrets. The magnificent marble State House will lift the observer away from and above all the buildings below.

The growth of Providence runs even with the State’s, except in the excrescent luxury of Newport in its summer bloom. We cannot stand still like Holland; we must look outward or decay. The American destiny is reaching out, notwithstanding the caution of the prudent, perhaps of the judicious. The mystic Orient, no longer mysterious, beckons from the West instead of the East. It led the Browns, Iveses, Carringtons, Maurans, and their captains, the Holdens, Ormsbees, Paiges and Comstocks, to opulence. Their descendants, with more abundant capital, ready skill and better organization, ought not to lag in the world’s march. Men must be forthcoming.

There has been always a cosmopolitan flavor in the little State, isolated between the restless intellectual energy of Massachusetts and the steady Puritan development of Connecticut. Boston had more trade than Providence and Newport; she was not so truly commercial. The larger Franklin went over to Pennsylvania, but the next man, Stephen Hopkins, stayed in Rhode Island. The seed which Berkeley planted sprouted in Channing, and that influence went throughout New England. The little State has never been without ideas.

HARTFORD

“THE BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY”

BY MARY K. TALCOTT

Among the historic cities of New England, Hartford claims a foremost place. Not only was its settlement of great consequence at the time, but for historical importance and far-reaching results this colony’s claims to attention are second only to those of Plymouth and Boston. The foundation of Hartford was a further application and development of the ideas that brought the Puritans to this country, and, to quote the historian, Johnston,--

“Here is the first practical assertion of the right of the people,
not only to choose, but to limit the powers of their rulers, an
assertion which lies at the foundation of the American system....
It is on the banks of the Connecticut, under the mighty preaching
of Thomas Hooker, and in the constitution to which he gave life, if
not form, that we draw the first breath of that atmosphere which
is now so familiar to us. The birthplace of American democracy is
Hartford.”

This constitution, first promulgated in Hartford, was the first written constitution in history which was adopted by a people and which also organized a government. John Fiske says:

“The compact drawn up in the Mayflower’s cabin was not, in the
strict sense, a constitution, which is a document defining and
limiting the functions of government. Magna Charta partook of the
nature of a written constitution as far as it went, but it did not
create a government.”

On the 14th of January, 1639, the freemen of the three towns, Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield, assembled at Hartford, and drew up a constitution, consisting of eleven articles, which they called the “Fundamental Orders of Connecticut,” and under this law the people of Connecticut lived for nearly two centuries, as the Charter granted by King Charles II., in 1662, was simply a royal recognition of the government actually in operation. Another writer says:

“We honor the limitations of despotism which are written in the
twelve tables; the repression of monarchical power in Magna Charta,
in the Bill of Rights, and

in that whole undefinable creation, as invisible and intangible as
the atmosphere but like it full of oxygen and electricity, which we
call the British Constitution. But in our Connecticut Constitution
we find no limitation upon monarchy, for monarchy is unrecognized;
the limitations are upon the legislature, the courts, and
executive. It is pure democracy acting through representation, and
imposing organic limitations. Even the suffrage qualification of
church membership, which was required by our older sister Colony of
Massachusetts, was omitted. Here in a New England wilderness a few
pilgrims of the pilgrims, alive to the inspirations of the common
law and of the British Constitution, so full of Christianity that
they felt the great throb of its heart of human brotherhood, and so
full of Judaism that they believed themselves in some special sense
the people of God, made a written constitution, to be a supreme and
organic law for their State.”

But for the immediate inspiration of this document we must look to a “lecture,” preached by Mr. Hooker on Thursday, May 21, 1638, before the legislative body of freemen. Dr. Bacon says of it:

“That sermon, by Thomas Hooker, is the earliest known suggestion of
a fundamental law, enacted, not by royal charter nor by concession
from any previously existing government, but by the people
themselves,--a primary and supreme law by which the government is
constituted, and which not only provides for the free choice of
magistrates by the people, but also sets the bounds and limitations
of the power and place to which each magistrate is called.”

But we must know something of a people to whom such doctrines were preached--of a people capable of receiving and applying such truths. It is said that three kingdoms were sifted to furnish the men who settled New England, and it may also be said that the Massachusetts Colony was sifted to supply the Connecticut settlers. Three of the eight Massachusetts towns, Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now Cambridge), were not in full agreement with the other five, especially on the fundamental feature of the Massachusetts polity, the limitation of office-holding and the voting privilege to church-members. At first the majority were unwilling to grant the minority “liberty to remove.” John Haynes was made Governor of Massachusetts in 1635, probably with the hope of retaining his friends in the Colony. But their desire to leave was too strong; small parties of emigrants made their way to the banks of the Connecticut during the year 1635, but the main body of the colonists did not leave until the spring of 1636. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, the first historian of Connecticut, writing more than one hundred years ago, says:

“About the beginning of June Mr. Hooker, Mr. Stone, and about a
hundred men, women, and children took their departure from
Cambridge, and travelled more than a hundred miles thro’ a hideous
and trackless wilderness to Hartford. They had no guide but their
compass; made their way over mountains, thro’ swamps, thickets, and
rivers, which were not passable but with great difficulty. They had
no cover but the heavens, nor any lodgings but those which simple
nature afforded them. They drove with them a hundred and sixty head
of cattle, and by the way subsisted on the milk of their cows. Mrs.
Hooker was borne through the wilderness upon a litter. The people
generally carried their packs, arms, and some utensils. They were
nearly a fortnight on their journey.”

Trumbull adds: “This adventure was the more remarkable, as many of this company were persons of figure, who had lived in England in honor, affluence, and delicacy, and were entire strangers to fatigue and danger.” When dismissing these colonists Massachusetts sent with them a governing committee, or commissioners, as they were called. At a meeting of these commissioners, held February 21, 1637, the plantation, which had been called Newtown, was named Hartford. As Governor

Haynes was born in the immediate vicinity of the English Hertford, he probably had much influence in naming the new plantation. On the 11th of April, 1639, the first general meeting of the freemen under the constitution was held, and John Haynes was elected the first Governor of Connecticut. This selection shows his active sympathy and co-operation with Hooker, and we can entirely agree with Bancroft, when he says: “They who judge of men by their services to the human race will never cease to honor the memory of Hooker, and of Haynes.”

But the soil of Hartford has had other occupants; not only the aboriginal owners of the soil, for when the English came they found a Dutch trading-post established on what is yet known as Dutch Point. The English claimed the territory now comprehended in the State of Connecticut by virtue of the discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot in 1497, and more especially in 1498. This territory was included in the grant to the Plymouth Company in 1606, but that organization undertook no work of colonization. When the settlers of 1635 came they took possession of this portion of the valley of the Connecticut under the English flag, and claimed the territory by virtue of patents from the English crown. They paid Sequassen, the Indian chief, who ruled the river Indians, for his lands, and when the Pequots, his over-lords, disputed Sequassen’s right to sell, the colonists attacked them, and practically exterminated the tribe. The Dutch settlement originated from discoveries by Adrian Block, who sailed through the Sound in 1614, and up the Connecticut, or Fresh River, as he called it, in his sloop, _The Unrest_, as far as the falls, and upon his report to the States-general, a company was formed for trading in the New Netherlands. Only limited privileges were granted to this company, and it was afterwards superseded by the Dutch West India Company, to whom the exclusive governmental and commercial rights for the territory were granted. The Dutch were influenced much more by the desire for a lucrative trade with the natives than by any wish to found a colony, and in 1633 they built a fort on the spot still called Dutch Point, in Hartford, for the purpose of protecting their traffic with the Indians, which they had been carrying on for some ten years. This fort was known as the House of Hope, and when the English came they settled all about it, but did not interfere with the Dutch occupation. Naturally, there was friction between the two nationalities, and petty trespasses of various kinds were charged by both parties. Finally, after repeated complaints, the Commissioners of the United Colonies, Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, met at Hartford, September 11, 1650, with Peter Stuyvesant, Director of the New Netherlands, to consult upon the proper boundaries of the Dutch jurisdiction. The matter was referred to arbitrators, and resulted in a transfer to the English of all the territory lying west of the Connecticut except the land in Hartford actually occupied by the Dutch, the New Netherlands taking the country east of the river. But this arrangement did not last long, as, in 1653, war was declared between England and Holland, and the colonies were required by Parliament to treat the Dutch as the declared enemies of the Commonwealth of England. Trumbull says:

“In conformity to this order the General Court was convened, and an
act passed sequestering the Dutch house, lands, and property of all
kinds at Hartford, for the benefit of the Commonwealth; and the
Court also prohibited all persons, whatsoever, from improving the
premises by virtue of any former claim or title had, made, or
given, by any of the Dutch nation, or any other person, without
their approbation.”

Even after this change of rulers a few of the Dutch traders remained in Hartford, as is shown by references to them on the records, but they all finally returned to the New Netherlands.