USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > Progress of Providence; a centennial address to the citizens of Providence, R.I., with a poem > Part 1
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Gc 974.502 P948a 1771758
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
Go
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01146 7427
1876.]
CITY DOCUMENT. [No. 33.
THE PROGRESS OF PROVIDENCE. QI
A CENTENNIAL ADDRESS
TO THE
CITIZENS OF PROVIDENCE, R. I.
BY HON. SAMUEL GREENE ARNOLD.
WITH A POEM,
BY GEORGE WILLIAM PETTES.
DELIVERED JULY 4TH, 1876.
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WHAT CREER
OUND39
1832
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PROVIDENCE : PROVIDENCE PRESS CO., IRINTERS TO THE CITY. 1876.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/progressofprovid00arno
1771758
ARNOLD, SAMUEL GREENE, 1821-1880.
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F 8457 .. The progress of Providence. A centennial address to the citizens of Providence, R.I .. by Hon. Samuel Greene Arnold. With a poem, by George William Pettes. Delivered July 4th, 1876. Providence, R.I., Providence press co., 1876.
55р. (City doc. 1876. no.33)
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F8457.05
THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE.
RESOLUTIONS OF THE CITY COUNCIL.
[Approved July 10, 1876.]
RESOLVED, THAT THE CITY COUNCIL HEREBY TENDER THEIR THANKS T HON. SAMUEL G. ARNOLD FOR THE ORATION DELIVERED BY HIM AT TIJ CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL FOURTH OF JULY, AND ALSO TO GEORG W. PETTES, ESQ., FOR THE POEM RECITED BY HIM ON THE SAME OCCASIO!
RESOLVED, THAT THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS FOR SAID CELEBR. TION ARE HEREBY INSTRUCTED TO REQUEST A COPY OF SAID ORATION AN POEM, AND CAUSE THE SAME TO BE PRINTED IN SUCH MANNER AS THE MAY DEEM EXPEDIENT, FOR THE USE OF THE CITY COUNCIL.
A TRUE COPY: WITNESS,
SAMUEL W. BROWN CITY, CLERK.
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CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOURTH OF JULY.
PUBLIC RESOLUTION PASSED BY CONGRESS AND APPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT, MARCH 13, 1876.
Joint Resolution on the Celebration of the Centennial in the Several Counties or Towns.
Be il resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled :
That it be, and is hereby recommended by the Senate and House of Representatives to the people of the several States that they assemble in their several counties or towns on the approaching Centennial Anniver- sary of our National Independence, and that they cause to have delivered on such day an historical sketch of said county or town from its forma- tion, and that a copy of said sketch may be filed, in print or manuscript, in the clerk's office of said county, and an additional copy, in print or manuscript, be filed in the office of the Librarian of Congress, to the intent that a complete record may thus be obtained of the progress of our institutions during the First Centennial of their existence.
STATE OF RHODE ISLAND, &c.
IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY, JANUARY SESSION, A. D. 1876.
Joint Resolution on the Celebration of the Centennial in the Several C.ties and Towns.
Resolved, The House of Representatives concurring therein, that in accordance with the recommendation of the National Congress, the Governor be requested to invite the people of the several towns and cities
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of the state to assemble in their several localities on the approaching Centennial Anniversary of our National Independence, and cause to have delivered on such day, an historical sketch of said town or city from its formation, and to have one copy of said sketch, in print or in manuscript, filed in the clerk's office of said town or city, one copy in the office of the Secretary of State, and one copy in the office of the Librarian of Con- gress, to the intent that a complete record may thus be obtained of the progress of our institutions during the First Centennial of their existence ; and that the Governor be requested to communicate this invitation forth- with to the several Town and City Councils in the State.
I certify the foregoing to be a true copy of a resolution passed by the General Assembly of the State aforesaid, on the 20th day of April A. D. 1876.
[L. s.]
Witness my hand and the seal of the State, this 27th day of April A. D. 1876. JOSHUA M. ADDEMAN, Secretary of State.
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In accordance with the request of the General Assembly, in relation to the celebration of the Fourth of July, by the preparation of historical sketches of the several towns and cities, to be delivered on that day, and copies of the same to be preserved for future reference, His Excellency Governor Lippitt caused to be prepared and sent to the several town and city councils of the state, a circular note in the following form :
STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Providence, April 27th, 1876.
To the Honorable Town Council of the Town of
GENTLEMEN :- I have the honor herewith to enclose a duly certified copy of a resolution passed by the General Assembly at its recent session, re- questing me to invite the people of the several towns and cities of the state, to assemble in their several localities on the approaching Centennial Anniversary of our National Independence, and cause to have delivered on such day an historical sketch of said town or city from its formation.
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CENTENNIAL.
By pursuing the course suggested by the resolution of the General Assembly, the people of the state will derive an amount of information which will be invaluable to the present generation, as showing the wonderful progress of the several towns and cities since their foundation.
It will also be of great value to future generations when the materials for such sketches now accessible will have been lost or destroyed by acci- dent, or become more or less effaced and illegible from time.
Therefore, in pursuance of the request of the General Assembly, I re- spectfully and earnestly, through you, invite the people of your town to carry out the contemplated celebration on the fourth day of July next
HENRY LIPPITT, Governor.
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ADDRESS.
ITO trace the causes that led to the American Revo- lution, to narrate the events of the struggle for independence, or to consider the effect which the estab- lishment of "the great Republic" has had upon the fortunes of the race in other lands-these have been the usual and appropriate themes for discourse upon cach return of our national anniversary. And where can we find more exalted or more exalting subjects for reflec- tion? It is not the deed of a day, the events of a year, the changes of a century, that explain the condition of a nation. Else we might date from the fourth of July, 1776, the rise of the American people, and so far as we as a nation are concerned, we might disregard all prior history as completely as we do the years beyond the flood. But this we cannot do, for the primitive Briton, the resistless Roman, the invading Dane, the usurping Saxon, the conquering Norman, have all left their separate and distinguishable stamp upon the England of to-day. As from Cordmon to Chaucer, from Spenser to Shakspeare, from Milton to Macaulay, we trace the . progress of our language and literature from the unin- telligible Saxon to the English of our time ; so the
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development of political ideas has its great eras, chiefly written in blood. From the fall of Boadicea to the landing of Hengist, from the death of Harold to the triumph at Runnymede, from the wars of the Roses to the rise of the Reformation, from the fields of Edgehill and Worcester, through the restoration and expulsion of the Stuarts down to the days of George III, we may trace the steady advance of those notions of society and of government which culminated in the act of an Ameri- can Congress a century ago proclaiming us a united and independent people. When the barons of John assem- bled on that little islet in the Thames to wrest from their reluctant king the rights of Magna Charta, there were the same spirit, and the same purpose that pre- vailed nearly six centuries after in the Congress at Philadelphia, and the actors were the same in blood and lineage. The charging cry at Dunbar, " Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered," rang out a hundred and twenty-five years later from another Puritan camp on Bunker hill. So history repeats itself in the ever- recurring conflict of ideas, with the difference of time and place and people, and with this further difference in the result. that while in ancient times the principal characters in the historic drama were the conqueror, the conquered and the victim, these in modern days become the oppressor, the oppressed and the deliverer. Charles Stuart falls beneath Cromwell and Ireton, George III. yields to Washington and Greene, serfdom and slavery vanish before Romanoff and Lincoln.
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But we must turn from this wide field of history to one of narrower limits, to one so small that it seems insignificant to that class of minds which measures states only by the acre, as cloth by the yard ; to those men who, to be consistent, should consider Daniel Lambert a greater man than Napoleon Bonaparte or the continent of Africa a richer possession than Athens in the days of Pericles. There are many just such men, and the materialistic tendency of our time is adding to their number. It is in vain to remind them that from one of the smallest states of antiquity arose the philo- sophy and the art that rule the world to-day. Judea should have been an empire and Bethlehem a Babylon to impress such minds with the grandeur of Hebrew poetry or the sublimity of Christian faith. But for those to whom ideas are more than acres, men greater than machinery, and moral worth a mightier influence than material wealth, there is a lesson to be learned from the subject to which the act of Congress and the resolutions of the General Assembly limit this discourse. . And since what is homely and familiar sometimes receives a higher appreciation from being recognized abroad, hear what the historian of America has said of our little commonwealth,* that " had the territory of the state corresponded to the importance and singularity of the principles of its early existence the
* History of the United States, by George Bancroft, vol. 1, pp. 380. Boston 1$67.
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world would have been filled with wonder at the pheno- mena of its history." Hear too a less familiar voice from beyond the sea, a German writer of the philoso- phy of history. Reciting the principles of Roger Williams, their successful establishment in Rhode Island, and their subsequent triumph he says : " They have given laws to one quarter of the globe, and, dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the background of every Democratic struggle in Europe."t It is of our ancestors, people of Providence, that these words were written, and of them and their descendants that I am called to speak.
To condense two hundred and forty years of history within an hour is simply impossible. We can only touch upon a few salient points, and illustrate the pro- gress of Providence by a very few striking statistics. Passing over the disputed causes which led to the banishment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts, we come to the undisputed fact that there existed at that time a close alliance between the church and the State in the colony whence he fled, and that he severed that union at once and forever in the city which he founded. Poets had dreamed and philosophers had fancied a state of society where men were free and thought was un- trammeled. Sir Thomas More and Sir Philip Sydney had written of such things: Utopias and Arcadias had their place in literature, but nowhere on the broad earth
t Introduction to the History of the XIX Century, G. G. Gervinus, Professor of Ilistory in the University of Heidelberg, London, 1853, p. 65,
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had these ideas assumed a practical form till the father of Providence, the founder of Rhode Island, transferred them from the field of fiction to the domain of fact, and changed them from an improbable fancy to a positive law. It was a transformation in politics-the science of applied philosophy-more complete than that by which Bacon overthrew the system of Aristotle. It was a revolution the greatest that in these latter days had yet been seen. From out this modern Nazareth, whence no good thing could come, arose a light to enlighten the world. The " great Apostle of religious freedom " here first truly interpreted to those who sat in darkness the teachings of his mighty master. The independence of the mind had had its assertors, the freedom of the soul here found its champion. We begin, then, at the settlement of this city, with an idea that was novel and startling even amid the philosophi- cal speculations of the seventeenth century, a great original idea which was to compass a continent, " give laws to one quarter of the globe," and after the lapse of two centuries to become the universal property of the western world by being accepted in its complete- ness by that neighboring State to whose persecutions Rhode Island owed its origin. Roger Williams was the incarnation of the idea of soul liberty, the town of Providence became its organization. This is history enough if there were nought else to relate. Ports- mouth, Newport, and Warwick soon followed with their
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antinomian settlers to carry out the same principle of the underived independence of the soul, the accounta- bility of man to his Maker alone in all religious concerns. After the union of the four original towns into one colony under the Parliamentary patent of 1643, confirmed and continued by the Royal charter of 1663, the history of the town becomes so included in that of the colony in all matters of general interest that it is difficult to divide them. The several towns, occupied chiefly with their own narrow interests present little to attract in their local administration, but spoke mainly through their representatives in the colonial assembly upon all subjects of general importance. It is there that we must look for most of the facts that make history, the progress of society, the will of the people expressed in action. To these records we must often refer in sketching the growth of Providence.
It was in June, 1636, that Roger Williams with five companions* crossed the Seekonk to Slate rock, where he was welcomed by the friendly Indians, and pursuing his way around the headland of Tockwotton, sailed up the Moshassuck, then a broad stream skirted by a dense forest on either shore. Attracted by a natural spring on the eastern bank, he landed near what is now the cove, and began the settlement which, in gratitude to his Supreme Deliverer he called Providence. He had already purchased a large tract of land from the natives,
. William Harris, John Smith, Francis Wickes, Thomas Angell, Joshua Verin.
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which was at first divided with twelve others, "and such as the major part of us shall admit into the same fellowship of vote with us," thus constituting thirteen original proprietors of Providence. + The first division of land was made in 1638, in which fifty-four names appear as the owners of " home lots " extend- ing from Main to Hope streets, besides which each person had a six acre lot assigned him in other parts of the purchase. The grantors could not sell their land to any but an inhabitant without consent of the town, and a penalty was imposed upon those who did not improve their lands. The government established by these primitive settlers was an anomaly in history. It was a pure democracy, which for the first time guarded jealously the rights of conscience. The inhabitants, "masters of families," incorporated themselves into a town and made an order that no man should be molested for his conscience. The people met monthly in town meeting and chose a clerk and treasurer at cach meet- ing. The earliest-written compact that has been preserved is without date, but probably was adopted in 1637. It is signed by thirteen persons .* We have
t These were Roger Williams, Stukely Westcott, William Arnold, Thomas James, Robert Cole, Jolin Throckmorten. William Harris, William Carpenter, Thonias Olney, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, Ezekiel Holyman,
** We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the town of Provi- denee, 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. incorpo- rated together into a town fellowship and such others whom they shall admit
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not time to draw a picture of these primitive meetings held beneath the shade of some spreading tree, where the fathers of Providence discussed and decided thie most delicate and difficult problems of practical politics, and reconciled the requirements of life with principles then unknown in popular legislation. The records are lost, and here and there only a fragment has been pre- served by unfriendly hands to give a hint of those often stormy assemblies where there were no precedents to guide and only untried principles to be established by the dictates of common sense. Of these the case of Verin, reported by Winthrop, is well known, wherein liberty of conscience and the rights of woman were both involved with a most delicate question of family discipline. It is curious enough that one form of the subject now known under the general name of woman's rights, destined more than two centuries later to become a theme of popular agitation, should here be fore- shadowed so early in Rhode Island, the source of so many novel ideas and the starting point of so many important movements.
Religious services had no doubt been held from the earliest settlement, but the first organized church was formed in 1638, the first Baptist church in" America.
The growth of the town soon made a pure democracy
unto them, only in civil things." Signed by Richard Scott, William Reynolds, John Field, Chad Brown, John Warren. George Rickard, Edward Cope, Thomas Angell, Thomas Harris, Francis Wickes, Benedict Arnokl, Joshua Winsor, William Wickenden.
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impracticable, and in 1640 five " disposers " were chosen to manage its affairs who were to meet monthly and to report at quarterly town meetings, when a new election was to be held. This system lasted for many years. Meanwhile the town had increased in forty years to about three hundred souls, when the first great calamity resulted in its almost complete destruction during Philip's war. Most of the inhabitants had fled to Newport for refuge. Only twenty-eight remained, among whom was Mr. Williams, who vainly attempted to dissuade the infuriated Indians from the attack. It was on the 29th of March, 1676. The north part of the town above Olney street, then the most settled por- tion, was utterly destroyed. Fifty-four buildings were burnt. But one house, now known as the Whipple house, on Abbott's lane, escaped. This house ought to be owned by the city, restored to its original plan, which was altered to its present form many years ago, and preserved as a perpetual memorial of the early days of Providence. In 1681, the General Assembly met in Providence for the first time under the new charter ; but three years later (1684) the autumn sessions were appointed to be held alternately in Warwick and Provi- dence. In the absence of any stated census, we can only infer the positive growth of the town from its relative wealth, as shown in various colonial assess- ments. The earliest of these was in 1647, to raise £100 as a gift to Mr. Williams for obtaining the charter. Of
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this sum, Newport paid one half, Portsmouth thirty and Providence twenty pounds. Four-fifths of the strength of the colony was then on the island. Warwick was at that time too feeble to assist. Twelve years later (1659) on a tax of fifty pounds, Newport paid two- thirds, Portsmouth one-fifth, and of the remaining two- fifths Providence paid eleven pounds, and Warwick nine pounds. Newport had doubled upen Portsmouth while Providence had gained upon the other two towns. Five years later (1664) six hundred pounds were voted, of which Newport was assessed two hundred and forty- nine, Providence and Portsmouth one hundred each, Warwick eighty, and the balance of seventy-onc pounds upon the newer settlements in Narragansett and on Conanicut and Block Islands.
A comparison of the levies of two taxes, each of three hundred pounds, one in 1670, the other in 1678, fairly illustrates the ruin wrought by the war on the mainland towns. In the first of these, Newport was assessed one hundred and twenty-three pounds, Provi- dence and Portsmouth fifty-one each, Warwick thirty- two, Kingstown sixteen, Block Island fifteen and Conani- cut twelve pounds. In the latter, Newport was charged with one hundred and thirty-six pounds, Portsmouth sixty-eight, the other two islands, twenty-nine each, Providence ten pounds, Warwick eight, Kingstown sixteen, Greenwich and Westerly two each. Thus the two towns on Aquidneck paid over two-thirds of the
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whole levy, and the three islands together paid seven- eighths of it, and the five mainland towns less than one-eighth, while the share of Providence was one- thirtieth. So great a disproportion never existed before or since.
Twenty years later (1698) this had disappeared in the reviving growth of the town, for on a tax of eight hundred pounds Providence was charged with one hundred and twenty-eight pounds, or about one-fifth of the whole. The number of enrolled militia in New England about 16SS, according to returns made by Sir Edmond Andros, was something over thirteen thousand, of whom eight hundred were in Rhode Island, and of these one hundred and seventy-five, or more than one- fifth were in Providence. Twenty years later (170S), when the first census ever taken in the colony, was made by order of the Board of Trade, the force, includ- ing all males between sixteen and sixty years of age, was 1362. This had increased in 1730, when the next census was taken by the same authority, to 1900 men, and the population of the colony had grown from about 7,200 to 18,000. Up to this time Providence included the whole of the present county except Cumberland. It was now divided into four towns, and its limits were reduced to what are now included in the city and the towns of Cranston, Johnston and North Providence. In 1748 the colony had grown to over 34,000, of whom Newport had 4640, and Providence 3452, and was 3
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gaining rapidly on the other towns. Seven years later (1755), the last census, under the orders of the home government, was taken in view of the war with France, which, on this continent, had already begun, although not yet formally declared. The colony had increased six thousand in that time, and the military force num- bered 8262. Providence had 3159 inhabitants, and could equip 681 men. It had just been again reduced in territory by the incorporation of Cranston (1754). Johnston was set off in 1759, and the organization of North Providence, in 1765, reduced it to the limits which it retained till a few years ago, when the annexation of the Ninth and Tenth Wards commenced the era of enlargement. A census of the town taken at the close of 1767 showed the population to be 2958, of whom 911, occupying one hundred and two houses, were on the west side of the river. Two years later, (February, ·1770,) an attempt was made still further to divide the town by incorporating the west side of the river as a separate town, under the name of Westminster, but the Assembly rejected the petition. The next general census was that of 1774, taken with much care, by order of the Assembly, one man being appointed for the purpose in each town. The entire population was nearly sixty thousand. Providence had 4321 inhabi- tants, 655 families, with 421 dwelling houses. The old market house, now " the City Building," had been built by lottery the year before. The increase in the
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population had been very small since the census of 1748, owing to the divisions just mentioned. A quarter of a century had added less than nine hundred people, an annual increase of barely one per cent. But the country towns that had been set off since 1730 show a greater prosperity, numbering at this census nearly fif- teen thousand, and the whole county of Providence considerably exceeded Newport county in population. At this census only those actually at home were counted. Seamen and other absentees were omitted. .
Ilere on the threshold of the great struggle for inde- pendence we will pause in our summary of material progress to see what was engaging the attention of the little hamlet that had already done so much for nian- kind, and was now pledging its life-blood to accomplish yet more. From the earliest days of the colony to the close of the recent civil strife, the war record of the State has been a brilliant one. As early as 1655 in the Dutch war she did more than the New England Con- federacy, from which she had been basely excluded. Her exposed condition, by reason of the Indians, fostered this feeling in the first instance, and long habit cultivated the martial spirit of the people till it became a second nature. Her maritime advantages favored commercial enterprise, and the two combined prepared her for those naval exploits which in after years shed so much glory on the State. The three Indian wars, the three wars with Holland (1652-8,
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