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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32
THE OLD STONE BANK HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND
VOLUME 1V
PUBLISHED IN COMMEMORATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE
PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01067 5459
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
Gc 974.5 H130 v. 4 2233746
"THE OLD STONE BANK" HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND
FOUNDING OF THE OLD STONE BANK" OCTOBER 19. 1819
FOUNDING OF "THE OLD STONE BANK," 1819. REPRODUCED FROM MURAL BY WILL S. TAYLOR IN MAIN OFFICE OF THE PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS, 86 SOUTH MAIN STREET, PROVIDENCE. DEPICTED IS THE FIRST MEETING OF A GROUP OF PUBLIC-SPIRITED CITIZENS WHO ASSEMBLED TO FORMULATE PLANS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT IN PROVIDENCE OF A BANK WHICH, ACTING AS A COMMUNITY SERVANT, WOULD AFFORD PEOPLE A PLACE FOR THE SAFE-KEEPING OF THEIR SAVINGS WITH THE ADDITIONAL ADVANTAGE OF ACCUMULATING INTEREST.
"THE OLD STONE BANK" HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND VOLUME IV
By JOHN WILLIAMS HALEY " The Rhode Island Historian "
1
PUBLISHED BY PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS 86 SOUTH MAIN STREET PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 1944
OLNEYVILLE BRANCH:
1917-21 WESTMINSTER STREET
Olneyville Square
EMPIRE-ABORN BRANCH: EMPIRE AND ABORN STREETS Between Westminster and Washington Streets
Allen County Public Library Ft. Wayne, Indiana
THE J. C. HALL COMPANY LITHOGRAPHERS, BINDERS, PRINTERS PAWTUCKET, R. I.
This complete edition is produced in full com- pliance with the government's regulation for conserving paper and other essential materials
COPYRIGHT 1944 PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS
2233746
FOREWORD
T THIS volume of Rhode Island history contains selected stories adapted from the radio broadcasts presented, since 1927, by the Providence Institution for Savings under the program title "The Rhode Island Historian." Inaugu- rated when radio communication was still in comparative infancy, this original and unique means of entertaining and enlightening audiences of unlimited numbers has long been acknowledged to be the oldest sponsored broadcasting fea- ture in the history of radio.
Published in the year of the bank's observance of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding, both text and illustrations appearing in this volume have been limited principally to subjects relating to Providence, the community wherein the Providence Institution for Savings has long provided for the safekeeping of the savings of the people. In no way to be regarded as a complete history of Providence, nevertheless, this volume contains sufficient material from which one may gain a fairly broad compre- hension of the social and economic evolution of a commu- nity that has contributed immeasurably to the progress of the state and nation.
Not a few of the individuals who appear prominently in this review of the past in Providence were numbered among the founders of this Mutual Savings Bank or are included in the long and imposing list of public-spirited citizens who have been identified with the Providence Institution for Savings since its establishment in 1819. Through the lives of these individuals, and by its long sustained and con- stantly expanding services to the public, this institution has been an intimate part of life in Providence for one hundred and twenty-five years.
The bank will derive both pleasure and satisfaction if the contents of this volume may provide present and fu- ture generations with a better understanding of how Provi- dence came to be what it is, thereby deepening respect for those qualities by which mankind progresses- courage, character, ambition and faith.
V
INDEX
PAGE
THE WILDERNESS
1
THE FIRST FAMILIES .
3
YOUNG ROGER WILLIAMS
5
JANE AND MARY
10
TROUBLE IN MASSACHUSETTS
15
BANISHMENT
17 20
THOMAS ANGELL
EARLY DAYS
. 23 25
"THESE PLANTATIONS"
28
THE GOOD EARTH
31 35
"A LITTLE KEY"
37
EARLY TAXATION
40
THE PUBLIC HEALTH
43 46
THE GREAT TRAIL
49
KEEPING THE PEACE .
51 54
CANDLELIGHT
GRAVE OF ROGER WILLIAMS
57
ALMANACS .
60
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
63 66
SHAKESPEARE'S HEAD
COLONIAL SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLDAYS
69
BETTY BOWEN .
71
UNIVERSITY HALL
74
THE "GASPEE ROOM"
77
THE DECLARATION
80
FIELD'S POINT
83
U.S.S. Providence
87
vii
BOUGHT AND PAID FOR
THE FAMILY TABLE
THE DAILY TOIL
PAGE
JOHN PAUL JONES
90
SOLOMON DROWNE
93
THE FIRST BAPTIST MEETING HOUSE
95
DAVID HOWELL .
99
WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON
102
JOHN BROWN HOUSE
105
JONATHAN MAXCY
108
THE TURK'S HEAD
111
BY COACH AND SIX
115
SHIPBUILDING
118
GETTING ABOUT
. 122
CRIME SHOULD NOT PAY .
125
THE BLUE POINTERS
129
FIRST LIGHT INFANTRY
131
THE YEAR 1819
135
THE FIRST PRESIDENT
138
THE BANK'S FIRST TREASURER
141
MONEY IN THE BANK
145
"OLD GRIMES" .
150
HOPE COLLEGE .
153
EBENEZER KNIGHT DEXTER
155
STEAMBOAT DAYS
160
FROM TOWN TO CITY
164 .
THE FIRST MAYOR OF PROVIDENCE .
167
THE STONINGTON ROAD
. 170
THE AMERICAN BAND
174
BUTLER HOSPITAL
177
JENNY LIND AND HOWARD HALL
181
FORBES'S MUSEUM
185
FRANKLIN LYCEUM
ยท 189
ON PARADE
191
LITERARY LIONS
194
THE ELLSWORTH PHALANX
199
PROSPECT TERRACE
203
STREETS AND SQUARES
. 205
viii
OLD TIME OYSTER BARS
PAGE 210
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
214
HIS HONOR THE CLAM 217
THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
223
BICYCLES AND WHEELMEN
226
THE BLIZZARD OF '88
229
PEMBROKE COLLEGE .
231
THE FIRST MOVIE
235
THE FIRST TO FLY .
238
THE PREPAREDNESS PARADE
243
LEBARON BRADFORD .
246
WILSON GORDON WING
251
AN ALUMNUS OF MOWRY & GOFF'S
. 253
X
.
"THE OLD STONE BANK" HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND
THE WILDERNESS
S o far as anyone knows, no white man had ever climbed the hills, wandered along the shores, or roamed through the forests of the particular area of the wilder- ness, destined to become Providence, before the coming of the one who estab- lished the first white settlement there and gave the place its name. For centuries, perhaps, the only human inhabitants of Moshassuck had been native Indians whose ways of life made little, if any, impression upon the lands and waters which now comprise the site of the great American city. Until the white people came to introduce their ways of life in the wilderness, the few red men who found the shores at the headwaters of Narra- gansett Bay an agreeable place for resid- ing or just camping when whim, fancy, or more likely, the season of the year dictated, Moshassuck and vicinity, in physical appearance, remained as Nature intended it to be, unchanged, with all things that grew and lived there, undis- turbed.
Tall trees, low berry bushes, and tiny blades of grass lived out their normal spans of life unless prematurely destroyed by wind or cold, or by lightning bolt or drought. Since by God's will things grow and live, but are sometimes cut off in life with suddenness, so too, by that same will, did new life spring up upon the rich earth, the stony soil, the verdant hill- sides and upon the muddy marshlands, and in the salty waters that swirled in from a vast inland arm of the sea and coursed down in fresh streams from the hills and valleys, at the place to be named Providence. For the site of his simple habitation, a wigwam, or primitive shelter fashioned of poles and leaves, the Indian needed to fell no high trees, roll away no heavy stones, since there were numer- ous ready-made clearings in the wilder- ness adjacent to overstocked hunting and fishing grounds and trails long traveled by his fathers. There were times, of
course, when neglected embers would glow red in the freshening breeze and send hot flames rushing with the wind through dried marsh grass, brittle branches and the tangled tinder, but, the scorched scars of man-caused injury would soon be hid- den by the new life that seeded, sprouted and budded in even greater profusion than before. It remained for the white people to make permanent changes in Nature's way of life, after the place became Provi- dence.
Before the first of the many changes had been made, an early settler could have sought a point of vantage somewhere on the summit of the high hill that rises to the east from the very center of present- day Providence and enjoyed a prospect quite unfamiliar to those who have as- cended that same hill to walk along Prospect Street in centuries thereafter. Stretching away toward the setting sun from the shoreline below the hill, the first-comer beheld something which his kind have long since removed for their convenience - a wide, irregularly-shaped body of water popularly referred to as long as it existed, in gradually diminish- ing area, as the "Cove."
With the help of certain place designa- tions, familiar at the time of this writing, one may visualize the general appearance of this Cove and other principal physical features of Providence as it was during the first half of the seventeenth century. What the early settlers referred to as "The Neck," since popularly known as "The East Side," all the way from Fox Point to where Smith Street crosses Canal Street, was separated by water from what is now the downtown center of the city. The shoreline of the Neck was then a wide stretch of gravelly beach, following pres- ent South Water Street in a line with the easterly side of Canal Street. The only breach in this fairly straight shoreline was at what was later called Mile End Cove, the mouth of the brook that coursed
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PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS
along the line of Brook Street, turning in a westerly direction near Wickenden Street to empty its waters into the Great Salt River, the Providence River, at the very spot where Point Street Bridge now spans the river. The Great Salt River extended from Conimicut Point, the northern limit of Narragansett Bay, to a point due east from Weybosset Hill, the present site of the Turk's Head Building, which point of land on the opposite shore was nearest to the shores of the Neck. Later when the first bridge was con- structed, it was natural that the pioneer engineers selected this point for the cross- ing, at the lower end of Westminster Street.
The south shores of the Cove, or wide open expanse of waters north and west of Weybosset Hill, extended westerly across Exchange Place along the general line of West Exchange Street curving northwesterly to the crossing of Kingsley Avenue and Acorn Streets. There the Cove received the fresh waters of the Woonasquatucket River, rising in lands later to be known as Smithfield, and form- ing the east boundary between Johnston and Olneyville. From the lower end of Pleasant Valley Parkway, all the way to Canal Street, the shores of the Cove on the north ran along near the junction of Bath and Calverly Streets, to half-way up Leland Street from Promenade, across Holden below Beach to Great Point, site of Rhode Island College of Education, continuing in a northerly direction along Gaspee Street. Everything within that great expanse of now valuable land, from the main line of the railroad nearby to Smith Street, from Canal Street to Kings- ley Park, was under water once upon a time, water deep enough to float ships, and to provide docking and launching facilities for shipyards established upon its shores. Its source in Scott Pond, in present Lincoln, south of Lonsdale and north of Saylesville, the Moshassuck River coursed in a nearly straight line south, entering the Cove at its wider and easterly end near the junction of Canal and Smith Streets, not far from the spring that attracted the attention of the first white man to arrive and remain. 1
Thus, when one stood upon the hill,
rising to a full two hundred feet above the shore, and gazed westward, he beheld waters below and straight ahead with low hills beyond, and a little to the left ex- tended lands rising in hills and falling in valleys as far as Neutaconkanut Hill vis- ible in the dim distance. In the imme- diate foreground, across the narrowest spread of tidal waters lay a point of land upon which rose Weybosset Hill, a barren clay hillock, whose sides sloped gently . down to salt marsh with grassy islets here and there along the shores. Beyond the hill and down the river to the south rose the steep hills at Sassafras and Field's Points, and farther on might be seen glimpses of the lower bay and its forest- crowned shores and islands.
To the earliest of beholders, much of downtown Providence, at first known as "The Weybosset Side," appeared to be a level sandy plateau, covered with pine forests fringed with marshes along the water's edge, which ran west of Eddy Street, crossing a short distance north of Ship, and then curved back to Eddy and continued in a southerly direction until it reached Cowpen Point, the western approach to Point Street Bridge. The high hill on the Neck gradually diminished in height as it stretched southward to Fox Point, while the eastern slope of the hill descended by easy forest-covered terraces to the level of the bluffs on the Seekonk River. All view of the swamplands to the northeast was screened with woods of oak and pine, and with noble hickory trees loftily awaiting their turn when human beings in these parts would have need of them for axe handles, yoke bows, rake teeth and musket stocks.
In this wilderness, the wolf roamed unmolested, and the wild fox dug his hole unafraid. Swooping and darting above the mud flats at ebb tide, the gulls had their choice of spying out their prey in the clear, sparkling waters, or of poking and pecking for the choice tid-bits that lay within shells. Down to the Neck from the great beyond to the north, east and west often came deer and other beasts to find impassable barriers of water on three sides of the wide peninsula that was to become a substantial portion of a great city. And, in the salty tides that swirled
3
"THE OLD STONE BANK"
in from the bay, and ocean beyond, only to be freshened in the wide Cove by the steady flowings from the Woonasqua- tucket and the Moshassuck, swam fish that have long become strangers to these inland waters. Through the narrow inlet near Weybosset Hill, into the Cove and beyond to their favorite spawning pools on the rivers, regularly journeyed the shad, while cod and mackerel, and an, occasional porpoise found the Great Salt River the same as any other place within their limitless habitat.
It was a quiet place then, with only the hoot of an owl and the croak of a frog by night, and the squawk of a crow by day to disturb the silence among the wide. variety of lands and waters. Occasion- ally, a guttural shout from a lone brave might echo through the trees when his patience and skill were rewarded with a wriggling eel at the end of a sharpened stick, or with the frantic flutter of pierced
and broken pigeon wings among the tangled underbrush and trailing vines. But, few of the noises were made by humans before the white man arrived with his talk and his shouts, with his startling explosions of gunfire, and with his crude tools that hacked and cut, send- ing ancient elms and cedars, as well as oaks and pines, crashing to the earth, there to be lopped and trimmed, and, finally, to be split and chopped - all of which, and more, introduced strange sounds into the wilderness that would someday resound with the designed con- fusion of civilization.
Thus was the scenery set upon the stage whereon would be enacted a drama famil- iar to all men who have set forth in search of fortune or of freedom. It just hap- pened that many of the scenes, and not a few of the leading characters, featured in this play, were to be accorded eternal applause.
THE FIRST FAMILIES
T HE history of the settlement of Provi- dence is closely connected with the history of the Indian tribes that inhab- ited the New England section of North America. At the very outset, it must be remembered that the Indian was the orig- inal owner of these pleasant lands that belong to us today; he had received his title direct from the Great Spirit who had placed him here; and the justice or injus- tice done to these simple people of the forest, by depriving them of their inherit- ance, must remain for a final judgment by a higher tribunal than is afforded upon this earth. The Indian has had few to advocate his cause; few to tell the story of his wrongs or to plead in his behalf. Historians and writers of historical narra- .tives have seldom excused the red men for acts of cruelty, although no one can deny that many of these barbarities were actu- ated by a spirit of revenge, and by a most natural desire to retaliate when a wrong has been done.
Many of the early writers were Colonial soldiers, actually engaged in the profes-
sion of fighting Indians, therefore their records, opinions and observations can be logically considered as prejudiced. And, few of the writers since those days have gone beyond the early, one-sided records to seek the true picture of an unfortunate race. In the minds of most Americans of the present generation, the New England Indian of the seventeenth century was a savage, a wild beast and a merciless bar- barian. Nevertheless, the natives first met by the English settlers were friendly, hospitable and inclined to treat the new- comers with kindness. And, it was in a spirit of genuine goodwill and unselfish- ness that these Indians welcomed Roger Williams to the place that he established in the name of the Divine agency which had guided his footsteps. If, henceforth, historians will impartially determine the causes of the frightful Indian wars, future generations may learn to cherish feelings of regret for the wrongs done to the "first Americans" who once held undisputed sway from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Caribbean Sea.
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PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS
The principal Indian tribes of South- ern New England were the Massachusetts on the east, and the Pokanokets or Wam- panoags, who inhabited the Plymouth region, including the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and embracing all the lands lying between Plymouth and Narragansett Bay, including Mount Hope near Bristol. The Narragansetts claimed all of the territory included within the present limits of the State of Rhode Island, taking in all the islands in the bay, together with the east end of Long Island. The Pequots and the Mohegans inhabited the territory of Connecticut, and the Pequots were the first to seek revenge upon the English because Indian lands were gradu- ally being taken from the tribes by white settlers. The Narragansetts were the larg- est and most powerful tribe in New Eng- land, having at one time ruled all of the eastern tribes. Even the tribes to the east, the Massachusetts and the Poka- nokets, paid annual tribute to them, as did the Montauk tribe on Long Island. Likewise the natives of Aquidneck; the Nipmucks, a wandering tribe to the north and west; the tribes of Pomham and Soco- noco, all were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of the Narragansetts, whose chief sachems were Canonicus and Mian- tonomi.
Canonicus was a wise ruler and under him the Narragansetts became a great and powerful tribe. He maintained peace with the warlike tribes about him, and it was Roger Williams who observed that, "They (the Narragansetts) could bring over five thousand warriors into the field and one would meet with a dozen of their towns in the course of twenty miles' travel." Their weapons for defence and hunting were very crude, and it was not until the arrival of the whites that they became acquainted with improved and more deadly weapons of warfare. The toma- hawk, the knife, and bow and arrow were their only weapons. The horrible practice of scalping is generally attributed to the American Indian's origination, but, as a matter of fact, scalping was introduced to the natives in this country by the French, who had learned of it somewhere in Europe. The Narragansetts were especially skilled in the manufacture of various useful and
ornamental articles and they were the chief manufacturers of the established currency then known as Wampumpeague. It consisted of a sort of bead, made from periwinkle and quahaug shells, and there were two varieties of different valuations. Periwinkle Wampumpeague was valued at six for an English penny, and that made from quahaug shell's had twice the value, or three for a penny. The natives used these beads in large quantities to make purchases among themselves and for trad- ing with the English, and they also used them for decorating their clothes. A string of the white beads, numbering three hundred and sixty, made a fathom, and was equivalent to five shillings sterling; while a fathom of black beads was twice the value of the former, and was equal to ten shillings sterling.
The burial service of the Indians in these parts was a strange custom. The corpse was first carefully wrapped in mats or in blankets, and the act of preparing the body thus was a sacred duty to be performed only by some dignitary of high rank. Later the body was taken to the grave and deposited, usually in a sitting posture, while the family and friends sat around to indulge in lamentations over the loss which they had sustained. Generally, the personal effects of the departed one were deposited in the grave, and there is no doubt about this custom since a great many of the precious relics discovered have been taken from opened Indian graves. When some distinguished member of the tribe died, his friends would blacken their faces, and this badge of mourning would not be removed for a year or more. Great sacrifices were often made as an expiation to the Great Spirit at the time of bereavement; penalties were often im- posed upon those who mentioned the name of the deceased, once he had been laid to rest. Chief sachem Canonicus, upon the loss of his son, burned his own residence with all of its valuable contents as an offering in sacred remembrance of his departed offspring.
Corn was their staple article of cultiva- tion, and this they pounded into meal and converted into various articles for cook- ing. They gathered great quantities of nuts and stored them for variety in fare
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"THE OLD STONE BANK"
during the long winter months. Shell-fish was an important item of food for the Narragansetts who generally lived within reach of the ocean or the bay and could procure unlimited quantities for year- round consumption. Every year brings some new discovery of the so-called "shell- heaps," in or near Rhode Island, and these were nothing more than rubbish piles where broken or discarded imple- ments were thrown along with the oyster, clam and quahaug shells. Modern ar- chaeologists are constantly on the watch for these "shell-heaps" for they generally contain a few valuable relics. Any appear- ance of whitened shells mingled with the surface soil at a distance from the shore, or in a secluded area near the water, should be reported to authorities for professional investigation.
When Roger Williams decided to estab- lish his settlement at Providence he re-
ceived the deed for the lands in this vicin- ity from Canonicus and Miantonomi, the chief sachems of the Narragansetts. They signed this deed with their marks and expressed their sentiments in the wording of the document as follows: "In considera- tion of the many kindnesses and services he (Roger Williams) hath done for us, both with our friends of Massachusetts, as also at Connecticut, and Apaum or Plymouth." In this historic transaction Roger Williams was simply carrying out his principle, that the natives were the rightful owners of all the lands which they occupied, and that no foreign ruler could give away their territory. The Narragansetts could meet kindness with kindness, and they should be thought of as truly representative of a vanished race whose virtues should be praised, whose noble qualities should be acknowl- edged.
YOUNG ROGER WILLIAMS
R OGER WILLIAMS was born in London about the year 1603. The exact date may never be determined since the records of his birth and baptism were destroyed in the Great London Fire of 1666, a confla- gration that consumed the parish records of the Church of St. Sepulchre's, the house of worship attended by the Williams fam- ily. His father, James, was a merchant tailor who conducted a profitable business establishment in the front portion of his dwelling house, and his mother, Alice Pemberton Williams, was a well-to-do lady who owned an inn known as the "Harrow" located directly opposite the Williams home on Cow Lane.
The exact location of Roger Williams' birthplace may mean little to those not familiar with streets and places in London, but, following is somewhat the way in which most writers have described the site. The Williams home was on Cow Lane, on Snow Hill, in Newgate, Smith- field. Cow Lane, since named King's Street, was then in a newly-developed section of London, outside of the city wall. Careful study of a map of modern London
discloses that the area, at one time on the outskirts of a growing city, is now com- pletely swallowed up in the expansion and change of a great metropolis. Vegetable gardens and cow barns were common, once upon a time, along Westminster and Washington Streets, and, not so very long ago, Trinity Square in Providence was spoken of as being "away out in the coun- try." So, without doubt it would be as difficult now to find anything which might have been familiar to Roger Williams along old Cow Lane in London, as it would be to uncover a log cabin on Market Square.
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