USA > Rhode Island > A history of Block Island : from its discovery, in 1514, to the present time, 1876 > Part 14
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ODD FELLOWS.
In August, 1872, Messrs. Nicholas Ball, George Jelly, Horatio N. Milikin, Frederick A. Rose, George A. Rose, John G. Sheffield, Joseph H. Willis, Lorenzo Littlefield, Ray S. Littlefield, and Aaron Mitchell, withdrew from
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HISTORY OF BLOCK ISLAND.
Rhode Island Lodge No. 12, and were organized into the Neptune Lodge, No. 26, of Block Island, and duly received its charter from the Grand Lodge. It now has forty members, and its hall is at the Center.
PHYSICIANS.
The first, and, perhaps, the most noted physician of Block Island was Mrs. Sarah Sands, the wife of Capt. James Sands. An account of her is given in connection with the biographical sketch of her husband. Her skill in medicine and surgery, in 1680, and also in years pre- vious and subsequent, was extraordinary.
Dr. John Rodman was a physician of the Island in 1689, and is described by an intimate acquaintance, Rev. Sam- uel Niles, as being "a gentleman of great ingenuity, and of an affable, engaging behavior, of the profession of them called Quakers. He also kept a meeting in his house on the Sabbaths, with exhortations unto good works, after the manner of the teachers in that society, but more agreeably than I suppose is common with them, whose meetings I had attended in my younger time."
Dr. James Sweete was a resident, and successor of Dr. Rodman, in 1717. Our knowledge of him is very limited. He was kidnapped in the Bay, on the 18th of April, 1717, together with Thomas Daniels, and William Tosh, myste- riously by a foreign vessel, as described in the article on Hostilities.
Dr. Aaron C. Willey was the Island physician in 1811, and a literary correspondent of some distinction. His relatives are still here, and are highly esteemed citizens. He was much respected at home and abroad for his med- ical skill and general knowledge. His account of the " Palatine Light " is the most sensible one given of that once attractive but now extinct phenomenon. His de-
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CENSUS OF BLOCK ISLAND FOR 1875.
scription of it is given under the head of Wrecks and Wreckers.
Drs. Philips, Bowen, Angell, Woodruff, Buttrick, Mar- yott, Mann, and Tucker belong to the medical succession on Block Island. As a physician, Dr. J. T. Mann ob- tained an enviable distinction for skill in the treatment of fevers especially, and for his light charges. It was with much regret that many of the Islanders parted with him and his genial family for any one that might become his successor. The writer has but a slight acquaintance with either of his predecessors, or his successors.
LAWYERS.
Gentlemen of the legal profession can safely file the plea of an alibi to all the peace and discord of Block Island. Only as foreigners to the Island have they had any thing to do with its affairs. This is strange enough. Where else can a population be found equal to this that has never had a resident lawyer ? A population more than two hundred years old ! The present Chief War- den, Wm. P. Lewis, has rendered eighty civil, and twenty criminal judgments, and in but one of these hundred trials was a lawyer, or " pettifoger," a participant.
CENSUS OF NEW SHOREHAM, ALIAS BLOCK ISLAND FOR 1875.
POPULATION, males, 612; females, 535; total, 1,147. Born on Block Island, 1,032; born in United States, 1,138; foreign births, 9; colored inhabitants, 40. Of each 100 population 97 are American born, the largest percentage of such of any town in the State. Between the ages of 60 and 70, living, 61 persons; between 70 and 80, 36; between 80 and 90, 13. Married persons, male and female, 477; widowed, male and female, 67; divorced, 2. Total, attending school, 299; Number over
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HISTORY OF BLOCK ISLAND.
15 years who can neither read nor write, 45; all between 10 and 15 years of age read and write. Deaf, 2; deaf and blind, 1; blind, 3; idiotic, 10. Voters born on Block Island, 300; foreign born, 3; born off the Island, and in United States, 12; total voters, 315. Number of farms, 159; acres in them, 4,817; their cash value, $357,100. Number of horses, 137; cows, 261; oxen, 274; sheep and lambs, 2,437; swine, 462; value of cattle sold in 1875, $16,007. Acres of corn, in 1874, 316; bushels
raised, 13,791. Pounds of butter, 20,395; of cheese, 4,580. Bushels of potatoes, 12,784; of onions, 383. Value of eggs and poultry in 1875, $23,394. Pounds of wool, 4,883. Cords of peat dug, 544. Total value of farm products, in 1875, $102,615. Farms of between 3 and 10 acres, 23; of 10 to 20 acres, 52; of 20 to 50, 64; of 50 to 100 acres, 14; of 100 to 200 acres, 4; of 200 to 300 acres, 2. Sea drift, 6,444 cords, valued at $12,838. Fish caught, 1,067,810 pounds, valued at $42,026, in 1875.
BOAT BUILDING.
This has been carried on here only for the accommoda- tion of the Islanders. John Rose, of Revolutionary times, was the first boat-builder upon the Island, of whom we can obtain any account. He is probably the one men- tioned in the Colonial Records of Rhode Island, as having been captured with another, by an American privateer and delivered over to the "Honorable Major General Gates to be treated as prisoners of war, or dismissed." Each nail put in the boats which he built was driven into a hole first bored with a gimlet. Lemuel B. Rose was the next boat-builder.
Dea. Sylvester D. Mitchell, now living, has been the principal builder during the past twenty-five years, having built ten new ones, and re-built ten others, averaging in cost from $250 to $800. The deacon goes upon the
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MECHANICAL.
main, cuts his timber in the woods, directs the sawing at the mill, imports the same, lays his own keel, finishes and warrants every piece of wood, and every nail from stem to stern, and "all have been successful."
MECHANICAL.
BLACKSMITHING. For about twenty years the early set- tlers were obliged to go to Newport to patronize a black- smith. We find none of the "sons of Vulcan " on the Island until March 20, 1683, when the town gave a hearty reception to a Mr. William Harris, making him a donation of four acres of land on the east shore of the Great Pond. From that date the smoke of the forge and the ring of the anvil have continued to be the principal signs of mechanism here.
In 1758, the blacksmith shop and tools were an institu- tion belonging to the town, and were then leased to Mr. Joseph Briggs for smithing. At present two shops are sustained, and have monopolizing prices. One is occupied by Mr. John Hooper, and the other by Mr. Richmond Negus, the former at the Harbor, and the latter by the Harbor Pond. Mr. Simeon Ball also carries on the business in a modest way, where, besides other work, he is willing to shoe horses on the condition of the owners cutting off said animals' legs and bringing only them to his shop. He has no intention of exposing his precious life around the heels of fractious horses. It may become a question whether his terms are not the cheapest, unless his com- petitors reduce their prices.
CARPENTERS AND JOINERS, upon the Island, have been in good demand during the past few years of rapid improve- ment in buildings, both public and private. Messrs. Almanzo Littlefield, John Thomas & Sons, and John Rose, of the West Side, have held their grounds well as build- ers, although some houses have been erected here by
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HISTORY OF BLOCK ISLAND.
workmen from abroad. Mr. Thomas claims the "inside track " of all his competitors, because he is master of the trowel and stone-hammer as well as of the mallet, chisel, and plane. Mr. Leander Ball is carpenter, joiner, and lumber dealer.
WATCH REPAIRING, and mending of all kinds of fine metals are done by Mr. Marcus M. Day. However unpre- tentious his shop and jewelry store may be, none who know him will distrust his ingenuity or his honesty.
BOOT AND SHOE-MAKING, as well as mending, is done by Mr. Nathaniel Hall, and by Mr. Harrison, the latter having hung out the first sign for such work, it is said, ever known on Block Island, a thing needed here about as much, in former days, as it would be in a large family where each expects to know all about the other's business.
DRESS-MAKING is done professionally, for the first time here, by Miss Ann Maria Rose, whose natural accomplish- ments and education on the main fit her well for making " good fits" for others. Miss Hattie Littlefield has also taken a course of instruction in a fashionable shop and has entered upon the work of improving the fashions and figures of the Island ladies. If these two young ladies will omit the belittling extremes of fashionable fitting they may do much to increase the pleasures of the eye without diminishing the comforts of the body, an evil that has brought a dark shadow to many American households.
THE MILLINERY of the Island, to one, at least, is quite a mystery. That neat, becoming hats are worn by ladies, young and old, and by the little girls is certain. But where they come from is as mysterious as the whence of the swallows or the wind. Certainly there are no win- dows on Block Island where the jaunty hat, the ostrich plume, and the bright ribbon catch the passer's eye. An enormous trunk, however, not quite large enough for a
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MECHANICAL.
shop, and very easily handled, has been seen several times at the Harbor, and at the Center. One or two ladies are supposed to be umpires for the spring and fall styles suit- able for the Island.
PAINTING, house, sign, and fresco, is done by Mr. Wil- liam Greene.
MASONRY, in a professional manner, is done by Mr. Alonzo Mitchell.
THE MILLS.
INDIAN MORTARS.
The various grades of these upon Block Island corres- pond with other things in the different times in which they were used. The writer has one of that grade used when the Island was called Manisses, and when only In- dians were here to do the grinding. It was discovered by Mr. Isaiah Ball, father of the present Mr. John Ball, buried in the ground, and by its sides were a pestle, and an Indian stone ax. The three articles, mortar, pestle, and ax, were the main furniture of the wigwam, which doubtless stood a little south of Mr. John Ball's house, where they were found, and near them was a large quan- tity of shells also, near enough to the Great Pond to be carried to said wigwam conveniently.
This primitive mill is simply a rude stone mortar. The stone of which it is made, externally, resembles one just taken from the field wall. It weighs about seventy-five pounds, and shows no marks of man, except the bowl that was excavated by other and harder stones. It is unlike the most of the granite of the Island, and is more like a gray sandstone. The excavation in it will hold less than two quarts. Into this the squaws put the corn by the handful, and there pounded, and ground it to meal. The pestle with which this was done, is a harder species of stone, such as are found upon the beach. It is about five and a half inches long, and three inches through from side to side in the middle, rounded at the ends like an egg, both ends being of nearly equal size. It is smooth, and
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WOODEN MORTARS.
nicely fitted to the hand, and of convenient weight for the purpose of pounding in the mortar. On it are still remaining Indian characters, made, it seems, by some thickened juice or sap, of dark brown, and of such a nature as to whiten the stone beneath the ink, or juice, so that when the latter has worn away and disappeared, the hieroglyphic beneath still remains. Two characters are well defined; the one representing a stalk of corn half grown, and the other resembling a full-grown stalk. Such was the simple structure of a Manissean mill ages ago.
WOODEN MORTARS.
These were an improvement upon those used by the Indians. They were introduced by the early settlers, and though rude in structure, were far more serviceable. According to the sample now before me, and the tradi- tion of the oldest inhabitants now living on the Island, the wooden mortars were made of lignum-vitæ. They were mere sections of the body of a tree, about sixteen or twenty inches long, and ten inches in diameter. At one end they were hollowed out sufficiently to hold seve- ral quarts of corn. Their pestles were of stone, and were longer and heavier than the Indian pestle above described. The wood was so hard, and so tough, as well as exceed- ingly cross-grained, that no amount of pounding could split them or wear them out, as is evident from what is known of the one now in the possession of the writer, and of which the following is a history.
THE DANCING.
There is good reason for giving it this name, as will be seen presently. It is lignum-vitæ, fourteen inches high, about ten inches in diameter, and is nearly as heavy as would be the same bulk of stone. Its capacity is about four quarts. The grains are diagonal, for the most part,
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HISTORY OF BLOCK ISLAND.
and hence it is not cracked by use or age. It is weather worn, gray, and shabby outside, with a very uneven sur- face, occasioned in part by an ax while it was used as a splitting-block, and in part by the storms of half a cen- tury with which it is well known to have been beaten in winter and summer.
This mortar is an intimate acquaintance of the oldest inhabitants of the Island, the following of whom, con- sulted separately, agree in stating its origin. Mrs. Mar- garet Dodge, eighty-six years old, of remarkably clear memory; Mr. Anthony Littlefield, and his wife, each eighty-four years old; Mr. and Mrs. John Ball, over seventy; Mrs. Caroline Willis, eighty-one; and others all agree in stating that this mortar was brought to the Island in the ship Palatine. As an item of possibly cor- roborative testimony, it was owned for a long time, and used in the family of the venerable Simon Ray, at whose house several of the unfortunate inmates of the Palatine were received and cared for. There it remained until he and his family passed away, and the house was occupied by those of another name.
During a considerable period after this change the old Ray house was said to be haunted. Sights and sounds were there witnessed, it is said, which our nerves protest against repeating in an attempted description. In com- parison with them the present fabrications of spirit-rap- ping and table-dancing are puerile. This mortar, accord- ing to tradition, was then an inmate of said haunted house, and fell into line with the performances of the other surroundings. The abovenamed persons say that among its strange antics were those of dancing around the room, untouched, throwing itself on its side and roll- ing to and fro, and then righting itself again, and hopping up the chamber floor several times in succession. Hence it took its name as the dancing mortar. The writer
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WOODEN MORTARS.
vouches for the truthfulness of this ancient performance no further than the statement here given corresponds with the account given to him. His own private opinion of the matter is that all the dancing that mortar ever did was in the imagination of one who was then known as the " old opium-eater," and who was a near neighbor to the old mortar.
It surely does not dance now. This, however, is no proof that it did not dance then. The wonder is that it is still in existence, when we consider its treatment. More than fifty years ago its old home, the Simon Ray house, was taken down, and a part of it put into the new house then built and now owned by Mr. Raymond Dickens. But the old mortar had a questionable reputation, and was refused a place in the new house, perhaps, because it was old and less needed than formerly. Fifty years, Mr. Dickens says, he has seen it about his premises, and nearly all of that time it has occupied the humiliating place of a stone in a fence wall. There the writer recently found it, placed well-nigh the bottom of the wall, on its side, with big and little stones above it, as though there were danger of its having another dancing fit. But no, it will not dance again. Its youth is gone. Fifty years of pestle pounding, and fifty years more of storms and sunshine, wet and dry, have given it a gray appearance unbecoming the dance. Its place is now upon the retired list of the antiquarian, where its rosettes of gray and yellow moss within shall never be disturbed by hands that banish hunger with pounded corn.
Mortars of a similar description, the best mills then upon the Island, were also used for chairs or stools, by turning them bottom end up and sitting on them.
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HISTORY OF BLOCK ISLAND.
THE HAND MILLS.
A great improvement on the mortars were those little stone mills which seem to have been made very much after the pattern of those mentioned in the Bible. They were constructed of the upper and nether stones, about two feet in diameter, and were similar in construction to those now driven by water or steam-power. They were worked by means of an upright shaft, like a broom-stick, the upper end of which was stationary, while the lower end was connected with the top of the upper stone about half way from its center to its circumference. This stone, resting upon a pivot in its center-a pivot that could be raised or lowered, was turned by taking hold of the said shaft and moving it round and round with one hand while the other hand would feed in the corn as needed. Two persons at a time could grasp the shaft and make the stone revolve quite rapidly. Even at the present time there are persons who occasionally use these mills, still kept as relics, for grinding samp.
WINDMILLS.
THE FIRST WINDMILL.
This was of short life and little value. It stood upon the elevated ground now known as the Colored Burying Ground, and was built about sixty-five years ago. It was a little affair, not over twelve feet high, with board wings made in sections to be taken off or put on according to the force of the wind. The whole mill was turned around to bring the vanes into the wind, and when brought to the right point its frame work was wedged up to keep the mill from revolving while the vanes were going.
HONEYWELL'S MILL.
In the early part of the present century this mill was erected upon the elevated ground east of the north end of
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WINDMILLS.
Fresh Pond. It was a rudely constructed affair, although an improvement on its predecessors. It was mainly like the windmills now in use, but its cap was turned by means of a long lever, made of a ship spar, descending from the cap obliquely to a cart-wheel on the ground, the end of which, like an axle, entering the hub of said wheel, and resting there. When the cap needed to be turned to bring the vanes into the wind the cart-wheel was rolled around, and by its carrying the lower end of the long lever along, the cap was turned and the vanes were thus adjusted.
THE HARBOR MILL.
It is not easy to decide where this mill was first built. That it was brought to the Island from some other local- ity is certain. Three localities are mentioned, Fall River, Swansey, and Long Island. It was brought here about the year 1810, by Capt. Thomas Rose, in the schooner Greyhound, and was set up and owned by Mr. Samuel Ward. It was located about a hundred feet northwest of the Providence House, and was forty years old at that time, making it now more than a centenary. While there, about forty-five years, it did good service. An inferior wood-cut of it may be seen in Harper's Monthly for July, 1876. A child was killed by one of its vanes, at the Harbor. About the year 1856, Capt. E. P. Littlefield sold it to Mr. Jonathan Ball, its present owner, who moved it to its present location, not far from the Center. Its weight of a hundred years, and the strong winds neces- sary to keep it going, make a trembling that would frighten the Red Rover rats of the Stone Mill at Newport if any of them were in and about its old crannies.
THE LITTLEFIELD MILL.
About fifty rods north of the town house, at the Center, stands a windmill that was erected in 1815, and began
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HISTORY OF BLOCK ISLAND.
its career in the great September gale of that year. Com- pleted on the twenty-second, and accepted as the fulfill- ment of the builders' contract, on the twenty-third its sails were put on, and grinding begun, when, to the con- sternation of all beholders, the fearful gale blew off its four arms, thirty feet long each, which came down tumb- ling and crashing near the house of the owner. Its next casualty worthy of mention was in a gale less violent, not many years ago. The wind was so strong that the break did not check its too great velocity. It stands on the top of a sharp little hill, and while men were plying the break with all their might, but ineffectual, a Mr. Roberts, just then, for a particular reason, feeling himself to be much stronger than he really was, grasped one of the long vanes by its lower end as it was sweeping past him with great velocity, and about one second from that instant he was high in the air, some think forty feet, and that was the last he knew of himself until an hour or so had elapsed from the time his friends picked him up for dead near the bottom of the steep little hill. The fall nearly killed him.
This mill, owned by Hon. Ray S. Littlefield, is capable of grinding one hundred bushels of excellent corn-meal in a day when the wind is favorable. The quantity ground in it annually may be estimated at from nine to ten thousand bushels. A large amount of grain is brought from abroad and ground here, in addition to the corn raised on the Island.
THE SANDS MILL.
While Capt. James Sands, one of the first settlers, and a carpenter, was alive he had a mill-pond, and a mill which was used for grinding corn, as such a mill is known to have been there anciently. It stood where the old mill now stands that belongs to Mr. Almanzo Littlefield,
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THE SANDS MILL.
near the old Sands Garrison. Many years ago it was made over into a mill for carding wool, but did not give satisfaction to its. patrons, and for this reason, as well as for a scarcity of water, ran out, and is a mill now only in name, the back side of which is represented in the num- ber of Harper above mentioned.
Such have been the mills of Block Island, and none, perhaps, have ever furnished better meal, as multitudes of summer visitors prove by their demands for corn-cakes. Many will remember with pleasure the Littlefield mill, so near the Central House, and in and around which the children have played in summer, and within whose dusty walls some of them have been gathered for an hour's Sabbath-school, where they have sung their familiar hymns and recited their lessons to the lady visitor, who faithfully directed their minds to things above this world of dust and ashes.
This mill, on the street through which most of the funeral processions of the Island pass, has always been stopped while they have been passing.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Although the public buildings of Block Island are of humble proportions when compared with some in other places, yet they are commendable in themselves, and indi- cate the moving of new life and increased enterprise on the part of the inhabitants, who are daily learning the import of the old classic maxim that " the gods help those who help themselves." The Islanders have seen this illus- trated in the government appropriations which have fol. lowed the persistent efforts to secure the harbor, the new light-house, and the life-saving stations. They are learn- ing, too, that good public houses are necessary first to bring public patronage, and that the greater the patronage secured by one house, the more are attracted to others. Two first-class, high-price hotels here are of great advant- age to those of less pretension, for the multitude follow the few in fashionable life, and the great luxuries of the Island are as abundant at the cottage as at the palace. The refreshing sea-breezes, the bathing-beach, the splen- did scenery, the sports upon the water, and the palatable denizens of the deep are as accessible to the day-laborer as to the millionaire.
LIGHT-HOUSES.
The first light-house on Block Island was erected on Sandy Point, the northerly extremity, in the year 1829. Its keeper was William A. Weeden, formerly of James- town, R. I., who also kept its successor during its first two years.
The second one was built on said Point in 1837, and
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LIGHT-HOUSES.
was more durable than the first, but was succeeded by another, after an existence of about twenty years.
This second house was a substantial building, located, not on the extremity of the Point, as was its predecessor, but farther from the encroachments of the sea. It had two towers, and its lights were shown from them by means of parabolic reflectors. (Gen. J. C. Woodruff, Eng'r 3d Light-House Dist.)
In 1839 Mr. Weeden resigned, and in his place Mr. Simeon Babcock was appointed, and held his position until 1841, when Mr. Edward Mott was appointed keeper under President Harrison.
The third light-house was erected on the same Point in 1857, and was kept by Mr. Mott until 1865, when Mr. Simeon Babcock was replaced as keeper under President Polk's administration. This last house did service only about ten years. These three houses on Sandy Point, all built within twenty-eight years, were rendered unstable by the shifting of the sand of the Point on which they were located.
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