USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > North Kingstown > Facts and fancies concerning North Kingstown, Rhode Island > Part 13
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Also, there in South County were the huge farms of the wealthy slave- owning planters, who before the war of the Revolution lived in a splendor quite like that of the cotton planters of Virginia. The famous strain of "Narragansett Pacers" was bred and trained there and the products of the farms -- cheeses, butter, woven fabrics, the pacers, cattle and sheep --- were sent to the West Indies in ships built in Wickford, and found ready sale to the sugar planters of Cuba and other islands. This trade thrived until the English began to prey upon our commerce a few years before the Revolu- tion. So, the name "South County" conjures for the Rhode Islander those olden times, those days long gone, and the legends, both negro and Indian folk-lore and tradition. History and sentiment are all there as part and parcel of the wrap and woof of these Rhode Island Plantations, for any who wish to read.
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The old place-names are practical a Ynkee or picturesque Indian as the case may be. "Horn-heap" was the northwest corner of the famous "Petta- quamscutt Purchase" of 28,000 acres from the Indians for an English ma- jor's coat and a few gallons of our justly famous New England rum that so potently promoted the march of civilization in New England. So each name has its story, as "Robbers' Corner", "Hardscrabble School District", "Ninigret" and "Shemunkanug" forts (Dutch), "Old Baptist Road", "Min- isterial Woods Road", "Tug Hollow", "Cordwood Corner", "Hard Dig", "Nigger Sawmill Brook", "Coalition Corner", "Kettle Hole", "Hell's Half Acre", "Ten Rod Road" (165 feet wide, for grazing sheep on their way to shipment from Wickford), "Pequot Trail", "Dugaway Trail", "Pork Hill Road", "Indian Corner", "Doughnut Hollow", "Pender Zeke's Corner", "Feather-bed Lane" and dozens of others.
About three years after incoroporation the museum outgrew its first location and moved to the present one, which is 18 miles south of Provi- dence on Rhode Island Route 2, the "South County Trail". It is a short distance south of the Tercentenary boundary marker where one passes from the Township of East Greenwich to the Township of North Kingstown. It is one-half mile north of the large rotary known as Wickford Rotary, which is a short distance west of Wickford Junction railroad station.
There in a pleasant little valley you will find the hamlet of "Scrabble- town" and a stock farm with blooded oxen, heifers and sheep. In the large barn are housed the more than seven thousand items of the Museum's collections. Implements, tools, women's wear, uniforms, guns, looms, spin- ning wheels, old lathes, corn-shellers; in fact the things our forefathers used and the things that made the things they used. Each year the Museum has an "Open House" day. This year it will be on the afternoon of Satur- day, the twenty-sixth of July.
Last year a forge was in operation, the smith fashioning replicas of old door-latches, hinges, etc. A yoke of oxen was slowly turning an ancient wooden apple-crusher while barefooted boys poured into it the ruddy apples.
A girl in period costume was weaving cloth on an old loom. An early corn-sheller was shelling corn for a "Quern", a hand operated pair of grinding stones. Old lathes were in operation.
A special set-up of household items included a manuscript cook-book of circa 1700. A recipe for a fruit cake prescribed "A peck and a half of (Flower), a quart of (East), a little rose water, a little sack and brandy, 40 eggs, 10 pounds of (Currens), 11/2 pounds citron, 11/2 ounces mace, one pound orange peel, 51/2 pounds butter, (which melt by stirring with the hand). Let it stand in oven 21/2 hours (brick oven of course). Other ingredients in like proportion and final direction was "Beat iceing two hours". Old items of the seventeenth century are often displayed side by side with somewhat more modern ones to show how Yankee ingenuity and inventive genius occupied itself as time marched on.
Someday, the Museum hopes to have going shops in a Colonial village of old houses; to give the smith his forge, the cooper his shop, the mer- chant his counting-house, the weaver his loom, the printer his press, the
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goody her kitchen, and so on through the long list of apothecary, harness- maker, pewterer, silver-smith, doctor, block-plane maker, cordwainer, tur- ner, surveyor, tinsmith, miller, school master, tailor, gun smith, snuff grin- der, log sawyer and so forth. A visit to the museum is well worth while and it will be open every afternoon from two until six except Monday, from June Ist 'til October Ist.
WHEN THE JAIL BURNED DOWN
S. M. B.
The biggest excitement ever in town Was when the old wooden jail burned down; 'Twas in the Fall ---- a frosty night ---- And there wasn't a living soul in sight, For the boys were all at a fancy ball That the Lodge was giving in Woodman's Hall. Sol Smith, the chief of the Fire Brigade Was dancing there with and Indian maid. He was dressed like Old Nick with horns and a tail, And a parcel if imps like a covey of quail Was prancing and squealing around him there When the clangor of fire bells filled the air. Sol started away with the imps at his heel, Right in the midst of the Virginia Reel. It didn't take long to reach the jail, Seize hook and ladder and iron pail And work like the Devil he looked to be, For nobody was ever quicker than he. Now, it chanced that the fire was set by a lamp Overturned in his sleep by a drunken tramp Who woke to find his cell in a blaze And saw to his horrified amaze The Devil himself in the midst of the flame With attendant imps whom he called by name. "The Old Boy has got me," he cried with a yell, "At last I have died and gone to" -- Well? It doesn't matter what else he said, For much that he uttered shouldn't be read, But it's worth recording that after that fright He never got drunk again-at night.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This jail was located in the basement of the original store now occupied by Arthur Sears on Brown street.
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THE TOURGEE TIDE MILL MARY KENYON HULING
A BOUT two miles north of Wickford on Camp avenue, leading from the Post Road to Quonset Naval Air Base, we find the ruins of the Old Tourgee Tide Mill. It stood just across the road from the Lily Pond, where the creek runs down through the marshland to Narragansett Bay. A wall foundation of closely-packed flat stones with a sort of window-like opening in one end gives proof of old-time masonry. A large upright shaft with a gear at the top and part of the iron water wheel that was installed by George Washington Tourgee in 1863, are all that remain to mark the location of one of the oldest industrial establishments of the state.
The old mill was a one-story frame building about fifteen feet long with a lean-to on the western end almost as large as the main building. The name Tide Mill was rather a misnomer, for the mill did not run by the action of the tide but by water power furnished by the pond across the road with a water level eight or ten feet higher than the mill wheel. The action of the tide at high water interfered more or less with the running of the mill, for as the tide water backed up the creek, the pressure of the water against the mill wheel decreased its power. Occasionally a flood tide would make it impossible for the mill to run at all. Prior to 1863 the power was obtained by the water from the pond rushing over a cumbersome wooden wheel into large buckets which were built into it. The wheel was set in a vertical position and turned over and over, furnishing power to turn the great circular mill stone placed above the stationary stone.
Forty or more bushels of grain could be ground in a day in this ·manner, depending on the tides. The old Johnny Cake Mill stood so close to the roadway that the farmer of long ago, could ride up to the mill and slide his grist from his horse's back into the doorway. Diagonally across the road the hill had been dug away with a sort of bank wall built up in back to provide a sheltered nook for the customer's horse while the grain was being ground.
The grist mill business began to decline around 1900. George A., son of George Washington Tourgee, was the last one to run the mill. He was born July 5, 1846 in the old Cape Cod cottage a short distance east of the mill and lived to be over eighty years of age. He was a very inter- esting character and could tell of the time when the mill was grinding every day, and two hundred bushels of corn and meal were stored in the shed lean-to waiting to be ground or delivered. He told of the time when he was a boy, and the Cy Morse Feed Store in Wickford had three thou- sand bushels of corn shipped from the west. He carted it all to the mill in a one-horse wagon, a few bushels at a time, and after it was ground he carted it back to the store again. The mill was run on a toll basis. For every bushel of meal ground, two quarts went to the miller. A part of the meal taken was fed to the stock on the farm and the remainder was sold to the Morse Feed Store, later owned by H. S. Dixon.
Mr. Tourgee said that most of the meal ground in those days was for feeding stock. A farmer would bring ten bushels of corn to the mill only one of which would be ground for family use. Mr. Tourgee also said that
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Sketch by Virginia A. E. White
TOURGEE'S OLD TIDE MILL
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as late as 1915, over nineteen hundred bushels of corn were ground in the mill during the year. But business fell off rapidly after that time and the mill and miller grew old together with not much work to do, although .they were ready to the last if anyone brought grain to be ground.
The elder Tourgee used the shed lean-to not only to store grain. b.it also as a work shop. It was well equipped with a lathe and other tools. Legs for beds, tables and gunstocks were turned out with the use of the power of the water wheel. General repair work was also done. Some years ago the shed was beginning to tumble down when some soldiers sta- tioned at Quonset Camp Ground finished pulling it down, very much to the indignation of the owner.
There are no authentic records available to prove the exact date that the Tourgee Mill was built. Local tradition claims that it was built about the same time as the old house that stands nearby which dates back to 1686. John Tennant obtained control of the property and built the dwelling house and mill soon after he came from England. The property then changed hands successively to parties named James, Allen, Tarbox, Pierce and Smith until 1843, when it was purchased by George Washington Tourgee a des- cendant of the first owner. John Tennant. It was during his lifetime that the mill was in the heyday of its existence. From the years just before the Civil War to the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the farm land in the community was given over to fields of potatoes and waving corn. The nearby Spink farm which was later cut up into small farms and shore plats, at one time raised forty acres of corn.
For many years the Tide Mill . was one of the most picturesque land- marks in South County. Hundreds of tourists from every state in the Union have peered down through the floor at the water wheel and pon- derous lumbering mill stones as they slowly pulverized the corn into the product that has helped to make Rhode Island famous.
Many years ago back in Colonial times, an old colored man brought a grist to the mill and while he was waiting to have it ground amused him- self by catching some crabs in the creek below the mill. As soon as the meal was ready he divided it into each end of the bag and with his crabs in another bag placed them on the back of his horse. He mounted and jogged along toward home thinking of the nice supper his "missus" would have waiting for him. All at once he felt a sharp twinge in the rear of his anatomy, he squirmed about a bit and rode along, the twinge soon becoming an unbearable pain, that no amount of squirming would ease. He realized that one of the crabs was taking this way to show his objections to riding horse back, when he had much rather be paddling down Mill Creek. The poor old fellow called out in his distress, "leggo Marsa crabb! Please leggo Marsa crabb! Oh! Oh! For the good Lord's sake leggo Marsa crabb." It is quite safe to say that the next time Uncle Mose took a grist to the "Tide Mill' 'to be ground, he just watched the water wheel go around and let the crabs paddle along to meet the tide.
Henry Ford was much interested in the mill some years ago and con- sidered buying it to add to his collections of antiques at Sudbury, Massachu- setts. In 1935, the property was purchased by Mr. William G. Anthony of Providence, who had been looking for some time, for an old farm or house
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to restore to livability. The old house which was almost beyond repair was thoroughly gone over inside and out. It was with loving care that Mr. Anthony went about the work of restoration. No one was allowed to touch the old hand-hewed timbers or the wooden pegs in the ceilings but himself. Today "Gristmill Cottage" maintains the character of an early American residence. He was planning to restore the old grist mill a little later, but the 1938 huricane left nothing of the mill to restore, so another of South County's famous landmarks is gone.
A PROTRACTED MEETING
ABBIE PECKHAM GARDNER
THIS old-fashioned religion of ours has weathered fierce attacks and onslaughts by the enemy during its age-old existence, but has come through unscathed. During this time the methods of spreading our religion and getting it across to the people have undergone countless changes. In our conservative New England in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries, the holding of revival services, or protracted meetings, so called, at frequent intervals, was a prevalent custom in evangelical churches.
In the Baptist church in Wickford, the first Monday of each years was observed as Fast day, when religious meetings were held the entire day with only short intervals between the services, and the attention given to the needs of the inner man was held of little consequence. At these meet- ings, the church members reviewed their experiences of the preceding year, bemoaned their shortcomings and promised new zeal for the ensuing year. Often members attended these meetings who were rarely seen in church at any other time throughout the year. Frequently the fast day was the beginning of a religious awakening.
It was in the year 1850 in the Wickford church that the yearly fast day was being observed. Among those attending the afternoon prayer meeting was a sainted mother in Israel who was lovingly known as "Aunt Neppie Reynolds." On this occasion she had made a very impassioned prayer in which she quoted the words from the old hymn: "Mercy drops 'round us are falling; Lord for the showers we plead." More than once she repeated the words as louder and louder her voice rose to Heaven, when suddenly a hallowed expression illuminated her countenance and, at the top of her voice, she shrieked: "Lord, I see the shower acoming, Glory to God! Hallelujah! Lord, send it down quickly."
Over and again, she repeated the words until her voice could be heard for some distance down the street.
That night at the evening meeting, a revival of religion started the like of which was never see before or since in the village. God's spirit was out- poured in overwhelming measure upon those present, and a goodly number .of people from the outside world began to lead a Christian life.
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EZEKIEL GARDNER, JR. of North Kingstown, R. I. 1738-1814
Associate Justice Supreme Court of Rhode Island.
CYRUS P. BROWN
E ZEKIEL Gardner, Jr., was born in North Kingstown August 25, 1738, and died in that town August 9, 1814. His wife, Susannah Congdon (born August 24. 1744, died April 15, 1830) was the daughter of William and Ann (Gifford) Congdon. Ezekiel Gardner, Jr., and Susannah Congdon. were married in North Kingstown, R. I., in May, 1764.
Ezekiel Jr., was the son of Ezekiel Gardner of North Kingstown, the. grandson of Nicholas Gardner of Exeter who was descended from Nicholas: Gardner of Pettaquamscutt (1654-1712) and Hannah Palmer, his wife. The. latter was a daughter of George Palmer and Bethia Mowry and great granddaughter of Roger Mowry. Nicholas Gardner was the son of George. Gardiner of Newport who in turn was the son of Rev. Michael Gardiner Gent (1552-1630) Rector of Holy Cross church, Greenford Magna County, Middlesex, England and a descendant of the distinguished Sir Thomas Gardner, Knight of Collynbyn Hall, West Ridnig of Yorkshire, England, who died 1492.
Ezekiel Gardner (father of Ezekiel, Jr.,) was born in North Kingstown: September 29, 1712 and died in that town April 3, 1805. He was a man of consequence in the town and state. He was a deputy from North: Kingstown in 1770 and 1771, and in February 1776, when in response to. a resolution of the Continental Congress calling for gold and silver for the Continental Army, the R. I. General Assembly appointed a committee "to procure as much gold and silver coin as they can for the use aforesaid" Ezekiel Gardner, Sr., was made a member of this committee.
The papers and correspondence of Ezekiel, Sr., show him to have been a man of influence, sought for his political acumen in those days of bitter political strife. The following deed from Edward Gardner of Newport, dated September 20. 1754, shows where Ezekiel Sr., bought a slave named "Doll" probably for a dairy maid to work in his large dairy, where thou- sands of pounds of cheese were made in a year. On January 18. 1779 he made one sale to George Irish of Newport of 5,639 pounds of cheese for $3.289 and guaranteed that "said cheese was my own dairy".
South Kingstown, September the 28th, 1754
"Then received of Ezekiel Gardner of North Kingstown in the County of Kings County etc., yeoman the full and just sum of three hundred and thirty pounds currant money of the Colony of Rhode Island for one negro Garl named Doll, which said negro the said Ezekiel Gardner and his heirs or assigns are to have and to hold from this time forward as his and their own free estate, and I the said Edward Gardner of Newport in the County of. Newport ye: yeoman do hereby oblige myself and my heirs the said Negro Doll for ever to warrant and defend in witness whereof I the said
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Edward Gardner have hereunto set my hand and seal the day and year above written in the present of us-Jeffrey Watson, Margaret Smith, Edward Gardner."
Again from the papers appears a notice advertising for "a likely young and light colored mulatto servant named "Robin" who had run away from his master to parts unknown.
"Ran away from the Subscriber, in North Kingstown, in the State of Rhode Island, the 27th inst., a likely young colored Mulatto Servant, named ROBIN, about 19 years of age, and near 5 feet 10 inches high, walks a little bending forward, has a scar on one of his feet, and a small one on his forehead; had on when he went away, a black and white Kersey Jacket, white Kersey Breeches, white Flannel Shirt, a pair of black and white Yarn Stockings, and took with him another pair of white yarn ditto, has on old shoes, and an old felt hat with small brims .- Whoever will take up said fellow, and bring him to has master, or secure him in Gaol, so that his master gets him again, shall receive TEN SILVER DOLLARS, and rea- sonable charges paid, by ---
EZEKIEL GARDNER, North Kingstown, April 30, 1782"
The same papers reveal proxies or ballots of various dates bearing fa- miliar Rhode Island names. The following ballot of 1774 gives an idea of their form: "For the privilege of Trials by JURIES; no Demurs, nor setting aside Judgements, without sufficient Cause. 1774.
The Honorable Joseph Wanton, Esq: Gov .; The Honorable Darius Sessions, Esq; Deputy Gov .; I. John Collins, Esq: Assistant; 2. Peleg Bar- ker, Esq: Assistant; 3. David Harris, Esq .: Assistant; 4. John Sayles, Esq .: Assistant; 5. John Almy, Esq .: Assistant; 6. Thomas Wickes, Esq .: Assis- tant; 7. Joseph Harris, Esq .: Assistant; 8. EZEKIEL GARDNER, Esq .: Assistant; 9. William Potter, Esq .: Assistant; 10. William Richmond, Esq .: Assistant; Henry Ward, Esq .: Secretary; Henry Marchant, Esq .: Attorney General; Joseph Clarke, Esq .: General Treasurer."
Ezekiel Gardner Jr., son of Ezekiel above, was also a man of force who took an active part in the life of his community. At the age of thirty-six he was on June 28, 1775 appointed enlisting office for North Kingstown. In 1779 he was appointed by the general assembly on the committee to settle a difference between Stephen Northup and various inhabitants of Boston Neck in North Kingstown over the closing of a right of way from the North Ferry to the Country Road.
In 1789 and 1790 he was appointed Justice of the "Superior Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace" for Washington County. In 1791-1792-1793 he was appointed Justice of the "Superior Court of Ju- dicature, Court of Assizes and General Goal Delivery". In June 1799 he became a "Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court". In May, 1711, he was a Justice of the Peace from North Kingstown. One of the cases which came before the bar during Judge Gardner's term of service was that of the no- torious Thomas Mount, the trial and execution of whom must have caused a real excitement in the peaceful South County of the eighteenth century. Mount was executed at Little Rest on Friday, the 27th day of May, 1791,
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for the crime of burglary. Mount had a long career of crime before he was finally apprehended. He had deserted from two armies, the American and the British, and from numerous vessels on which he had sailed. He had been a hardened criminal for many years. Mount's trial was held on April 8, 1791 before Justices Sylvester Robinson, Walter Cooke and Ezekiel Gar- dner Jr., at Little Rest. The prisoner had been brought from Newport where he had been confined. Mount's lawyers were David Howell and Elisha R. Potter. Mount pleaded not guilty, but the jury returned a ver- dict of guilty and the court pronounced "that he be returned to Newport Jail and from thence to some suitable place in the Town of South Kings- town in the County of Washington at the descretion of the Sheriff on Friday the 27th day of May between the hours of twelve and three o'clock in the afternoon of the same day and there be hanged by the neck 'till he be dead". Mount was returned to Newport as ordered by the Court to spend the in- tervening time between his sentence and execution. In this interval he at- tempted to break jail twice and wrote his "confession" (a copy of which is in the R. I. Historical Society).
Judge Gardner passed his later years on the "Rome Farm", so-called, located in North Kingstown on the northern part of Boston Neck. This was a tract originally belonging to the Coles and contained about seven hundred acres. This tract had come into the possession of George Rome of Newport, a Tory. This estate was confiscated during the Revolutionary period and sold by the State to John Brown of Providence.
The property was later purchased by Judge Gadiner who operated the large farm. Here he died August 9, 1814 and is buried beside his wife in the little graveyard on the farm. A boulder marks the spot.
DR. HAROLD METCALF-A BELOVED PHYSICIAN MISS MARY A. METCALF
W THEN my father came to Wickford from Providence in 1889, he took over the practice of Dr. Oscar Myers who in turn had inherited it from Dr. William Shaw. So father always considered himself a "medical heir" of the two Doctors Shaw, both able physicians in their day. Indeed the descendants of Dr. Shaw's patients continued to employ my father in numerous cases.
It required a strong physical constitution to stand the strain of a country practice in the early 1890's when there were no macadam roads, no electric lights and no telephones, I think, with the exception of one in Farnum's drug store. Three and sometimes four horses were required to make the daily round of visits. In some miraculous way during the several grippe epidemics of those early days, father would often make at least fifty calls a day. This meant very often not getting back to his dinner until twelve o'clock at night, when mother would broil a steak over the coals and he would fall asleep while eating it.
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There are many amusing anecdotes that might be told, perhaps the most amusing of which is about the first automobile drive that he took. In spite of no mechanical ability he did make his round of calls without an accident; but when he drove into the barn the habit of years was too strong for him. He simply called "Whoa". The car kept on going until the end of the barn gave way slightly and reminded him to put on the brakes.
Father was once making a medical call in a household when a small boy in the family asked him whether it would be possible to remove some numerous warts that covered his hands. To please the child father asked him to hold his hands out, whereupon he made a few passes over them and said, "Hocus Pocus" or some occult words, then told him that the warts would disappear in two weeks, and completely forgot the incident. Strange to say the warts did disappear in approximately that time and the small boy's confidence in my father was supreme after that magical demonstration.
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