USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 46
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
besides administering the sacrament of confirmation to two hundred and sixty-eight persons after the eight o'clock mass. In addition to the local, many out of town clergymen were also in attendance, and took part in the ceremonies.
The close of its second year found Saint Joseph's not alone without debt, but ready to augment its possessions. This it did by securing, Jannary 15th, 1887, the neighboring property, known as the Young estate, the price paid being $28,500. May of the same year saw the commencement of a new rectory des- tined to be complete in all its appointments, and an ornament to that portion of the city. The architect of this stately edifice was J. D. Jolinston, Esq., and the builder Mr. M. A. McCormick. This new structure was taken possession of October 13th, and on the day following was thrown open for the inspection of the citizens generally. Over fifteen hundred people of both sexes accepted the invitation and examined the new residence in all its details. Three days later, October 16th, Right Reverend Mathew Harkins, Bishop of Providence, visited the parish offici- ally, and confirmed seventy-five persons and received a large num- ber of aspirants into the various church societies. This year, too (1887), witnessed other changes that drew from all quarters expressions of unqualified approval. Large sums were expended in the beautification of the church, chapel and grounds which, together, now form a picture exceedingly attractive.
Besides the work of the parish proper, Saint Thomas' church at the Coal Mines, twelve miles distant, is visited once a month for regular services. The Catholic boys of the Training Squad- ron, too, are attended from Saint Joseph's, as are the inmates of the Newport Hospital, alms house and county jail. The Sunday-school, inaugurated during the stay in Mill street, has grown steadily until the present, when about four hundred children are in attendance. In addition to the ordinary attrac- tions, these have a large, carefully selected library at their disposal, from which books may be taken weekly without charge.
The church societies are ten in number, seven of which have secured costly banners and regalia. The organizations are so graded as to embrace the entire youth of both sexes, their aim being to facilitate parish work and to promote real practical piety. Saint Joseph's Total Abstinence Society for adults is
.
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the largest in the diocesan union and is daily increasing in membership and influence.
The third year of Saint Joseph's existence, like the two pre- ceding, has been of rapid advancement. Not alone hasit added to its material possessions, it has besides contributed its mite toward the beauty and moral well being of the city. Since its organization three years ago Father Coyle has actually paid from its treasury between forty-eight and fifty thousand dol- lars, a marvelous showing, all things considered. This year (1887) a new and spacious rectory has been built and paid for, the vestry enlarged, church, chapel and grounds beautified and the funded debt of the parish reduced considerably. Like its older sister, Saint Mary's, the motto of this young but am- bitions parish seems to be " Upward and Onward."
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
According to the colonial records Mr. Robert Lenthal was admitted freeman of the body politic by the general consent of the general court held at Portsmonth on the 6th of August, 1640. Lenthal came to Newport from Weymouth, near the Massachusetts Bay colony, where the year before (1639) he, with some associates, had been prevented organizing a Baptist church by the magistrates. They were all arraigned before the general conrt at Boston and fined and imprisoned. Lenthal managed to delay his sentence, perhaps to avoid his fine, and at last joined Mr. Clarke's Aquidneek settlement. His name first appears in the roll of freemen of the town of Newport on the 16th of March, 1641. According to Arnold (History of Rhode Island, I, 145), he had been by a vote of the town of Newport, on the 20th of August, 1640, "called to keep a public school for the learning of Youth and for his encouragement there was granted to him and his heirs one hundred acres of land and fonr more for a house lot," and he adds it was also voted " that one hun- dred acres should be laid fourth and appropriated for a school for encouragement of the poorer sort to train up their youth in learning, and Mr. Robert Lenthal while he continues to teach school is to have the benefit thereof." Mr. Lenthal was a minister and sided with Clarke in the early schism which dis- turbed the Baptist church in the summer of 1641. In the fol- lowing spring he returned to England and apparently did not return, as his name appears for the last time in the records of
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the general court of election 16th and 17th March, 1642, where it is ordered " that Mr. Lenthal being gone for England is sus- pended his vote in election." There is no doubt, however, that he had given instruction to youths before his departure, though the influence of Governor Coddington, who was one of the dis- sidents in the church controversy, probably interfered with the settlement of Lenthal as schoolmaster under the provisions of the grant.
The assembly, in their order directing the preparation of an address to Charles the Second on his restoration to the crown (1666), mention the "erecting of schools and promoting of learn- inge by some encouragements from England" among the sub- jects to be treated of, and the address conforms to the order but asks no other favor than the restoration of the royal grant to its former state that the colony might itself be encour- aged to go on propagating plantations, etc., "and instructing their children in learning and civil education."
On the 28th of April, 1697 (as we learn from Governor Coz- zen's Long Wharf address), Newport voted other school lands for the benefit of a schoolmaster. In 1704 the town built an- other school house at the public charge. The town voted six acres to be sold for the purpose, and laid a tax of one hundred and fifty pounds for this object. After some delays a large house was built and fitted, and in 1709 Mr. William Gilbert was chosen schoolmaster, to have the benefit of the land for one year. In 1710 leave was granted to a Mr. Galloway to teach a Latin school in the school house. In 1713 another school was established, and Benjamin Nicholson was chosen schoolmaster.
In 1714 John Hammett was chosen for nine years, on terms similar to the previous engagements. In 1723 one hundred and six acres were voted by the town for a school house in the eastern portion. In 1726 it was ordered that the great school house, and all the public school houses, in the precinets of New- port be repaired and paid for out of the public treasury. Gov- ernor Cozzens, in the address in which these facts are stated, says that " from 1726 down to the time of the revolution we find the same devotion to the cause of learning that characterized our early settlers; but evidently private schools monopolized a large share of the youth between 1740 and 1776," the period of Newport's prosperity.
During the revolution the school honses, in common with
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
other public buildings, were used as barracks, and education declined. "Consequently." adds Governor Cozzens, "public schools appear to have been abandoned, and we discover no ev- idence of any effort being made to restore them until 1825, the only exception being the Friends' school under the Potter be- qnest and the direction of the Long Wharf trustees. Private schools of course were continued, but there was no revival of interest in the public school system until 1830, when their mod- ern history may be said to begin."
The public school system of Newport owes its origin not to an act of the legislature, but to the spirit of its inhabitants, and one of its chief features is that it was designed by its authors, not for the education of one class alone, but of all classes, rich and poor alike. The original agreement of association is pre- served, and may well be looked back upon by the descendants of its subscribers because of its broad and truly American spirit of fraternity. It will be seen that the number of asso- ciators outran that provided for as the minimum in the agree- ment.
" Newport, Angust 26th, 1824. - The subscribers do agree to form an association to obtain the best possible information rel ative to the establishment and support of free schools in those places where they are under the best regulations, and to use all just and honorable means for the establishment and support of free schools in this town on the best plan that can be devised for the education of the youth of every class of the community on just and equitable principles. And to this end we agree to meet as soon as the signatures of one hundred freemen shall be obtained to carry the object into effect. Samuel Austin" (and others as follows-the list of subscribers being now classified alphabetically for greater convenience of reference).
Subscribers: Samnel Austin, Jonathan T. Almy, Samuel Allen, John T. Allen, William S. N. Allen, Thomas C. Allen, An- drew V. Allen.
John Bigley, Isaac Burdick, Green Burroughs, William Bar- ber, Nicholas G. Bass, Stephen Bowen, Thomas Bush, Alex- ander Barker, David Braman, David Bowen, Samnel Barker, John Brown, Gardner Braman, Sanford Bell, Lewis Barlow, Abraham Barker, Jonathan Bowen.
Jolin Cahoone, James Coggeshall, David M. Coggeshall, R. B. Cranston, Stephen HI. Cahoone, Charles Cotton, Benjamin
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
Waite Case, Henry T. Cranston, Charles Cozzens, Robert Car- ter, Freeborn Coggeshall, Thomas Coggeshall, Thomas Clarke, Isaiah Crooker, Otis Chaffee, Christopher G. Champlin, Charles Collins.
John W. Davis, John Dennis, Anthony Dixon, Benedict Day- ton, Thomas Dennis, jr., Daniel C. Denham, Robert Dennis, John W. Davis, jr., Darius Dennis.
George Engs, James Easton, William Eunis.
Michael Freeborn.
Charles Gorton, John Goddard, Isaac Gould.
Benjamin Hull, William N. G. Holme, Zenas L. Hammond, Henry J. Hudson.
William Lovie, J. W. Lyon, Benjamin Lawton, Robert P. Lee.
Elnathan Manchester, Joseph Martin, David Melville, John S. Maxon, Benjamin Mumford, T. II. Mumford, Benjamin B. Mumford, John P. Mann.
Simon Newton, William S. Nichols, Moses Norman, S. T. Northam.
Dutee S. Pearce, James B. Phillips, Gideon Palmer, Isaac C. Peckham.
David Rodman, Peter P. Remington, Oliver Read, Chris- topher E. Robbins.
E. P. Shearman, George C. Shaw, John Stevens, Harvey Ses- sions, Elijah Sherman, Isaac R. Spooner, Richard Swan, Wil- liam Shearman, Joseph G. Stevens, Thomas Sherman, Robert M. Simmons, Abiel Spencer, Sammel Simpson, John Sterns, W. Stevens.
Benjamin H. Tisdale, Anthony V. Taylor, James Townsend, Theophilns Topham, William Tilley, Jr., John Tillinghast, William Thurston, Thomas Townsend, Jr.
Nicholas Underwood.
Samuel W. Vinson.
Joseph Weaver, Solomon G. Weaver, Pardon White, Ben- jamin Weaver, Thomas Weaver, Charles Whitfield, Nicholas White, Charles Wilcox, John Williams, Robert Williams, Samuel Watson.
Shortly after, public opinion being excited in favor of a gen- eral plan of education, the town was authorized in 1825 by the assembly to raise a tax of eight hundred dollars for "educating the white children of the town who are not otherwise provided
478
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
with the means of instruction." and to apply to this purpose the avails of certain lands which had been bequeathed to the town. In February, 1826, it was voted in town meeting to purchase a lot in Mill street, and a committee was appointed to erect a building. In March of the next year this committee reported the purchase of the lot and the building of a school house of brick and stone at a cost of $2,750, of which sixteen hundred dollars came from the two years' tax, the remainder being the proceeds of bequests and private gifts. At the same meet- ing the town took measures to establish a fond for the support of the public school fund from sales and rent of land and the avails of license. They also resolved on the immediate begin- ning of a school for boys on the Lancasterian or Monitorial system. Other general regulations were adopted and a school committee of five was appointed who were "to perform their anty gratuitously, the honor of the station and the gratitude of their townsmen to be their only reward."
The gentlemen thus honored as the first committee were: Nicholas G. Boss, Edward W. Lawton, George Engs, James B. Phillips and Theophilus C. Dunn. In 1828 they reported three hundred and thirty-seven applications for admission, of whom thirty-three were reported as not within the provisions of the law. The number then attending was stated as two hundred and twelve. In 1844 a committee reported that there were nearly two thousand children in town between the ages of five and fifteen; that of these six hundred and eighty were provided for in the public schools, and four hundred and fifty in thirty private schools, leaving nearly nine hundred for whom there was no accommodation in the existing buildings.
The first full report of the Newport school committee appears in the state report of 1856. It stated the number of public school pupils at eight hundred and seventy-three, distributed among seventeen schools and taught by twenty-two teachers. The appropriation at that period for school support was sixty- five hundred dollars.
The report of the school committee of 1887 estimates the population of Newport at twenty thousand and gives the fol- lowing statistics of school attendance in general in 1886: public school pupils, 1,888; Catholic school pupils, 615; select school pupils, 149; total, 3,390; number of children attending no school, 3,539. In the public school instruction fifty-three teachers were employed, and the total expenditure reached 850,635.
479
HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
THE ROGERS HIGH SCHOOL .- This institution, the fame of which is not confined to the limits of Rhode Island, had its be- ginning in a bequest of one hundred thousand dollars by Wil- liam Sanford Rogers of Boston, which came into possession of the Newport city anthorities in June, 1872. The conditions of the bequest required the erection by the city of a suitable build- ing. The city accepted the bequest and the tax payers voted an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars for the purpose. A lot was purchased on the south side of Church street about ten thousand square feet in extent. A building was at once con- structed and in December of the same year Mr. Frederick W. Tilton, well known and experienced in educational matters, was selected as head master.
The generous benefactor was himself a Newporter, born in the city in 1786 and buried there in the newer portion of the grave- yard at the head of Farewell street in 1872. He was a purser in the United States Navy and served on the "Adams" in 1813. Not a man of the highest education himself, he knew the value of learning and his name will be gratefully remembered for his generous practice when those of more cultured theorists shall be forgotten.
The school maintains its high repute. By the last report of the school committee (1887) the number of students was 133.
THE FEMALE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL .- In the early part of 1872 Miss Katharine P. Wormeley began in a modest way in the Townsend homestead on Broadway, the training of females for household work and home duties, the attendant expense being contributed by sympathizing friends and long-suffering house- keepers. Application was made at the session of the assembly in the ensning winter for an appropriation from the school fund to the support of this establishment. At the outset it had the sympathy of the community, but on careful examination of the possible ultimate bearing of such special designation, all parties united in opposition to the appropriation. Meritorious as the institution was recognized to be, the policy of any diversion of the general fund, voted to general purposes, to any special pur- pose was seen to be dangerous as a precedent; and it is to the credit of Miss Wormeley that she herself, in a noble letter to the publie press, accepted the refusal of the assembly as wise and foreseeing.
Private assistance enables her to carry on this most worthy
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
school, and there is little doubt that in the abundant gener- osity of the citizens of Newport, and the thousands who have interest in this new Eden, she will find an endowment which will, as it should, lift its fortunes beyond the caprice of in- dividuals or the range of legislative enactments, and consequent interference with that class of instruction which is better man- aged by a well governed trust.
MINOR SCHOOLS .- It would not be becoming to mention the names of the many well bred and educated ladies who have undertaken, and still undertake, the tuition of youth in New port. Many of them belong to the oldest and most widely known of New England families ; some to other sections of the country. To the honor of the city it may be truly said that the science of instruction-the pride of the Greeks, tlie delight of the middle ages-is, at least in this city, a profes- sion in highest honor.
THE LENTIIAL SCHOOL HOUSE .- This, the most elaborate of the public school buildings, stands on the corner of Spring and Perry streets, on a lot fronting on each; two hundred and one feet on Spring and two hundred and fifty-four on Perry. It is of stone and brick, two and a half stories high. Its measure- ments are eighty-seven and one-half feet by nearly eighty six. Its architecture is of the colonial style, the body of the build- ing being of Swanzey granite. The total cost, furnished, was fifty thousand dollars.
The city council, in 1884, in view of the large and growing population in the southern part of the city, and the need of more ample school accommodations there, submitted to the tax payers a proposition to borrow a sum of money for the purchase of land for the purpose, and in 1885 for a further sum for the construction of the building. In September, 1887, the structure was formally transferred by Mr. Nathan Barker, chairman of the common council and chairman of the building committee, in the presence of a distinguished body of citizens, to the Honorable Mr. Powel, mayor of the city. Appropriate addresses were delivered and the building declared open for its designated object.
It is named in honor of Robert Lenthal, who, in 1640, opened in Newport the first free school in America, and, as has been said, " perhaps in the world;" but, strange to say, there is no allusion to this pioneer in Rhode Island education in at least
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the printed remarks of any of the honorable orators on this oc- casion.
In 1865 the office of superintendent of public schools was created, the first incumbent being the Reverend M. I. Talbot. Mr. George A. Littlefield is now (1888) superintendent.
Among the other school buildings may be mentioned : Long Wharf School House, William and Third streets. The origin of this school is an instance of the utilitarian or practical and educational or moral ideas in appeals to the public sympathy and the public purse. In 1795 thirty-six of the merchants of Newport, anxious to rebuild Long Wharf, which had greatly suffered during the war of the revolution, petitioned the general assembly for their incorporation as a board of trustees and per- mission to raise twenty-five thousand dollars by lottery for this purpose and the building of a hotel, under the engagement that all profits arising from the enterprise should be appropriated to the building of one or more free schools. The public notice of the scheme attracted the attention of Simeon Potter, a resident of Swanzey in Massachusetts, who made a gift of a dwelling honse and some buildings on Easton's point, to be added to the school fund.
The lottery was drawn, the wharf rebuilt and the income of the Potter gift applied to the betterment of the estate until 1814, when the trustees appointed a committee to devise a plan for opening a free school for poor children. Accommodations in the Potter house were provided for from fifty to sixty pupils, and Captain Joseph Finch and his wife were placed in charge. The Potter house was on Washington street, corner of Marsh street. It was a large building and had one room fifteen by fifty feet long with two fire places, which was adapted for school pur- poses. The first year twenty-five boys were instructed; in 1815 their number was increased to forty. Under the supervision of an annual committee the school flourished until the death of Captain Finch in 1829, when it was changed to a school for smaller children of both sexes under the charge of his widow. In 1834, on the liberal establishment of town schools, the Potter school was no longer deemed necessary. The estate was sold and the proceeds deposited in the savings bank where the fund increased. In the year 1862 the trustees of the Long Wharf es- tate, under the authority of the general assembly, leased the property for a term of one hundred years to the Newport & Fall
31
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
River Railroad Company; they determined to carry out fully the conditions of their trust and appointed a committee to pur- chase ground for and build a new school house in the First ward.
Plans were submitted by George C. Mason and accepted. A lot one hundred feet square, on the corner of Third and Willow streets, was bought, and a two-story slate roofed fire proof building, with a front of fifty-four feet on Willow street and measuring forty feet on Third, of pressed brick with freestone trimmings, was erected. It was dedicated with appropriate cer- emony in May, 1863, and an opening address delivered by the Honorable William C. Cozzens, the governor of the state, who was also one of the trustees. The custody of the building, with a formal presentation of the keys, was then made to the mayor of the city, and by him to the chairman of the school committee of the city, before a large assembly of people.
Trustees of Long Wharf, Hotel, and Public School: Act of assembly, January, 1795. Henry Marchant, George Gibbs, George Champlin, Christopher Champlin, James Robinson, Peleg Clarke, Henry Sherburne, John Bours, Oliver Warner, John Handy, Francis Malbone, Daniel Mason, Ethan Clarke, Christopher Fowler, Simeon Martin, Thomas Dennis, John L. Boss, Samuel Vernon, Junior, Christopher Ellery, Christopher G. Champlin, William Ellery, Junior, Daniel Lyman, Isaac Senter, Benjamin Mason, Aaron Sheffeld, William Littlefield, Silas Deane, Audley Clarke, Constant Tabor, Caleb Gardner, Nathan Beebe, Moses Seixas, Nicholas Taylor, Walter Chan- ning, Archibald Crary and Robert Rogers. (36).
Public School Houses 1887 .- Rogers High School, Church street; Coddington school, Mill street; Potter school, Elm street; Willow street school: Cranston avenue school; Cranston street school; Clarke street school; Farewell street school; Edward street school; Fifth Ward school, Perry street; Parish school, South Spring street; Thames street evening school.
Dates of Building .- Farewell street school house, 1833; Clarke street school house, before 1852; Thames street school house, 1860; Willow street, Edward street and Parish school houses, 1863; Cranston street school house, 1867; the Coddington, 1870; the Rogers High School, 1873; the Lenthal school house, 1887.
CHAPTER X.
NEWPORT TOWN AND CITY.
BY JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS.
First Settlements .- Newport as a Summer Resort .- Private Mansions .- Town and City Governments .- Mayors .- Fire Engines .- Gas .- Public Parks .- Pub- lic Buildings .- Liberty Tree .- Libraries .- Fine Arts .- Newspapers .- Notable Events. - Trade and Commerce. - Manufactures .- Banks .- Cemeteries .- Charitable Organizations .- Societies,
W HEN the British evacuated Newport in 1779 they carried with them the town records. The vessel on board which they were placed sunk at Hurlgate. In 1782 the town council applied to General Carleton, then commander-in-chief of the British forces with his headquarters at New York, for their restoration. In December, 1782, they were returned by the gen- eral, with a courteous letter of regret for the condition in which they were-water soaked and neglected for three years. No attempt was made by the Newport authorities to repair or re- store them until December, 1857, when orders were given to this end. About one-half of the records were rescued and re- copied. The real estate and probate records, consisting of over thirty large volumes, were irretrievably lost. The town rec- ords have not as yet been printed. The student is therefore compelled to resort to cognate and collateral sources for the de- tails of town history.
The first settlements in the town of Newport were made in conformity with the order of the incorporators, agreed upon in general meeting, that "the town be laid out and built on both sides of the spring and by the sea sonthward." This spring had its source at or near the head of what was for many years known as Tanner street but now is West Broadway. There was then a pond at this place (Vaughan's pond) and a flow of water from it sufficient to drive a mill. In fact the first struc- ture of this character was built here within a few years after
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