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 51
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A letter from Governor Cranston, in reply to a further circn- lar from the board of trade to the colonies, gives the commer- cial statistics of Rhode Island at the close of 1708 and shows the wonderful progress which had been made in a few years. In twenty years the shipping had increased six-fold owing "to the inclination the yonth on Rhode Island have for the sea," be- cause of want of opportunity on land, Within eleven years eighty-four vessels, ships, brigantines and sloops had been built · in the colony, twenty-nine were then owned in it, all but two or three in Newport, and the number of native seamen was one hundred and forty. The vessels are described by the governor as " being light and sharp for runners so that very few of the enemy's privateers in a gale of wind will run or ontsail one of our loaded vessels." These qualities had not only proved of safety to themselves but of danger to their enemies.
War had taxed the resources of the colony, but the chief ex- penditure for it was in a way that proved of benefit. The colony giving up control over the shores to the towns, each set to work to build wharves and warehouses. Up to the close of the pre- eeding eentury it has been seen that the little foreign trade of Rhode Island was with Barbadoes, and the direct trade still continued to take that direction, but by Cranston's statisties it appears that the amount of annual exports to England by way of Boston was estimated at twenty thousand pounds. But al- ready parliament was jealous of the evasion of the clause of the navigation laws which required that all plantation produce should go to the United Kingdom before being sent to foreign countries. The extraordinary expenses of the war were such that a resort to bills of credit was necessary to supply a suffi- cient circulating medinm.
In 1721 the shipping of the colony consisted of sixty small vessels, aggregating thirty-five tons. In 1723 the records state
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
that there were one hundred and eighty-four sail foreign and three hundred and fifty-two coastwise vessels engaged. There were thirty distilleries and the molasses imported reached eighteen hundred hogsheads. In 1731 it had increased to five thousand tons, and included two ships, several brigs and many sloops, and employed four hundred sailors. Two vessels arrived each year from England, two from Holland and the Mediter- ranean, ten or twelve from the West Indies. A large number of small craft brought supplies from Boston, and under the act of 1731, giving a bounty to vessels engaged in the whale and cod fisheries, these industries began to assume some importance. At this time also an effort was made by the conservative mem- bers of the colony to check the issue of paper money. There were already outstanding one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of the one hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds of bills of credit emitted, and the value of silver had risen from eight to twenty shillings the ounce. In 1732 a tonnage duty of six pence per ton was levied on all except fishing vessels for purposes of defense. In 1733 the lottery system made its first appearance, but was suppressed by a severe penalty. In 1735 Governor Wanton informed the board of trade that the import on slaves brought in from the West Indies having been removed, there were no duties levied on English trade. The streets of New- port were originally paved from the proceeds of duties on im- ported slaves.
The Spanish and French wars of this period, which included the expedition against Louisburg. Cape Breton, in which the citizens of Newport had an active part, had cost the colony over sixteen thousand pounds sterling, the repayment of which by Great Britain was long disputed, but finally adjusted. The de- lay increased the many difficulties. In Newport especially there was bitter antagonism to the paper money system, and an able petition to the king from the merchants there had the effect to aid the passage of law " regulating and restraining paper bills of credit " in the New England colonies, of 1251.
A censns taken in 1748 showed the population of the colony to be 34,198, of whom 29,750 were whites: the remainder blacks and Indians. Newport contained 4, 640 and Providence 8, 152. The early feeling against lotteries has been noticed; but legalized in 1741, it was applied to public works as well as private chari - ties, and in 1752 a scheme was granted for paving the streets, 31
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the import duty on slaves being abolished; the Parade, then called Queen street, and Thames street to be first finished.
The Reverend JJames McSparran, an English clergyman of Scotch-Irish descent, settled at Narragansett by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, gives an interesting account of the state of the colony in 1752: " The produce of this colony is principally butter and cheese, fat cattle, wool and fine horses that are exported to all parts of the English America. They are remarkable for fleetness and swift pacing, and I have seen some of them pace a mile in little more than two minutes, a good deal less than three. There are above three hundred vessels, such as sloops, schooners, snows, brigantines and ships from sixty tons and upwards that belong to this colony; but as they are rather carriers for other colonies than furnished here with their cargoes yon will go near to conclude that we are lazy and greedy of gain, since instead of cultivating the lands we improve too many hands in trade. * * * I men- tioned wool as one of the productions of this colony, but al- though it is pretty plenty where I live, yet if you throw the English America into one point of view there is not half enough to make stockings for the inhabitants. We are a vast advantage to England in the consumption of her mannfactures for which we make returns in new ships, whale oil and bone (which grows in the whale's month), and dry fish to the ports of Portugal, Spain and Italy, which are paid for by draughts. I wish Ireland were at liberty to ship ns their woolens which we shall always want instead of her linens which will soon cease to be in demand here." In this year (1752), a marine society was formed for the relief of distressed widows and orphans of seamen.
In 1755, at the request of the board of trade, a census of the colony was again taken, and the population found to be close upon forty thousand, of whom thirty-six thousand were whites, the number capable of bearing arms over eight thousand, of whom fifteen hundred were soon engaged in the active priva- teering of the old French war, which resulted in the conquest of Canada. The first line of packets between England and the colonies was at this time established by the post office depart- was estimated between Falmouth and New York. In 1753 it ment monthly that three hundred sail of vessels of sixty tons and upward arrived at Newport.
In 1758 the establishment of the Newport Mercury gave co-
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
herence and character to the trade of the colony. Newport. Tar
from suffering by the war, was thriving under it. This year the county paid one-fifth of the entire tax of the colony, over forty- two thousand pounds, to twenty-six thousand pounds paid by Providence. In 1761 it is interesting to note that there was a regular packet between Providence and New York, which took Boston passengers, and stopped regularly at Newport on her way. During the two years from the peace of Paris, 1763, to the political agitation about the stamp act in 1765, Newport was at the height of prosperity. Nor was there much decline nntil the breaking of the storm of revolution. A view of the indus- tries of the town in 1769 will show the nature and extent of this activity. In this year there were five rope-walks in the town, those of Malbone, Brinley, Hays, Tilley and Buloid which gives an idea of the extent of the shipping interests. There were twenty-two rum distilleries, which shows the ex- tent of the slave traffic, in which rum has always been the chief factor. These were owned by the Cookes, Overing, the Browns, Beers, Cranstons, Coggeshalls, Malbones, Ayraults, Scots, Thurstons, Marsh, Wyatts, Richardsons, Tillinghasts. There were four sugar refineries-Overing's, Mumford's, Gibbs' and Greens'. In 1769 the importations of molasses for these pur- poses reached three thousand hogsheads, brought in sixteen vessels from the West Indies. There was one great brewery belonging to George Roome, south of the First Baptist meeting house, the product of which was carried by an aqueduct to the court house cellar, where it was fermented and sold.
The Jewish colony was then at the height of its activity, rein- forced no doubt by the Jews driven from Portugal after the fail- ure of the great conspiracy of 1759, in which they were said to have been the chief instruments, and for which, though it was a national and not a religious conspiracy, they were by the Holy Inquisition made the chief sufferers in the terrible public exe- cutions at Lisbon. The head of the Newport Jews was Aaron Lopez. a native of Portugal, one of the first merchants in the colonies. The Jews introduced the art, which they kept secret, of preparing sperm for candles, and before 1775 there were six- teen manufactories of sperm oil and candles in active operation, owned by Lopez, Riviera, Pollock, Seixas, all Jews and by Robinson, Handy, Maudsley. Still. Carpenter and Pease. Dur- ing the period of British restriction which intervened from 1763
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
to 1775, the Rhode Island merchants openly disregarded the navigation act, and smuggling was the rule rather than the ex- ception of its trade, which was essentially with the West Indies. forbidden by the act.
The breaking out of the revolution struck this prosperity with a sudden blight. Many of the chiel merchants, sympathiz- ing with the English cause, left the city, the Jewish colony dis- persed and disappeared as the swallows at approach of frost. In 1782, the population of the state had fallen from nearly six- ty thousand as by the census of 1774 to a little short of fifty-two thousand; that of Newport from 9,209 in 1774 to 5,531 in 1782, a still larger ratio of decrease. The commerce of Newport was annihilated. It has never been recovered. Its incorporation as a city in 1784 did not mend matters. A tariff act for raising a revenue for the support of the government of the state was passed in 1783. It included a foreign import, an internal rev- enne and some sumptuary provisions. This act was amended by an increase early in 1785 and again in the summer of the same year when ad valorem duties were added to the spe- citie duties on sundry articles, expressly "for encouraging the mannfacture thereof within this state and the United States." The wise men seem to have foreseen that manufacturing and not commerce was to be the future industry of the state; al- though Providence was quick to follow New York, which in the winter of 1784 had opened the trade with China by the 'dispatch of the first American vessel to the imperial kingdom, the " Em- press of China," which sailed from New York February 22d, 1784, and reached Canton August 20th, 1784, and New York on her return voyage May 11th, 1785.
Doctor Morse, describing Newport in his "American Gazeteer" of 1797, makes no mention of any foreign commerce of conse- quence. He says "it is probable this may in some future per- iod become one of the man-of-war ports of the American Em- pire." He adds: "the excellent accommodations and reputa- tion of the numerous packets which belong to this port and which ply thence to Providence and New York are worthy of notice. They are said by European travelers to be superior to anything of the kind in Europe. This town, although greatly injured by the late war and its consequences, has a considera- ble trade. A cotton and duck manufactory have been lately established. The export for a year ending September 30th,
11
VINLAND. RESIDENCE OF LOUIS L. LORILLARD. NEWPORT, R. I
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
1794, amounted to 311, 200 dollars." The desirability of estab- lishing a navy yard at this port was already a subject of a re- port by one of the British officers to the British admiralty in 1764.
John Harriott, who visited Newport and Providence in this year, draws a comparison between the two cities favorable to the former as a site for residence and a harbor for commerce. Yet Providence, with a "long river to navigate, far from a com- modions harbor, yet it is crowded with shipping. Newport has the best fish market in America and Providence one of the worst. Notwithstanding so many natural advantages in favor of Newport, yet, from the decay of trade, wharves out of repair and going to ruin, houses falling for want of tenants, with the small number of shipping and stillness of its streets, Newport, compared with its former flourishing state, brings to remem- brance the idea of Goldsmith's " Deserted Village;" while Providence, from the spirited exertion of many of its inhab- itants, seems like a thriving, crowded beehive. * Yet I am persuaded it only requires the spirited exertion of a few more merchants, as Messrs. Gibbs and Channing, to become again a flourishing seaport."
This celebrated firm, to which the traveller here refers, were among the most enterprising merchants of that day. Mr. George Gibbs, the senior partner, was already at the head of his profes- sion when he associated with himself Mr. Walter Channing. llis business extended over Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and he had correspondents in New York and the southern cities. He constructed the frigate " General Greene" for the United States government, and it is of interest to note that it was to the house of Gibbs & Channing that the " En- deavor," the ship of Cook, the famous navigator, was consigned when chased into Newport by a British frigate in !792 or 1793. She was then in French ownership and was called " La Liberté." Such at least is the accepted tradition.
In 1798, the advisability of a naval station on the southern coast of New England being mooted in congress, the cove at Newport was tendered to the United States government for a dock yard. The cove consisted of about twelve acres known as the mill pond north of Long wharf. Gibbs & Channing made the offer on behalf of the town. George G. Channing, who was a clerk of this firm, in his early recollections of Newport gives
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the names of a large number of vessels owned by them which traded to Batavia, St. Louis, Isle of Bourbon, Havana, Surinam, Holland, London, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Trieste and France. He names also, as distinguished merchants of the period of his clerkship, 1804-1811, the Champlins, Vernons, Stevens, De- blois. Of these the elder Champlin was the head.
In 1805 a line of packet ships was established from Newport to Charleston, between which cities the relations were always in- timate. The embargo act of 1808 interrupted the business of Newport, and again checked the prosperity which her active merchants were seeking to regain.
In May, 1817, the arrival of the steamboat " Fire Fly," from New York, opened the era of steam navigation for Newport. She was twenty-eight hours making the passage, and hardly a competitor in a fair wind for one of Newport's fast sailing sloops; but from this small beginning has developed one of the most valuable of the industries of the state. Naturally the travel between New York and Boston would seek this mode of communication as it had before sought the sloop packet line. In 1822 the steamboats which connected with the overland stages at New Haven were drawn off, and on the organization of the Rhode Island and New York Steamboat Company the divergence of travel to it was permanently assured. The history of the growth of this passenger travel and freight traffic cannot be en- tered upon. It is only necessary to name the famous " Pil- grim," and the promise of the still more enormous steamer "Puritan," which is to be put on the Old Colony line next season-the steamboat marvel of our time.
The railroad system was begun by a vote of the city council of Newport in October, 1861, conveying lands for the construc- tion of a railroad from the city limits to the boundary line be- tween the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts and Fall River ; the Old Colony & Fall River Railroad Company hav- ing announced their intention of immediately beginning the building of the road. The first train ran over the road in Feb- ruary, 1864.
In 1869 the city council pledged the sum of fifty thousand dollars toward the construction of a line of travel between Newport and New York, via Wickford, by steamboat and rail- road to connect Newport and the Stonington railroad at North Kingstown. The route was first opened to the public in 1871.
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
The establishment of a cotton duck factory at Newport be- fore 1794 has been noted, but it was easy to foresee that this seaboard town could never compete with the superior water power at Fall River. A society was formed in 1792 called the "Newport Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers" for the promotion of industry and ingenuity, by the efforts of which, through lectures from 1848 to 1851, much was done to promote the progress of manufactures in the state, but no effort. could divert the irresistible course of the industry in the town of Newport. The cotton and duck factory noticed by Morse as existing in 1794 was taken down early in the century, and the minor industries which were then in full operation did not long survive. The four large tanneries and five grain mills have disappeared. The central position of these factories and distilleries was in and about the cove and Long Wharf.
There was some revival of enterprise in Newport about 1832, and a few years later (1837) the Coddington cotton mill, a sub- stantial structure, was erected. It changed hands several times and was in the ownership of Providence gentlemen when totally destroyed by fire in 1860. It then contained eleven thousand spindles and two hundred and seventy-five looms, producing about fifty thousand yards of printing cloth weekly and employ- ing two hundred and twenty hands. The same year a woolen mill, built about 1837, and employing fifty hands, was also burned, and in 1864 a similar fate befell the Point cotton mill erected early in the century. There still remains the Aquidneck mill, on Thames street, with ten thousand spindles and twenty looms and capacity of employment for one hundred and seventy- five operatives. It is the property of the Richmond Mannfactur- ing Company, but stands idle. Still another cotton mill, erected in 1835 by the Perry Manufacturing Company, is now idle; the building being used for various mechanical purposes. The Newport Manufacturing Company erected a fine building in 1871 on Marlborough street, but failing in the enterprise, the structure is now used by the Newport Water Works in the manufacture of water pipes.
The Newport Gas Light Company, chartered in 1853, has its extensive works on Thames street near Lee avenue. The lead works, which included a large shot tower and were in full operation from 1861 to 1865, the period of the war, are now idle also. Even hats are no longer made here.
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
The annual report of the commissioner of industrial statistics made to the general assembly of Rhode Island at the January session of 1888, points out the fact that considerably more than one-half of the inhabitants are engaged in manufacturing in its mills, and that the state is second only to Massachusetts in cotton manufacturing, while at the head of all in that of jewelry; but sensibly adds that "in the last analysis the farming in- terests sustain the whole." The inference is plain that legis- lation which does not open markets for the surplus products of the soil must in the end prove detrimental to the interests of the rest of the community.
BANKS. - To give even a summary of the history of the banks of the colony and the state, or mention the incidents of finan- cial history in the last and present century, would require a separate chapter. The term "bank" had a different significa tion in the eighteenth century from what it has now. The issue of forty thousand pounds in 1715 by the colony for loans to the towns, in the form of bills from five pounds to one shilling, with provisions of redemption, was known as the " first bank." A similar issue, of the same amount, in 1721, was the "second bank." In 1728 a new loan, with an extension of time of redemp- tion, was "the third." The "fourth bank," in 1731, was not only a renewal of the third, but the loan was extended to sixty thousand pounds. The " fifth bank," created in 1733, amount- ed to one hundred thousand pounds, issued at five per cent., the interest for the first year being appropriated for a harbor and pier at Block Island for the fishermen. The "sixth bank," also of one hundred thousand pounds, was created on the same termis as the former loans, save that the interest as well as the principal was secured by mortgage on real estate. Further banks were created, one for twenty thousand pounds, for ten years, at four per cent., with an attempted stipulation of the precise amount of coin in which they should be redeemed. These bills were named new tenor bills, a term which constantly occurs in the sequel of the history of the colony. In 1744 a new issue of forty thousand pounds was voted. In 1750 a ninth bank of twenty-five thousand pounds was issued on new płates.
It is needless to follow colonial legislation on this subject further, nor yet to recite the struggles between the advocates of hard money and the paper money party, which resulted in
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FRIEDHEIM. RESIDENCE OF THEO. A HAVEMEYER. NEWPORT. R. I
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
the triumph of the latter at the general election in 1786. The Bank of North America had already been established on a specie basis as a national bank by Robert Morris, the financier of the United States in 1781, the headquarters at Philadelphia, and a movement was inaugurated at Providence to establish a bank there on the same basis in 1784. The action of the Rhode Island assembly-the paper money assembly-of 1786 in at- tempting to maintain the credit of their bills by a "forcing act," not only brought business in general to a standstill, but prevented the success of the Providence scheme until 1791.
The founding of the Bank of Providence was followed by that of an institution, the Bank of Rhode Island, on similar principles, at Newport, in 1795. The original subscribers met at the state house on the 21st of October, and the books having been opened the day previous for subscriptions to the stock in gold and silver, organized with the election of a board of direc- tors (Christopher Champlin, George Champlin, George Gibbs, James Robinson, Peleg Clarke, Caleb Gardiner, Thomas Dennis, Simeon Martin, and Walter Channing). Chistopher Champlin was chosen president, and Moses Seixas cashier. The bank opened for business at the residence of Mr. Seixas, the cashier, in the Perry mansion on Touro street, where its business was conducted until 1820, when it was moved to its present location on Thames street. It entered into the national bank system September 22d, 1865. Capital, 8100,000. President, Frederick Tompkins : vice-president, Angustus P. Sherman ; cashier, Thomas P. Peckham ; clerk, John P. Peckham ; directors, Frederick Tompkins. A. P. Sherman, J. D. Richardson, T. P. Peckham, Henry A. Clarke.
The Newport National Bank, 8 Washington square, was in- corporated as a state bank in October, 1803, and reorganized as a national bank in 1865. Capital, $120,000. President, William Brownell : cashier, Henry C. Stevens : teller, Grant P. Taylor; assistant teller, Henry C. Stevens, Jr .; directors, William E. Dennis, William Bailey, Henry Bull, Jr., William Brownell, William Gilpin, John C. Stoddard. Henry C. Stevens. The first president of the bank was Constant Tabor; the first cashier John P. Sherman.
The Union National Bank, 200 Thames street, was incor. porated in June, 1804. The first president was Samuel Elam, first cashier John L. Boss. Organized as a national bank Angust
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HISTORY OF NEWPORT COUNTY.
31st, 1881. Capital, $155,250. Present officers : President, Robert S. Barker ; cashier, John S. Coggeshall ; teller, William A. Coggeshall ; directors, R. S. Barker, Noah Redford, George F. Crandall, Thomas B. Buffum, Michael Cottrell, Benjamin B. H. Sherman, John H. Crosby, Jr.
The Merchauls' Bank, 223 Thames street, was incorporated in February, 1817. The first president was Samuel Whitehorne, first cashier Thomas HI. Munford. Capital, $100,000. Officers: President, - -; cashier. A. S. Sherman ; clerk. Charles Crandall, Jr .; directors, A. S. Sherman, George A. Richmond, William B. Sherman, Albert Sherman.
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