USA > Rhode Island > Pictures of Rhode Island in the past, 1642-1833 > Part 6
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
1771, 1772. President Ezra Stiles.
Ezra Stiles (1727-1795) was born in North Haven, Connecticut, where his father was pastor, and was graduated at Yale. In 1756 he was induced to become pastor of the Second Church in Newport. In 1778 he became president of Yale College, and held that position until his death. His reputation as a scholar and writer was great both in this country and in Europe. This quotation is taken from his Diary, as quoted by President Barnas Sears, in his Centennial Discourse at Brown University, pp. 100, 101. The Diary, a very extensive and interesting manuscript, now preserved at Yale University, is to be printed by that institution in commemoration of its two-hundredth anniversary.
Nov. 17, 1771. The town of Providence is 500 dwelling-houses and about 4000 inhabitants, or half as big as Newport. .
Aug. 25, 1772. The town of Providence is now, 1772, about 400 houses, 500 families. I estimate 100 families real Baptists ; 140 political Baptists and noth- ingarians ; 140 Mr. Snow's Congregation, § Baptists, 3 Presbyterians ; 60 Pedobaptist Congregationalists ; 40 Episcopalians ; 20 families Quakers, a few Sande- manians, and perhaps 20 or 40 persons Deists.
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PRESIDENT JAMES MANNING.
1772. President James Manning.
James Manning (1738-1791), a Baptist minister, born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, was chosen by the Philadelphia Association as a leader in the attempt to establish a Baptist college in Rhode Island, became in 1765 the first president of Rhode Island College, and held the office until his death. He was also pastor of the First Baptist Church of Providence, to which position he was called shortly after the removal of the college to Providence, in 1770. The present church was built during his ministry, in 1774. The follow- ing letter is quoted from The Life, Times and Corre- spondence of James Manning, and the Early History of Brown University, by Dr. Reuben A. Guild, p. 194.
The college edifice is erected on a most beautiful eminence, in the neighborhood of Providence, com- manding a most charming and variegated prospect ; a large, neat brick building, and so far completed as to receive the students, who now reside there, the whole number of whom is twenty-two. We have the pros- pect of further additions; yet our numbers will probably be small until we are better furnished with a library and philosophical apparatus. At present we have about two hundred and fifty volumes, and these not well chosen, being such as our friends could best spare. Our apparatus consists of a pair of globes, two micro- scopes, and an electrical machine ; to this we are de- sirous of making the addition of an air pump, if one reputable can be purchased for £22 10s. sterling; a sum which two young men informed me they intended
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
to give towards an apparatus or library. If, therefore, it would not be too much trouble to inform me whether or not that sum is sufficient, I shall receive.it as a par- ticular favor; for if not, we shall appropriate it to some other use.
Our whole college fund consists of about £900 sterl- ing, being the whole sum collected abroad ; for no money collected without the colony is made use of in the building, but solely applied to endowing it, with the strictest regard to the donor's intent. The interest. of this sum is quite insufficient to provide for tuition, as two of us are now employed, and we stand in need of further help.
I773. Daniel Horsmanden.
Horsmanden (1691-1778) was an eminent colonial lawyer, who was appointed Recorder and Chief Justice of New York in 1763. He was one of the commis- sioners appointed to inquire into the burning of the " Gaspee," and the following quotation is taken from a letter of his of February 21, 1773, to the Earl of Dart- mouth, relating to that affair, in New York Colonial Documents, VIII. 351.
My Lord, as to the Governt (if it deserves that name) it is a downright Democracy ; the Govr is a mere nom- inal one, and therefore a Cypher, without power or au- thority, entirely controuled by the populace elected an- nually, as all other Magistrates & officers whatsoever. The Governor treated the Commissioners with great.
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HUGH FINLAY.
decency and respect, and to do that Gentleman justice, behaved with great propriety as a Commissioner, ex- cepting his communicating your LordP's letter to the Corporation, which indeed he seemed constrained to do under the above circumstances.
To shew that the Gov" has not the least Power or Au- thority he could not command the Sheriff or a Con- stable to attend us ; he prevailed with them indeed, but in expectation of being paid their daily wages by the Commissioners, so that they were hired for this service at our expence, and even for expresses sent to summon witnesses the Commiss's found it necessary to advance their own money ; also for the very fire wood expended for our accommodation in the Council Chamber on this occasion ; this, My Lord, we readily disbursed and all other contingencies relying upon the honor of Governt.
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1773. Hugh Finlay.
Hugh Finlay was surveyor of post-roads, for the crown, in North America. Shortly before the out- break of the Revolutionary war he made an inspection of the post offices between Falmouth, Massachusetts [Portland, Maine] and Casco Bay, and Savannah, Georgia.
The following account of his experiences is taken from his Journal, which extends from September 13, 1773, to June 26, 1774. Published in Brooklyn, in 1867, pp. 28-32.
Peter Mumford rides between Boston and New Port in Rhode Island ; he has never given bond nor did he
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
ever take a Post rider's oath. He avers that he is an expeditious rider and faithful to the office ; publick re- port is against him ; it is said that he carries more let- ters for his own private profit than are sent from all the offices he stops at, to the office at Boston. He transacts a great deal of business on the road, loads his carriage with bundles, buys and sells on commis- sion, and in short but carries the mail by the by as it helps to defray his expences. Peter Mum- fords ride from Boston to New Port is 80 miles passing thro' Providence, Warren and Bristol for which ser- vice he is obliged to keep three horses and is paid £40 Str. per ann.
He should leave Boston at three o'clock Monday afternoon, but I am told that it is 5 or 6 ere he takes horse, he arrives at Providence, 45 miles, at 9 o'clock next morning and at New Port, 35 miles farther, at 5 o'clock in the evening of Tuesday. On his return from New Port with the western mails he leaves that office on Friday, half past two P. M., passing thro' Bristol and Warren he arrives at Providence between 7 and 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, he leaves it at 9 and arrives at Boston at six in the evening in fine weather.
Thus 26 hours are requir'd to ride 80 miles. The reason of this is, the rider sleeps by the way. If this ride is too much for one man to perform let the ride be divided in two, and let there be no sleeping. There's three ferrys between Providence and New Port, one near to Providence half a mile wide, another at War- ren a skow ferry, and one from the Main to Rhode Island a mile over, they are all well attended. Peter Mumford lives at New Port, were his ride curtailed one half he would stop at Providence. New Port has but little connection with Providence but their inter- course with Boston is great-by having two riders it
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HUGH FINLAY.
wou'd be found difficult to transact business by means of the couriers between these two places.
Left Boston the 25th and rode 45 miles to
Providence.
The road is good tho' a little rocky in some places. John Carter is Deputy here, he is a printer, seemingly an active sensible man : he has had charge of the office two years.
26th .- At the Post-office-or rather the printing office ; for there's no apartment appropriated for the rece't and delivery of letters, tho' they are kept lock'd up. I find that Mr. Carter has never return'd his accounts. He has been in dayly expectation to receive the books of the office, the instructions and the forms from one Cole, the former deputy, but he has put him off with excuses from day to day. This Cole's now in the country attending a county Court, when he returns, Mr. Carter expects the books &c. will be deliver'd up to him, and he promises to transmit his accounts and remit whatever may be due, to the Comptroller in three weeks from this day.
Mr. Carter represents "that the mails from the westward by a late alteration in the Post route now cross five ferry's between Naraganset and Providence, whereas by the old route there's not so much as one ferry to cross."
For the mails to cross five ferrys, in the small dis- tance of 50 miles (two of them dangerous in winter) cannot be for the Kings service. As an addition to this representation, he begs leave to observe, that after the mails from the Westward arrive at New London, the printer there extracts all advices from newspapers, which requires considerable time; the New London paper is afterwards printed containing these extracts,
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
and it is sent to him by a private conveyance by way of Norwich, by which the New York paper is also sent to him, both which he receives 12 sometimes 14 hours before the arrival of the Post."
Left Providence the 27th and the 28th arriv'd at New Port, Thomas Vernon, Depy. He [Mr. Vernon] is of opinion that much time is lost by Peter Mumford between New Port and Boston. He says that theres two Post offices in New Port, the King's and Mum- fords, and that the revenue of the last is greatest. It is the same in Boston, both Mumford and the rider of the upper Stages (Hyde) receive much postage for which they do not account. It is common for people who expect letters by Post finding none at the Post Office to say " well there must be letters, we'll find them
at Mumfords." It is next to impossible to put a stop to this practice in the present universal opposition to every thing connected with Great Britain. Were any Deputy Post Master to do his duty, and make a stir in such matter, he would draw on himself the odium of his neighbours and be mark'd as the friend of Slavery and oppression and a declar'd enemy to America.
The two ferrys from Rhode Island over to Nara- ganset are each three miles and a half over ; in winter when the wind is ahead, with floating ice, it is both very difficult, and exceedingly dangerous to pass, and sometimes tho' but seldom the course of the Post is stop'd for a week, this does not happen above twice or thrice in a year.
I775. Elkanah Watson.
Elkanah Watson (1758-1842), passed his youth in Rhode Island. When fifteen, he was apprenticed to
.
7.9
ELKANAH WATSON.
John Brown, the Providence merchant, from whom, as he tells us in his Memoirs, he received a father's kind- ness. He was one of a volunteer expedition to rescue Mr. Brown, who was captured by the British when sailing from Newport to Providence, and " sent to Boston in irons, charged with heading a party in 1772, disguised as Indians, which burnt his Majesty's schooner Gaspee in Providence river. The charge was true, although the British government could never obtain any evidence of the fact." (Memoirs, 20, 21). Mr. Brown's release was obtained through the efforts of his brother Moses. In 1789, Mr. Watson removed from Providence to Albany. He did much to encourage the establishment of the canal system in New York. This extract is taken from his Memoirs, ed. 1856, p. 67.
After all my wanderings and observation of other parts of the Confederacy, I still look upon Rhode Island as one of the most delightful and interesting of the States. The year before the Revolution, it con- tained nearly sixty thousand souls. It produced but- ter, beef, lumber, horses, pot and pearl ashes, and two hundred thousand pounds of inferior tobacco.
Narraganset Bay, formed by Rhode Island on one side, and the fertile shores of Narraganset upon the other, and studded with numerous lovely islands, pre- sents the most delightful scenery.
Newport is beautifully situated, and was a favorite resort of Southern people, on account of its cool and salubrious position. It had been one of the most com- mercial places in America, but was then falling into decay. Its fortunes were waning before the superior activity and enterprise of its rival, Providence.
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
This city had, within forty years, emerged from the obscurity of an inconsiderable village into a great trading mart, that embraced a body of perhaps the most intelligent merchants on the continent. It contained at this time, about five thousand inhabitants.
1780. Claude Blanchard.
Blanchard (1742-1802) was a member of the War Department in France, and Commissary-in-chief with Rochambeau in his American campaign, during which the "Journal " was written. M. Blanchard held the position of chairman of the various military committees of the French Revolutionary Assembly. He fell under the ban of the Committee of Public Safety, but after that body's disappearance, he became Commissary again, and served his country in that capacity until his death, in 1802. The extract given is taken from his Journal as translated by W. Duane, and edited by T. Balch, Albany 1876, pp. 41-44, 46, 55, 63-65, 71, 72, 78-80.
On the 12th of July, 1780, the day after our arrival . I placed my foot upon the earth at Newport. This city is small, but handsome; the streets are straight and the houses, although mostly of wood, of agreeable shape. In the evening there was an il- lumination. I entered the house of an inhabitant, who received me very well; I took tea there, which was served by a young lady.
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.
CLAUDE BLANCHARD.
On the 13th, I was at Papisquash on the main land, twenty leagues from Newport, to examine an establish- ment which M. de Corny had arranged for our sick. I stopped at Bristol, a village not far from Papisquash, and looked for an inn where I might dine ; but I found nothing there but coffee and badly-raised bread; we were obliged to have it toasted to be able to eat it. . We were obliged to pay 12 livres for the passage of a ferry-boat : they asked 30 of us : we found on our way some pretty houses ; but the country is generally barren in the part which we traversed ; there are few trees and they not very hardy.
On the 17th, in the morning, I chanced to enter a school. The master seemed to me a very worthy man ; he was teaching some children of both sexes ; all were neatly clad, the room in which the school was kept was also very clean. I saw the writing of these children, it appeared to me to be handsome, among others, that of a young girl 9 or 10 years old, very pretty and very modest and such as I would like my own daughter to be, when she is as old ; she was called Abigail Earl, as I perceived upon her copy-book, on which her name was written, I wrote it myself, adding to it " very pretty." This school had really interested me, and the master had not the air of a missionary but the tone of the father of a family.
On the 18th, I visited in company with M. de Rochambeau, an Anabaptist temple, where we estab- lished a hospital.
On the 19th, I was at Papisquash, where there were already 280 sick persons ; but they were far from being provided with everything that was necessary for them ; fortunately, they were in a pretty good air. Papisquash forms a kind of landscape surrounded by trees. The commonest are acacias, pear-trees and cherry-trees ; the ground is sown with flax and maize, with a little barley and rye. .
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
We lived on good terms with the inhabitants of this neighborhood. They are affable, well clad, very cleanly, and all tall. The women enjoy the same advantages, have fair skins and are generally pretty. They all have oxen and cows, at least as handsome as those of our Poitou ; their cows are not stabled and pass the night in the fields ; they give much milk. .
The air of Rhode Island is good ; it is hot there, but only in the middle of the day ; for the mornings and evenings are cool without being damp. .
On Thursday I went to Providence with M. Demars. I have already spoken of this city which I prefer to Newport ; it seems more lively, more addicted to com- merce, more supplies are to be found there. We there established a very considerable hospital in a very hand- some house, formerly occupied as a college. .
In the afternoon, we observed a plant which is very common in the country. The botanists call it Racemus Americana; in France, it is found only in the gardens of the botanists. We saw no other peculiar plant anywhere else, but much wild chickory and sorrel thorn. .
To-day I walked much through the city ; I especially visited the temple which is pretty large, although built of wood ; it is very clean. I also ascended the steeple, which, like all of them in America, is over-loaded with carvings and ornaments, painted with different colors ; it is likewise entirely of wood.
On the 14th, we had rain until nine in the morning ; the remainder of the day was clear. I profited by it to walk alone in the woods and upon the hills with which the city of Providence is surrounded ; these solitary walks have always been agreeable to me. ..
[On] the 15th, I was invited to a party in the coun- try, to which I went. It was a sort of pic-nic given by a score of men to a company of ladies. The pur-
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CLAUDE BLANCHARD.
pose of this party was to eat a turtle, weighing three or four hundred pounds, which an American vessel had just brought from one of our islands. This meat did not seem to me to be very palatable ; it is true that it was badly cooked. There were some quite handsome women ; before dinner they kept themselves in a differ- ent room from the men, they also placed themselves at table all on the same side, and the men, on the other. They danced after dinner to the music of some instru- ments of Lauzun's legion, which had been brought there expressly. Neither the men nor the women dance well ; all stretch out and lengthen their arms in a way far from agreeable. . .
Americans are slow and do not decide promptly in matters of business. They love money and hard money ; it is thus that they designate specie to distin- guish it from paper money, which loses prodigiously. This loss varies according to circumstances and accord- ing to the provinces. Whilst I am writing, at Provi- dence and Newport it loses sixty for one. . . . I speak of this paper money because we are beginning to make use of it in our army to pay some daily expenses, but only to the people of the country ; . . . On the 24th, I dined at Providence with Dr. Bowen, a physi- cian and a respectable old man. . . . They do not
eat soups and do not serve up ragouts at these dinners ; but boiled and roast and much vegetables. They drink nothing but cider and Madeira wine with water. The dessert is composed of preserved quinces or pickled sorrel. The Americans eat the latter with the meat. They do not take coffee immediately after dinner, but it is served three or four hours afterwards with tea ; . this use of tea and coffee is universal in America. Breakfast is an important affair with them. Besides tea and coffee, they put on table roasted meats with butter, pies and ham ; nevertheless they sup and in
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
the afternoon they again take tea. Thus the Amer- icans are almost always at the table ; and as they have little to occupy them, as they go out little in winter and spend whole days along side of their fires and their wives, without reading and without doing anything, going so often to table is a relief and a preventive of ennui. Yet they are not great eaters.
They are very choice in cups and vases for holding tea and coffee, in glasses, decanters and other matters of this kind and in habitual use. They make use of wall-papers which serve for tapestry ; they have them very handsome. In many of the houses there are car- pets also, even upon their stairs. In general, the houses are very pleasant and kept with extreme neat- ness, with the mechanic and the countryman as well as with the merchant and the general. Their education is very nearly the same ; so that a mechanic is often called to their assemblies, where there is no distinction, no separate order. I have already mentioned that the inhabitants of the entire country are proprietors. They till the earth and drive their oxen themselves. . Burning a great quantity of wood is one of their luxu- ries, it is common. . . Yet wood is very dear owing to the difficulty of transporting it. It costs us for a league about 15 livres a cord. .
I proceeded to Coventry, two leagues from Green- wich. General Greene's residence is there. My object was to pay a visit to the wife of General Greene, whom I happened to see at Newport and Providence. Mrs. Greene received us very kindly. She is amiable, genteel and rather pretty. As there was no bread in her house, some was hastily made ; it was of meal and water mixed together ; which was then toasted at the fire ; small slices of it were served up to us. It is not much for a Frenchman. As for the Americans, they eat very little bread. .. . Another country-house is
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COUNT AXEL DE FERSEN.
pretty near, inhabited by two ladies, who compose all the society that Mrs. Greene has; in the evening she invited them to her house, and we danced.
I 780. Count Axel de Fersen.
Count Fersen (1755-1810) was a Swedish soldier in the French service, and colonel of the body-guard of Louis XVI. He came to the United States as a mem- ber of Rochambeau's staff, and wrote interesting letters to his father in Europe, describing the men and man- ners of the time. On his return to France, Count Fersen attached himself to the royal family, and planned their escape from Paris (the " flight to Varennes "). On their capture, he escaped, and returned to Sweden, where he was killed in a riot. The extract given is taken from the Magazine of American History, II. 303.
You know the French, my dear father, and what are called the Court people (gens de la cour), sufficiently to understand their despair at being obliged to pass the winter quietly at Newport, far from their mistresses and the pleasures of Paris ; no suppers, no theatres, no balls ; they are in despair ; only an order to march on the enemy will console them. We had some extreme heat here during August ; I have never felt anything like it in Italy. Now the air is cooler, the climate suberp and the country charming. We were on the mainland about eight days ago with the General. I was the only one of his aids who accompanied him. We remained ten days, and saw the finest country imagin-
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PICTURES OF RHODE ISLAND.
able, the inhabitants well-to-do, but without luxury or display ; they are content with the simple necessaries of life which, in other countries are left to the lower class ; their clothing is simple but good, and their habits have not yet been spoiled by European luxury. This country will be happy if it enjoy a long peace, and if the two parties which at present divide it do not bring it to the fate of Poland and of so many other republics. These two parties are called the whigs and the tories. The first is wholly for liberty and independence ; it is made up of people of the lowest birth and no property ; the greater part of those who live in the interior of the country belong to it. The tories are for the English, or it is more correct to say for peace, not caring much whether they are free or dependent ; they belong to a higher class, and alone possess any property in the country. Some have relatives and lands in England ; others, to preserve those which they had in the country, embraced the English cause, which was the stronger. When the whigs are the stronger they pillage the others to the best of their ability. This is nursing a hatred and animosity between them which will be extinguished with difficulty, and remain the source of a thousand troubles. .
You see, my dear father, by this showing, which is very exact, the reasons which stand in the way of the formation of an army, which can only be raised and kept up by means of money ; add to this that the spirit of patriotism only exists in the chief and principal men in the country, who are making very great sacrifices ; the rest who make up the great mass think only of their personal interests. Money is the controlling idea in all their actions, they only think of how it may be gained ; every one is for himself, no one for the general good. The inhabitants of the coast, even the best Whigs, carry to the English fleet anchored in Gardner
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MARQUIS DE CHASTELLUX.
bay provisions of all kinds, and this because they are well paid ; they overcharge us mercilessly ; everything is enormously dear ; in all the dealings we have had with them they have treated us more like enemies than friends. Their greed is unequalled, money is their God ; virtue, honor, all count for nothing to them com- pared with the precious metal. I do not mean that there are no estimable people of noble and generous character ; there are many, but I speak of the nation in general; I believe they are more like the Dutch than the English.
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