USA > Rhode Island > Picturesque Rhode Island : pen and pencil sketches of the scenery and history its cities, towns, and hamlets, and of men who have made them famous > Part 14
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William was the master spirit, and one of the most remarkable men of his time. He was governor of the State from 1838 to 1840, and in 1842 became United States Senator. He was subsequently known as the "Old Governor." William Sprague was an exaggerated
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A View of the State Prison.
type of the Rhode Island factory magnate. With greater ability than his compeers (perhaps he was a little more unscrupulous than they), he accomplished his ends with more daring, but by the same methods ; shrewd, practical, and far-seeing, by the position of his business, in comparative isolation, he was enabled to exercise the authority of an autocrat. His workmen he could control ; they would vote at his bidding. He was a feudal lord in the nineteenth century, accomplishing his own will, not by brute force, but within the bounds and with the sanction of law.
On Sunday, the 3Ist day of December, 1843, Amasa Sprague was murdered. The deed was done in the afternoon, by the side of a beaten path constantly traveled, and within sight of the windows of many houses, yet no one saw it. The body was shockingly mutilated, and the gun with which the murder was committed was found lying in a damaged condition at a distance of about a hundred rods from the corpse. Three brothers, Nicholas S., John and Wil- liam Gordon were arrested on suspicion. Nicholas was accused of being an accessory, and the other two were charged with having perpetrated the crime. They were natives of Ireland. Nicholas had been in this country a number of years; John and William but a few months. The motive for the murder was said to be the enmity which Nicholas Gordon felt towards Amasa Sprague, because
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of the latter's opposition to the granting to Gordon of a license to sell liquor. The trial began April 8, 1844, and resulted in the acquittal of Nicholas and William Gordon. John Gordon was adjudged guilty, wholly on circumstantial evidence, and was executed Feb. 14, 1845. This was the last hanging which took place in Rhode Island.
The present Amasa and William Sprague are the children of the murdered man. The business was built up by the " Old Governor," who resigned his seat in the United States Senate very soon after the murder of his brother.
The village of Pawtuxet, about five miles below Providence, on the west side of Narragansett Bay, is partly in Cranston and partly in Warwick. It is pleasantly situated at the mouth of the Pawtuxet River. The river divides the village into two portions, which are connected by a bridge. From this bridge a fine view of the water-fall a short distance above may be obtained. A long, narrow peninsula, jutting out into the bay, encloses a basin at the mouth of the river just below the bridge, which forms a good harbor. This peninsula is known as Pawtuxet Neck, and is said to have been a favorite feasting-place with the Indians before the arrival of Europeans. A small amount of foreign commerce was at one time brought to the wharves of Pawtuxet, but now, like those of many other small har- bors, they are almost entirely deserted.
In 1638, two years after the arrival of. Roger Williams at Provi- dence, William Arnold, William Carpenter, Zachariah Tucker, and William Harris, removed from Providence and began the settlement at Pawtuxet. Four years afterwards the principal settlers in the place, because of their dissatisfaction with the insubordinate conduct of Samuel Gorton and his followers, put themselves under the pro- tection of the Massachusetts Colony. After the removal of Gorton to Warwick they withdrew their allegiance from Massachusetts, and came under the jurisdiction of Rhode Island. A dispute which had existed from the first settlement, about the boundary between Provi- dence and Pawtuxet, was finally settled in 1712. Gaspee Point, where the British armed schooner " Gaspee" was destroyed, is a short distance below Pawtuxet.
In the year 1869 a farm containing 417.7 acres, situated in the town of Cranston, about six miles from Providence, was purchased by the State for the purpose of locating there the State institutions for the punishment and reformation of criminals, for the insane, and for the State paupers. The farm is in an elevated situation, and com-
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mands a fine view of the city, bay, and surrounding country. At first temporary quarters were erected for those guilty of minor offences. In a short time, however, a permanent work-house was built, which was gradually followed by a house of correction, an asylum for the insane, and an almshouse for paupers having no town settlement. The State Prison was commenced in 1874 and finished in 1878, being ready for occupancy in November of that year. " A large part of the farm was very rough when the State bought it. Great quanti- ties of stone have been dug out of the meadows, drains have been laid, bushes cut, and roads opened. A very convenient and spacious barn has been built, great storehouses have been erected, and num- bers of smaller buildings, such as blacksmiths' and carpenters' shops, a bakery, a laundry, a basket-shop, etc., have been put up. An exten- sive system of water works has been established, gas has been intro- duced, and altogether a great amount of work has been done."
The Sockanosset Reservoir and the Pettaconset pumping-station of the Providence Water Works are situated in Cranston, within a short distance of the State Farm. The reservoir is 185.5 feet above high- water mark at Providence, and is about 1,000 feet long by 860 wide. The base of the reservoir with the embankment covers 14.0719 acres ; reservoir bottom, 9.5383 acres ; the area of water surface is 10.9467 acres ; length of embankments on centre line, 2,885.29 feet ; capacity, United States gallons, 51,156,544; the embankment is 19 feet high from bottom of reservoir, 15 wide on top, and the surface of the water is four feet below the top of the bank. The pumping- station is about a mile distant from the reservoir. From the banks of this reservoir is obtained one of the finest views to be had in the environs of Providence. To the north the city is seen in nearly its whole extent, to the south are the buildings on the State Farm, while eastward can be seen Warren and Bristol, and on 'a clear day Fall River is visible.
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Field's Point.
A View of Providence, from Prospect Terrace.
AL Bodwall Ball
CHAPTER VIII.
PROVIDENCE- ROGER WILLIAMS AND "SOUL LIBERTY "-MANNERS AND CUS- TOMS IN EARLY DAYS - OLD-TIME "CONVENIENCES" FOR TRAVELING - ROGER WILLIAMS PARK -CHURCHES AND EDU- CATIONAL INSTITUTIONS - DETAILS RESPECTING THE COM. MERCE - TIIE RISE OF MANUFACTURES.
UCH time and labor have been spent in tracing the events in the life of the founder of PROVIDENCE, pre- vious to his appearance on this side of the Atlantic. Un- til quite recently no very satisfactory results have fol- lowed these efforts. The grand difficulty in the way of identifying these events lay in the fact of the existence of two others of the same. name, contemporary with him. His name, Roger Williams, is indicative of his Welch origin. He was born in Wales, in the year 1599. The precise locality cannot be fixed, although Arnold, the historian of Rhode Island, thinks it not unlikely that it was Maestroiddyn. Authorities dis- agree upon many matters concerning his early life. It is, however, quite certain that he was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was ordained to the ministry of the Established Church of England, from which he afterwards dissented, and became a rigid separatist.
This was an age of great religious agitation and of little religious toleration. The attempt to force a uniformity of liturgy and the supremacy of the Church of England upon the people had resulted in driving many out of that church. The Dissenters, as they were called, soon found that they had fallen upon troublous times. Long and bitter was the persecution waged against them, and many sought
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religious liberty in strange lands. Among these were the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and the Puritans at the head of Massachusetts Bay. Where better, than among these heroic men, who for conscience' sake had braved the perils of the wintry ocean and the greater perils of inhospitable shores and their savage inhabitants, could one enjoy freedom to worship God unre- strained by rules made and imposed by mortals as weak and erring as himself ? Surely, in this new world, a new order of things would reign, and one would Acia raof. be allowed to possess one's own opinion Old City Building. in peace. So, to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1631, came Roger Williams. The colonists received him most gladly, for he was a profound scholar, and a "godly min- ister," and likely to become to them a tower of strength. But they were narrow, rigid, and sectarian, incapable of understanding the breadth of mind and liberality of thought which Williams brought to bear upon the sub- jects that were agi- tating their own minds. The perse- cution which had developed in them a heroism which has been the admiration of the Christian world ever since, seems to have stop- ped the springs of that charity which St. Paul has taught us is the first of all virtues. When dif-
ferences arose, as they soon did, the
Puritan colonists
The State House.
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showed themselves quite ready to inaugurate a persecution quite as rancorous as that which they themselves had suffered. Curiously enough, the first issue was raised upon a question of church suprem- acy, not of the English Church, but of that ecclesiastical organiza-
The New City Hall.
tion of which they themselves were the authors. The church at Salem had the hardihood to call Mr. Williams to assist their pastor, Mr. Skelton, without consulting the Boston authorities. Upon Mr. Williams' acceptance, the church at Boston remonstrated with that of Salem for such a course, but without result. When, therefore, an opportunity presented itself for more active measures, they were by no means slow to avail themselves of it. Among other advanced opinions, Mr. Williams taught that the civil power had no authority to punish a "breach of the first table," that is, an offence purely against God. This was the first assertion of religious freedom, so broad in its application, so catholic in its spirit, that it seemed to
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the narrow-minded Massachusetts colonists the rankest heresy. The fearlessness with which he proclaimed this doctrine " gave rise to a system of persecution which, before the close of summer, obliged him to seek a refuge beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in the more liberal colony of the Pilgrims."
He remained at Plymouth two years. During his stay he became well acquainted with the 'sachems of the neighboring Indian tribes, and more or less familiar with their languages. This familiar- ity stood him in good stead when, later, he was forced to make a new settlement among them.
Although the Plymouth Colony was far more liberal than the Massachusetts Bay Colony, both in religious and secular matters, and although they showed a generous disposition towards him, they could not keep pace with his theory that the mind should be a free agent in spiritual matters. His attachment to his first charge never wavered, and when at length he obtained his dismissal from Plym- outh, he returned to Salem, many of his Plymouth con- gregation either going with him or following soon after. Here the bitter controversy and persecution broke out again. Mr. Williams de- clared his belief that the king of England had no right to confer patents upon companies or individuals, entitling them to lands in America, without purchas- The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. ing such right from the aboriginals. This was not only in accordance with the theory, but also the practice of the colo- nists, yet for this declaration they summoned him to appear and answer for himself before a court of law. Later, a still more serious cause of complaint was found against him, and again he was cited to
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A View of Crystal Lake, Roger Williams Park.
appear before the council, for teaching " that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man." His defence was, that an oath is an act of worship, and that the person who takes it, by the very act acknowledges the existence of God. He reasoned that in accordance with his own belief in the liberty of conscience, no man had a right to enforce an oath.
The church at Salem had some time before presented a peti- tion to the General Court for certain "land in Marblehead Neck," which they said belonged to their town. This had been refused upon the extraordinary ground that "they had chosen Mr. Williams as their teacher." Indignant at such injustice, Mr. Williams united with his church in a letter of protestation, which met with but scorn- ful reception. The " contempt of authority" evidenced first by their unauthorized call of Mr. Williams, and now by this contuma- cious epistle, apparently had more weight with the council than all the heresies of which he stood accused. For two years a threat of sentence at the next session of the Court was kept hanging over him, until at length his health broke down under the accumulation of vexations. Worn in body and mind, he wrote a letter to his
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A View of Exchange Place.
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PROVIDENCE.
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PROVIDENCE BRYANT & STRATTON
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SS COLLEGE
The Hoppin Homestead Building.
church, declaring " that he would not communicate with the churches in the Bay; neither would he communicate with them except they would refuse communion with the rest." Summoned before the Court for the fifth time, he was confronted with these letters, which constituted the only charges against him. Although he justified their contents, sentence of banishment was pronounced against him, and he was ordered to be beyond the jurisdiction of the colony within six weeks. The period was afterwards extended to spring, on con- dition that he would not teach any of his mischievous doctrines. But suddenly, upon the plea that he had imparted some of his views to friends at his own house, he was ordered to go to Boston, in order to embark in a vessel ready to sail for England. Upon his refusal to do so, a boat was dispatched to take him by force, but upon its arri- val he had been gone from his home three days. Alone, and in the depth of winter, he had set out upon that "sorrowful journey," through the trackless forest, and after fourteen weeks, during which he knew not what " either bed or bread did 'mean," he arrived at
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the settlement of the Wampanoags, from whose friendly chief, Mas- sasoiet, he obtained a grant of land on the Seekonk River. He was soon warned by his friend, Governor Winslow, that it would be better for him to cross the river, and thus be beyond the jurisdiction of the Plymouth Colony, who wished to keep on good terms with that of Massachusetts Bay. He accordingly did so, with five others who had joined him from Salem. The names of these were William Harris, John Smith, Joshua Verin, Thomas Angell, Francis Wickes. They landed at Slate Rock, with which tradition will always associate the Indian welcome, " What cheer, netop." From this point they passed down the river and around the headlands into the Moshassuck, now the Providence River, to a point a little north of the present site of St. John's Church. Here a spring of water decided them to stop, and here they commenced the settlement which its pious founder named Provi- dence -" God's Providence." Afterwards, in the apportionment of " home lots," this part of the settlement became the property of Mr. Williams, and was known as " What Cheer." In accord- ance with his prin- ciples concerning the tenure of lands, he obtained a grant of Providence, at or be- fore its settlement, from Canonicus and Miantonomi, uncle and nephew, and chief sachems of the Narragansetts. This was in 1636. Two years after, he made over by the " Initial Deed " an equal right in this grant to his companions, now twelve in number, and to such others as JARRAREID they should after- ward receive as
U S. Custom House.
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members of their company. In the year 1661, a committee from the town waited upon him to procure a deed of the first purchase, which was accepted and placed upon record.
The thirteen original proprietors determined, upon the accept-
A=R.A.REID
The Butler Exchange.
ance of the Initial Deed, to divide their purchase. Little informa- tion in regard to this division can be obtained from the records, except that the "home lots" began at the " Mile-end Cove," which lay between Fox Point and what is now Wickenden Street, and lay between the streets known now as North and South Main Streets, and Hope Street. Great difficulties grew out of this division.
During the first summer of the Providence Colony the Pequots, a warlike tribe of Connecticut, stirred up the neighboring tribes to a war of extermination upon the whites. The Narragansetts, who lived in the south and western parts of Rhode Island, debated for a long time whether they should join the confederacy, and upon their decision hung the fate of the colonists. At this crisis, Roger Wil-
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Y
liams, the only man in the colony whose in- fluence could avert the threatened disaster, at the request of the Boston magistrate, alone and at the constant risk of his life undertook to prevent this alliance. Three days and nights he labored with their sachems, and at length succeeded, not only in the original under- taking, but also in form- ing a league between the The Providence Athenæum English, the Narragan- setts and Mohegans, which soon after resulted in the disastrous Pequot War and the total destruction of that tribe.
The government of the infant colony was at first a pure democ- racy. All the voters met and transacted the business of the com- monwealth in town-meeting once a month. The gradual change to a representative government cannot be traced, because the records have not been preserved. But the reasons therefor are plain enough. The first record of delegated power dates from 1640. The colonists, although forced to resort to such power, were exceedingly jealous of it, and hedged it around with innumerable restrictions. Meanwhile, the report of the freedom enjoyed by the new colony had spread abroad, and many in the neighboring settlements who wished to be free from restraint entered it, bringing with them all sorts of hetero- dox notions upon civil and religious subjects, and the result was that liberty which is freedom under the law degenerated into license which is freedom unrestrained by law. So turbulent did the con- dition of affairs become, that some of the colonists hastened to place themselves under the protection of Massachusetts, where they con- tinued until 1658.
Meantime, in 1638, a new colony had settled at the north end of the island of Rhode Island, driven thither by the fury of the Antino- mian controversy. Their numbers increased so, that in the following spring a part of them withdrew and planted the colony of New-
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port. On the main land, the town of Warwick was settled in 1643, under the leadership of Samuel Gorton. A charter, dated 1644, but which really went into effect in 1647, united these four colonies under the name of the "Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay in New England." Roger Williams had been sent to England to obtain this charter. Upon his return with it he was received with the utmost enthusiasm. In 1651, Coddington, who had been to England, returned with a charter appointing him governor of New- port for life. This appointment broke up the colonial government .. The separation lasted until 1654, when, by the efforts of Roger Wil- liams, who again went to England for the purpose, the colonies were reunited.
Mr. Williams' good offices were in constant requisition, not only to preserve peace and unity between the colonies themselves, but also between the colonies and the surrounding Indian tribes, with whom his personal influence was almost unbounded. Again and again did he preserve the colonists from de- struction at their hands. The first time was when, as we have seen, he went alone and at the constant risk of his life, among the Narragansetts and persuaded them to stand by their white allies. Again, in 1645, the Narragan- setts threatened to de- stroy the Massachu- setts Bay Colony. The year before, while Williams was in Eng- land negotiating for the first charter, Mian- tonomi, the noble, high-souled ally of the whites, had, through the treachery
The New Court House.
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The Arcade.
of two of his captains, fallen into the hands of the cruel Uncas, sachem of the Mohegans. With the shameful connivance of the Massachusetts Colony, which had be- come prejudiced against Miantonomi, - either because of certain calum- nies spread by his ene- mies, or because of his mistaken act of kindness in selling Shawomet to that " arch-heretic," Gor- ton, or both, -he was put to death in the most cowardly manner. Great was the rage of the Nar- ragansetts. But it was not until the spring of 1645 that it broke forth
into action. A thousand of their warriors sallied out against the Mo- hegans ; the latter met them with Uncas at their head, and were defeated with considerable slaughter. The colonies of Connecticut and New Haven espoused the cause of Uncas, and sent troops to his aid. The General Court sent a letter to the Narragansetts, laying commands upon them to desist from the war, and a very short time afterwards sent Benedict Arnold as a messenger to them with a similar requisition. The Narragansetts declared afterwards that he misrepresented their reply, and sent for Roger Williams to come to their help. The New England commissioners held a meeting at this crisis, and again sent messengers to require both the Narragansetts and the Mohegans to send deputies to Boston, who should explain the cause of the war, receive satisfaction, and make terms of peace. The Narragansetts, bent upon revenge for the death of their chief, would not be satisfied except with the head of Uncas. Mr. Williams, instead of personally accepting their invitation to come among them and help them out of their difficulty, sent a letter by their deputies upon their return from Boston, saying that since the Indians had
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made terms of neutrality with the Rhode Island Colonies, they, the colonies, did not feel called upon to interfere, and that the war must be regarded as inevitable. The United Colonies - who, having left the Rhode Island Colonies entirely out of their calculations in form- ing their league, would gladly have made use of their superior influence with the Indians, now that danger threatened them - immediately declared war, and made such energetic preparations for carrying their declaration into effect, that the Narragansetts, alarmed in their turn, sued for peace. At this crisis Mr. Williams came forward and threw the weight of his influence in favor of peace, and through his mediation Pessicus and two other principal sachems were induced to go to Boston and conclude a treaty of peace. The
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REID PROV
The Infantry Armory.
conditions of this treaty were very severe upon the Narragansetts, but by its means, the colonists were saved from the horrors of an Indian war, which, disastrous at the best, might have terminated fatally for them.
It is quite useless to attempt to deny to the founder of these Plan- tations a disputatious temperament, - his enemies would and did say, a factious and contentious one. But it must be remembered that the spirit of the age was controversial, and all thoughtful minds were exercised upon the practical settlement of difficult questions. Roger Williams' was the master mind of the time, and his clear and unpreju-
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diced perception of the great truths for which he made such a good fight, would often raise issues where inferior minds could see no necessity for discussion. As a matter of course, he was often engaged in controversy, in many cases entered into deliberately and voluntarily, in others thrust upon him by the ignorance of his oppo- nents, or by their willful misunderstanding of his words. In the tur- bulent times of the early years of the Providence settlement, his ready pen was often busy in making clear to the dull or prejudiced perception of others, the principles which were so well defined in his own mind. Many could not, or would not, understand the difference between liberty and license. They reasoned that since liberty of con- science was the foundation principle of the colony, that therefore they could in all things do precisely as they chose. This was to them the meaning of the phrase.
The winter of 1654- 55 was one of unusual disorder in Providence. A general training was . made the excuse of a riot of such magnitude, that some of the lead- ing citizens were impli- cated in it. A paper was sent to the town, in which the author asserted that "it is blood-guiltiness to exe- cute judgment upon transgressors against the public weal." This absurd doctrine, so ut- terly subversive of organized society, was met by the following REID.PROV.R.I. masterly letter from The High School. Mr. Williams, in which he again explains the much abused doctrine of " liberty of con- science."
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