USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 51
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The building of roads always has had an important effect on the development of new communities. The Romans carried forward and maintained their civilization in the countries they conquered chiefly by the aid of the great highways they built, many of which remain in use to this day as main traveled roads. Commerce was maintained by means of these roads, intercourse was rendered possible, and the action and reaction which toned down local differences, removed prejudices, and taught men to know each other, had thereby opportu- nity to operate.
The original New England settlements were on the seacoast, and communication between them at first was mainly by water. Massa- chusetts Bay was the highway between Plymouth, Boston and Salem. Narragansett Bay was the highway between Providence, Newport, Portsmouth, Taunton and Warwick. While there were no roads in the modern sense of the term when the white man arrived, still the country was traversed in all directions by Indian trails, like the modern footpaths that run through the woods or along the river banks. Some of these trails were well traveled roads of from six to twelve feet in width, and were made use of by the first settlers. All the original highways were enlarged from these paths and usually followed their lines.
A much traveled Indian trail led from Providence to Pawtucket Falls and thence on to Boston, while another trail, known as the Pequot path, led to the southwest "through East Greenwich, Wick- ford, over Tower Hill and through Westerly into Connecticut". These trails and their continuations became, as the colony developed,
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the highway between Boston and New York, through Providenee, New London and other English settlements, and this road which ran through the low land along the coast continued for a long period to be the main artery of land travel. At the towns or settlements along this highway wayside inns for the entertainment of travelers were es- tablished, and these hostelries were important sourees of social growth, as by their means the people obtained news and glimpses of the out- side world and in their common rooms the local social life eentered and the gossip of the neighborhood cireulated.
The Indian trails, like the modern railroads, followed the lines of least resistance. Instead of crossing a swamp or bridging a river, they
Ross TAVERN, NEAR QUONOCHONTAUG, CHARLESTOWN, ERECTED 1770.
This tavern was located on the old Pequot path, the original Indian trail from the Massachusetts Colony into Connecticut.
went around the one and forded the other. These paths were eon- sequently very cireuitous, but they followed the easiest eourse and were as dry and level as under the given eircumstanecs eould be secured. An exeellent example of this principle is afforded by the old road between Providence and Pawtucket, which at present follows the original layout. It skirts the low land in the valley of the Mos- shassuck, originally known as the great swamp, while on the other side it avoids the hills to the eastward, and to accomplish both these objeets it makes a long detour, which in quite recent times was over- eome by building a graded road, Pawtucket Avenue, straight over the hill. Woodland paths wherever they exist at the present day
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are naturally developed on similiar lines, and many old highways throughout the country, with their easy grades and long roundabout ways, are developed from the original Indian trails.
The English settlers developed the Indian trails into bridle paths over which horscs could travel, as the horse was the only means the pioneers possessed for land travel or the carrying of burdens. Car- riages or wagons did not come into use to any extent until about the middle of the cighteenth century, when horse chairs, and after them chaises, were in a very limited way utilizcd by the wealthier travelers, and were consequently popularly con- sidered as evidences of great affluence and as exhibiting the highest degree of luxury. To travel on horseback was by or- dinary people considered a very comfortable method, while the majority went on foot, and in that manner covered long distances. An evidence that wheeled vehicles were seldom used previous to 1740 is furnished by the fact that the tables of rates on the early ferries provide only for men and animals.
Up to the period of the Revolution there were no good roads in the modern sense in Providence Plantations or on Rhode Island. By that time the main highways had been developed into cart tracks suitable for the passage of stages and wagons, but they were no better than the poorest roads that exist to-day in our mountain regions or in remote country districts. As population increased these roads were slowly improved, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century the main highway already mentioned, which passed through Providence and was then the most traveled way in New England, was in such a condition that a journey from Boston to New York, by the best con- veyances then in use, occupied a week.
One of the first forward movements in the evolution of land travel and transportation was the establishing of ferries. Originally the paths all led to the easiest and safest places for crossing the streams, thereby making long detours to get around large and deep bodies of water. Under such conditions many of the most direct routes were unavailable, because there were no means of crossing the rivers except at the fords. To overcome this obvious disadvantage many ferries were put in operation at a very early period in the colonial history.
In the settlements on Narragansett Bay ferrics were from the very beginning essential, because. the leading colony-Newport-being on an island could only be reached either by a long water voyage or by crossing from the mainland at some point, and then traversing the island to the town. The first ferry was established by the town of
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Portsmouth, September 7, 1640, between two and three years after the settlement of Pocasset, and it was operated at the narrowest part of the northern end of the Seaconnet River-where the distance across was only about a mile-near the location of the present Stone Bridge, and connected the north end of Rhode Island with the mainland. It was for a long period known as Howland's Ferry, and continued in use during the colonial period and until the building of Rhode Island bridge, in 1794-5. The General Assembly, in October, 1795, passed an act regulating the tolls on this bridge. The original bridge and its immediate successors were destroyed by storms, aided by the strength of the tidal currents that here prevail, but finally, in 1806, by the construction of a huge stone causeway, with a draw bridge in the center for the passage of vessels, a permanent roadway across this strait was secured. From the character of its construction this bridge has ever since that time been known as the Stone Bridge, instead of by its legal name of Rhode Island Bridge. The rates of ferriage on this first ferry were determined by vote of the town of Portsmouth at sixpence for a man, threepence each if more than three persons were taken at a trip, and fourpence a head for goats and swine. It was for a long period the most important ferry in the colony, as it was a link on the main highway connecting Rhode Island with Bos- ton. Taunton and Plymouth.
The General Assembly established horse ferries upon a permanent basis, from the mainland to Conanicut Island, March, 1700, and from Newport to Jamestown in May of the same year. These two ferries were operated in conjunction and travelers had to cross the island of Conanicut; and they afforded a regular means of communication between the Narragansett Country and Newport, while they also furnished the people of Rhode Island with the quickest means of reaching the main highway between New York, Providence and Boston. Before this date these ferries had probably been main- tained intermittently by private enterprises, as the vote of the As- sembly was to put them upon a permanent basis. A new ferry was established between Kingstown and Conanicut in 1707, and a second ferry to run from Easton's Point to Jamestown was established in 1725. Since that period, except when interrupted during the Revolu- tion, these ferries, or at least one of them, have always been in operation. The steanı ferry boats Conanicut and Beaver Tail are now employed on this route.
About 1685 a ferry was started between Bristol and Portsmouth, and, like Howland's Ferry, it afforded facilities for travel between
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Newport and the Englishi settlements to the northward. Another ferry was established here by vote of the General Assembly in 1727, so that consequently at that time there were two ferries connecting the northern end of Rhode Island with Bristol Neck. This ferry was a popular route to Newport, and continued in use until the railroads and steamboat lines afforded easier and better means of travel. Its memory is perpetuated by the name Bristol Ferry applied to the old landing on the Portsmouth side of the strait, while the neighborhood on the Bristol side is known as Ferry Hill. Bristol Ferry landing is still used as a stopping place for the steamers that ply between Fall River and Providence.
In June, 1724, the General Assembly voted to authorize a ferry to run from Warwick Neck to the north end of Prudence Island. Evidently this ferry was not maintained, for late in 1742 steps were taken to establish two new ferries, the first of which was the same one that had been authorized in 1724, while the other ran from the south end of Prudence to Lawton's Valley on Rhode Island. These two ferries, connected by a path the length of Prudence Island, made the shortest possible route for the people of Providence Plantations to reach Newport. Probably the ferry across the Seaconnet River to Portsmouth, from Fogland Point, in Tiverton, on the east side of Narragansett Bay, was also in operation at this period and it cer- tainly was running in 1756. Another "new ferry" between South Kingstown and Jamestown was established in 1747-8 "to accommodate the increasing travel".
In 1747 there were nineteen ferries in the Colony, thirteen of which connected with different parts of Rhode Island. The principal ferries were Howland's across the Seaconnet River at the north end of the island ; the two from Bristol Neck to Portsmouth; those running from Warwick Neck to Providence and from that island to Rhode Island; and the two or three ferries operated between the Kingstown shores and Conanicut Island, with those that ran in conjunction from James- town to Newport. These with Fogland, or Cook's ferry, as it was likewise known, made five well established routes to Newport, then the principal town of the Colony. Of these routes two are still in use, namely, that which utilized Howland's Ferry, which is now the only avenue of land travel to Rhode Island; and the steam ferries from Kingston to Newport.
In 1712 the General Assembly enacted a law regulating the ferries and prescribing the rates, and their administration was placed in the hands of a committec. An act to regulate ferriage was passed in
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STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.
1744 and a special statute relating to ferries was passed in 1747, which took the place of all the previous laws on the subject. Arnold says that the ferries previous to 1748 had been private property, and that the Colony in that year purchased the two running from Newport to Jamestown, but sold them at public auction in 1750. The Colonial Records however seem to show that the Colony had an ownership in some of the ferries previous to this purchase, as in the case of the horse ferry between Newport and Kingstown, established in 1700. The General Assembly certainly always exercised the right to regulate rates and the Colony spent money to repair landings and buy boats. The ferries were leased by the Colony to those who operated them, or as modern phraseology would express it, the ferry "franchises" were leased to private parties; in some cases the Colony owned the equipment, but, as a rule, with the exception noted from 1748 to 1750, they were undoubtedly conducted by private individuals, under leases from the Colony, which also reserved the right to regulate fares and establish conditions. The Assembly, in October, 1761, passed an act establishing the following rates of ferriage between Newport and Jamestown, and between Jamestown and North and South Kingstown :
For every footman 6s; for every single person who shall put the boat off 12s; for a man and a horse 12s; for a draft horse 12s; for a neat beast 14s; for a calf 3s; for every hog 3s; for every sheep 3s; for every lamb 2s; for a horse and chair, or chaise, and the person in it 2s. This act demonstrated that carriages or chaises had at that time come into use.
Similar acts were passed in 1752, 1754, 1756 and in other years, and the rates of ferriage were adjusted at different times to conform to the varying value of the circulating medium brought about by the issues of paper money.
During the Revolution the ferries were only operated intermittently and some of them were abandoned for a time, but after the British fleet left Newport they were again put in operation. The General Assembly, in October, 1779, voted that the State repair the ferries between Newport and South Kingstown, and deliver them to the original owners, who were, however, to pay the cost of these repairs from the income of the ferries in the future. The State, also, in 1780, bought a boat on the same conditions for Mrs. Mary Franklin, owner of the ferry from the west side of Jamestown to Narragansett.1
1R. I. Col. Records, vol. 13, p. 603; vol. 9, p. 172; vol. 5, pp. 74, 227, 317, 365, 378, 505, 563.
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The most important ferry in the neighborhood of Providence was maintained at "Narrow Passage", on the Seekonk River, near the present location of the Red or Central Bridge. Here a point of land projected so far into the stream that crossing was easier than elsewhere. One of the principal Indian paths, the Wampanoag trail, led from Providence Neck eastward, across this passage, and here, early tradi- tion says, the Indians maintained a ferry, or at least kept canoes for crossing the river. The white men evidently did not at first utilize the old Indian ferry, for "Roger Williams in coming from Boston to Providence, in 1643, with the first charter, instead of cross- ing at Narrow Passage, went to Seekonk Cove and thence by water around Providence Neck, to the landing on the main street of the new settlement of Providence". It is probable, however, that the old ferry was utilized by the whites in the same way as it had been by the Indians, as it was on the line of the most important path leading to the eastern settlements at Taunton and Plymouth.
Travel along this route must have continued to increase, for soon after King Philip's War a permanent ferry was established at Narrow Passage by Capt. Andrew Edmonds, who, on March 3, 1678-9, was by vote of the town of Providence granted a homestead of four acres along the river at this point in recognition of his services during the war, the understanding being as expressed in the town records that "he there intended the keeping of a ferry". The town increased the land grant in 1687 to a total of nine acres.
This ferry from the time it was established by Capt. Edmonds was on the main road between Boston and New York, as the route through Pawtucket was thereby in a measure superseded, and did not come into use again prominently until the building of the bridge at Paw- tucket Falls after 1713. Madame Sarah Knight, who made a journey from Boston to New Haven in 1704, traveled on horseback and took from 3 o'clock of October 2, until two hours before sunset of October 3, to reach Edmonds's Ferry. She did not arrive in New Haven until the following Saturday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, being five days on the journey. Her experience shows that the roads and the facili- ties for travel then exisiting were primitive in the extreme. At this period the ferry boats were probably scows capable of transporting horses and cattle.
Unlike the other important ferries in the Colony, all of which connected Rhode Island with the mainland, the franchise of this ferry seems to have been considered as appertaining to Edmonds's estate. In another respect it differed from the other ferries in that its eastern
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STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.
side was originally in the Plymouth Colony, and afterwards in Mas- sachusetts Bay, so that finally it was operated by a ferryman from each side. Captain Edmonds operated the ferry until his death in 1695, then his wife conducted it until her death the same year, when it passed into the hands of their son Andrew, then in his fourteenth year. He condueted it for ten years, when he leased the estate and ferry, October 11, 1707, to John Mason, and two years later sold the estate and ferry to Thomas Olney for £120. John Mason continued to operate the ferry until his death in 1716, when his brothers, Noah and Timothy, assumed the lease, and on February 15, 1716-17, they bought the estate and ferry from Thomas Olney for £150. Noah and Timothy Mason condueted the ferry until 1731, when Noah sold out his interest and Timothy operated it alone until his death in 1742, when he was succeeded by his son Timothy. The ferry continued in the possession of the Mason family and was known by their name until 1770, when it was sold to Nathan Daggett.
The eastern or Rehoboth side of the ferry had been in the possession of Noah Mason in 1744, but in 1770 it had through a succession of owners come into the possession of Lemuel Wyatt. The two ferry- men operated the ferry in company, one taking the receipts for one week and the other for the next week, and so on alternately, and this unique arrangement seems to have worked satisfactorily.
The following description of this ferry and its landing as it existed at this period gives an excellent idea of its appearanee and character, and no doubt other ferries similarly situated were much like this one :
"The wharves on the east and west sides of the river were some 600 feet apart and each built with a sloping surfaee, the highest part nearest the shore, such that a boat eould lie along the side with its deck level with some part of its surface at any stage of the tide. A square ended deck seow, some thirty feet long and ten feet wide, plied baek and forth between these wharves by means of a rope stretched aeross from one to the other, and secured at both ends. This rope passed through a ring attached to the deek at one end of the scow, then along its deek, and through another ring attached to the further cor- ner. By taking the rope between these rings in hand and pulling on it the seow was forced through the water. Whenever a vessel had occasion to pass up or down the river across the path of the ferry, the scow was secured to the shore and the rope 'slaeked away' till it sank low enough to allow the vessel to pass over, after which passage the rope was hauled taut, made fast and the use of the ferry resumed."
The rates of Mason's ferry were established by the General Assembly in 1743 at "six penee for a horse and his load; three pence for every
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foot person, and for every horse and chaise or chair, two shillings". In 1747 the rates were increased because of the depreciation of the currency ; for every person four pence, and for all neat cattle eight pence each, and for all sheep, calves and swine two pence, and for every horse and chaise or chair two shillings and six pence.
A bridge across the river at this point was proposed in 1773. With the growth of the population in Providence Plantations travel in- creased and the ferry did not afford the facilities that were fast becoming necessary. The Revolution, however, prevented the carry- ing out of this plan, and the ferry continued to be operated from the Providence side by William Daggett until the opening of the Central Bridge at this location, September 3, 1793. The ferry privilege and estate were bought from William Daggett by the bridge corporation, August 8, 1793, for $1,020.1
A mile below Mason's ferry there was another narrow place in the Seekonk River, just before it entered Providence Harbor. Here the Indians had in pre-colonial times been in the habit of crossing the stream by canoes, as this passage was on the line of the Watchemoket on Montaup trail. Boats were undoubtedly kept here by the settlers for the purpose of crossing the river from the beginning of the Colony, but a regular ferry was not maintained until after 1740. Josiah Fuller and Elisha Tillinghast petitioned the General Assembly in 1739, for the right to establish a ferry here; but it was not started immediately. As it became known as Fuller's Ferry, it was undoubt- edly established by Josiah Fuller whose name appears in the petition of 1739. The same rates were paid on this ferry as on Mason's, and its boats, landings and methods were without doubt similar. The Washington Bridge, which was opened for travel April 12, 1793, sup- planted Fuller's Ferry. Both the Red and Washington bridges were toll bridges, and charges were made for crossing similar to the rates on the ferries. These bridges were erected by private corporations, and the returns on the investments were obtained from the tolls.
From the beginning of the Colony until the building of the bridge at Pawtucket Falls, in 1715, the path leading to the ferry at Narrow Passage was on the main road into Providence from the east. During the entire colonial period the two ferries on the Seekonk and the ford and afterward the bridge at Pawtucket Falls were the only public entrances or ways into the settlement of Providence, and the roads
1The account of this ferry is derived from an article entitled "History of a Ferry", by Welcome Arnold Greene, in Narragansett Historical Register, vol. 8, pp. 274-301.
PAWTUCKET BRIDGE AND FALLS IN 1840. FROM AN OLD PAINTING.
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leading to them were the only highways. These roads were, as we have seen, developed from the Indian trails, first into bridle paths over which a horse could travel, and by the middle of the eighteenth century into cart tracks passable for chaises, wagons and stage coaches. Thus by slow degrees the Pawtucket path, the Watchemoket or Montaup trail and the Wampanoag trail, became the roads of the white men, over which travel passed from Providence to Boston, Taunton and Plymouth and the minor English settlements, while the highways de- veloped from the Pequot trail led westward. At the same time New- port was reached by similar roads which converged at the five ferries at Bristol, Tiverton, Fogland Point, Kingstown and Warwick Neck, the history of which has been recounted in the preceding pages.
After the establishing of ferries, the next step in the improvement of the facilities for travel was the building of bridges. The General Assembly, on May 2, 1711, appropriated £200 for the building of bridges at Pawtucket, Weybosset and Pawtuxet. The citizens of Providence built a bridge at Weybosset in 1710-11, and no doubt obtained part of this appropriation. From the settlement of Provi- dence until this time the only way of crossing the Providence River was by a ford. In 1711 the first bridge at Pawtuxet Falls is also said to have been built. The bridge at Pawtucket Falls was probably not built until 1713, and through the efforts of Major Joseph Jenks the Colony of Massachusetts shared the expense of construction with Rhode Island.1
Previous to this time the river at Pawtucket was crossed either at wading places above or below the falls, or, when the state of the water permitted, on the rocks of the falls themselves. The same conditions prevailed at the Pawtuxet Falls, eight miles away and four miles on the other side of Providence. In the winter and spring, "because of the rising of the water and great quantities of ice coming down the rivers", such methods of crossing were difficult and hazardous.2 These disadvantages, and the fact that intercourse between the settlements was constantly increasing, prompted the construction of these bridges, in order to make "travelling more easy and safe". They were all on the main traveled way from Massachusetts through Providence to the Narragansett country, Connecticut and New York, and were potent factors in bringing about the development of this path into a highway over which wheeled vehicles could travel.
The Pawtucket bridge was maintained at the joint expense of the 1R. I. Colonial Records, vol. 4, pp. 118-9; 135-6.
2Mass. Col. Rec., vol. 9, pp. 273-4.
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STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.
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