USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 13
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Here he contracted for 200 acres of land in return for four months work, but at the end of the stipulated period his employer refused to make out a deed. Potter secured a position for part of the ensuing winter
with a company of surveyors; and when they had finished their work and had gone back to New Hampshire, he used his wages to outfit himself with a gun and ammuni- tion and obtained enough skins by hunting to enable him to buy a 100 acre tract of land in the spring. He immediately built a log cabin and set about clearing his land. Summers he worked his farm; winters he returned to hunting and trapping; but after two years he sold out to the original owner and headed northward into Canada to en- gage in fur trade with the Indians. In this he was so successful that he decided to return to his parents.
His family greeted him like a prodigal son; but when they noticed that his attach- ment for his former sweetheart, not only had not diminished but increased, they be- came as disagreeable as before. Potter, dis- appointed, determined to leave again, this time to try the life of a sailor.
At Providence he joined the crew of a sloop bound for Grenada. On the fifteenth day out this ill-fated vessel caught on fire, and the crew of eight had to take to a leaky longboat, scarcely having time to throw into it some food and water. Then, with every reason to believe that they would not be able to exist until they could reach land, Fate smiled on them in the form of a Dutch ship, which picked them up on their second day of rowing. Meeting an American vessel bound for Antigua, the rescued men left the hospitality of the Dutchmen and trans- ferred to her. Shortly after arriving at Antigua, Potter got a berth on an American brig bound for Porto Rico and from there went to Eustacia. Here he joined the crew of a Nantucket whaling ship, sharing with them a short but highly successful voyage and finally returning to Nantucket. This
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THE OLNEYVILLE BRANCH OF THE PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS, 1917-21 WESTMINSTER STREET, OLNEYVILLE SQUARE. ERECTED 1927.
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gave him an opportunity to go again to Providence and Cranston and look up his family and friends. The reception he re- ceived could hardly have been cordial for within two months he had returned to Nan- tucket and signed on for a three years whal- ing voyage into the South Seas. This trip seemed to have cured his sea fever, for after all the hardship and toil of this voyage he returned to Cranston with the resolve to become a landsman again.
Potter once more began the life of a farmer in the town of Coventry, working there for several months. It was then the year 1774 and the first storm clouds of the impending Revolution were beginning to appear, black and ominous. Companies of minute men were being formed everywhere and he joined one in Coventry. The follow- ing spring brought the news of Concord and Lexington, and the resulting march of all outlying companies of militia to Boston where they joined in one large encampment at Charleston. Potter's company was among these, and he was fated to take part in all the fighting at Bunker Hill. Three times was he wounded, once by cutlass and twice by musket balls.
Washington had arrived to take charge of the American forces while Potter was in the hospital, and when the latter got out he was offered an opportunity to be one of the crew of an armed brigantine that Wash- ington was sending down Boston Bay to intercept enemy supply ships. Unfortu- nately the brigantine met more than her match and was captured. Her whole crew was taken back to Boston, transferred to a British frigate, and sent to England. Potter did his best to instigate a mutiny among the American prisoners, so that they might seize the ship, but a traitor revealed the plot, and Potter spent the rest of the voyage in irons. Upon his arrival in Portsmouth, England, he escaped court martial, because his betrayer turned out to be a British de- serter.
The prisoners were sent to the marine hos- pital, where half of them died of small pox, but Potter, and the rest who survived, were sent aboard a prison ship. For weeks he sought an opportunity to escape, before a chance came his way. He was sent ashore as one of a crew of a small barge. While the others were drinking ale in a nearby
inn, Potter took to his heels and escaped. Ten miles away, he was hailed by a naval officer who inquired after his ship. Upon Potter's request that he should mind his own business, the officer set after him. Run- ning a second time, Potter might have escaped, but the officer began to cry "Stop thief!" adding such a pack of shopkeepers and idlers to the chase that the American was soon run down.
A prisoner again, Potter was taken to an inn and placed in the custody of two soldiers. Using his wits, he took advantage of the officer's command that he should be given plenty of drink and treated everyone royally, getting his two guardians in a very advanced stage of reeling by the time they took him to his room. He was handcuffed, yet again he made a bold plan for an escape. Waiting until the tavern was quiet, he re- quested to be taken outdoors for a moment. His guards acquiesced, yet no sooner had they opened the outer door, than Potter tripped them both up and slipped into the darkness of the courtyard. Here he found a twelve foot wall to scale, and only suc- ceeded in getting over it by means of a tree, from which he jumped. Later he got rid of his handcuffs.
The rest of the tale of this intrepid Yankee is long indeed and we can only skim rapidly over it. He was captured again, but again escaped, this time out of a Round House Prison. The next months were ter- rible. He was hounded from one place to another, rarely meeting a friendly person. Yet his cleverness at disguise and quick escapes kept him free. For a time he even worked in the gardens of the king, being found out and accosted by this supreme dignitary himself. It is to the credit of George the III that he did not add to the troubles of Potter.
At one time Potter was sent for by some English squires who were friendly to Amer- ica and entrusted with letters to Benjamin Franklin in Paris. Several times he made the journey between France and England, and then on the last, when Franklin was to have secured him a passage to America, all intercourse between France and England ceased, and Potter was left in the latter country, the victim of ill fortune. He re- turned to his furtive and shifting life at all sorts of trades, but finally, being no longer-
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molested and believing that he should never see America again, he married. This step only marked out for him years of bitter struggle and the most abject poverty.
When the Revolution was over, he could not take his family to America, because of lack of sufficient funds, and with the re- turn of the English troops with all their men entering the ranks of labor again, he had difficulty in keeping his family in food and clothing. His children were ill; debts caused his imprisonment; food was so scarce and work more so; all his furniture was confiscated; all his children except one died; and finally his wife, in 1817, suc- cumbed to the slow starvation to which long
fasts subjected them all. The remaining boy aided his father as much as possible, selling matches, sweeping crosswalks, doing anything for many years. Finally, in 1823, after pleading with the American Consul, both father and son got passages to America, the latter going first because the former was too sick to travel. Reunited in Boston, they went to Providence and Cranston to look up the Potter family, but found they had long since departed for other regions. Potter was 79 years old then. In despera- tion he applied to Congress for a pension, telling this story, but was refused. And there our own story ends, a bitter tale for all its excitement, but a true one.
OLD RHODE ISLAND PRISONS
0 LD prisons, dungeons, and convict ships always arouse the curiosity of the average individual. There seems to be an inordinate fascination inherent in old cells, chains and handcuffs, and instruments of torture. Perhaps it is because people can- not resist making an examination of the very things they most fear; perhaps, be- cause there is a sort of morbid pleasure to be derived from a shudder. But the fact remains that anything connected with crime -even the name itself-has the lure of the mysterious and exciting for the majority of righteous and God-fearing people. And, for this reason, a brief résumé of the old prisons in Rhode Island should not be without its share of interest.
Almost as soon as any newly-established settlement needs a church and a meeting house, it seems to need a prison. And such was the case with Portsmouth, for in the very same year, 1638, in which the little group, headed by Coddington and Clarke, arrived from Boston to found the town on the Island of Aquidneck, the elders ordered that a house "for a Prison, containing twelve foote in length and tenn foote in breadth and tenn foote studd, be forthwith built of sufficient strength." William Bren- ton was made overseer and Henry Bull keeper. For a while, after the founding of Newport in the next year, this first prison
served both towns, but Newport soon found it necessary to build one of its own.
Meanwhile, in 1649, the separate Colony of the Providence Plantations issued a gen- eral court order as follows: "each town within this collonie shall provide a prison with a chimneye and necessaries for any offender that shall be committed, within nine months." The order was amended to state that Warwick should have a prison and Providence and Portsmouth simply cages, yet, oddly, even this was not ever car- ried out. The Newport prison had to serve as the final place of incarceration for offen- ders arrested throughout both Colonies.
As a matter of fact, Newport really was the logical situation for a prison, for this seaport was the leading town of all Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations. With its large commerce, bringing seamen from all countries, among them pirates and foreign privateersmen, its normal percent- age of criminals was naturally increased, and its need of a handy prison more press- ing. But the old Newport Prison was not capable of holding the offenders sent down by all the Colony towns. Consequently, once these latter decided not to build pris- ons of their own, they contributed toward the building of a new prison for Newport- Providence giving £30, Warwick £20, and Portsmouth £10.
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But none of these early jails could have been very stoutly constructed. Practically every decade found Newport building a new one. Or, perhaps it was that the town only built to supply a present need, think- ing the number of offenders against the law would not grow in proportion with the pop- ulation. If there was such a supposition, its foolishness rapidly became apparent. Thus, Newport had a new jail in 1702, built from a direct appropriation of the General As- sembly, and then another in 1717, after money had been raised through an issuance of many pounds of paper currency.
All these jails were actually insecure places in which to confine dangerous crim- inals. They were built of wood and did not offer any positive protection from raids from without. Any really desperate prisoner could have found a way to escape without great difficulty. The King's County Jail, at Little Rest Hill, was broken into, in 1770,by a group of individuals in disguise, and five prisoners were liberated. However, in many cases, violence of such sort was not necessary. Jailers were only human and could be occasionally persuaded to leave a door unbarred or ajar. Sometimes we can- not blame them, for if they possessed any humanity at all, they could not always see men falling sick and dying in the dismal, unsanitary cells which most of the prisons contained without doing something to aid them.
With the laying out of counties, it be- came the custom to build jails in conjunc- tion with court-houses. Major William Smith built a combination building of this type in Providence, in 1731, but two years later it was sold by the town. In 1772, Newport built a substantial prison of brick. It served as the county jail and was located on Marlborough Street. During the Revo- lution, when the British held Newport, they used this jail as a place for the imprison- ment of captured colonists.
In 1778, Newport no longer remained the principal place of incarceration for Provi- dence became its successor. After the Rev- olution, when Rhode Island became part of the Federal Union, county jails were used for the imprisonment of offenders against national laws, the Federal government allowing fifty cents per month in payment
for the cost of keeping each prisoner. At that rate, unless the Colony itself contrib- uted toward the care of such criminals, their lot must have been terrible.
But now let us look back and see what some of the punishments were which were meted out to transgressors against the law. As in other New England Colonies, the stocks and pillories were common in all Rhode Island towns, and served as a means of punishment for minor misdemeanors. Whipping took care of offenses of a more serious nature, the victims being stripped to the waist, chained to a post or tree by the hands, and lashed across the back with un- braided and knotted tar ropes. This bar- barous method was sometimes used in pun- ishing women as well as men. Branding was another form of punishment of the more brutal order, and then, of course, there were the regular fines and imprison- ments, of a severity equal to the crime com- mitted. Gradually, the more cruel of these punishments passed into disuse, and only fines and imprisonments have continued to the present day. .
As far as the death penalty was con- cerned, the Code of 1647 ordered it as the punishment for "high treason, murder, petit treason, manslaughter, burglary, rob- bery, arson, rape, and crimes against na- ture." In 1718, in a revision of this code, arson and rape were omitted from the list, but, in 1797 they were again added. In the latter year high and petit treason and crimes against nature were excluded. Finally, in 1838, imprisonment was substi- tuted for all crimes except murder and arson, and the sentence given for the latter was allowed to be the option of the court. However, in 1852, all capital punishment was abolished, except in the case of a mur- der committed by a person already sen- tenced to life imprisonment.
Yet, given his choice, many a prisoner would have chosen death in preference to life imprisonment in one of the typical old jails. They were in a wretched condition, unsanitary, breeding places for disease, without much heat, if any, and without any place where a prisoner could work and so keep from going crazy. This enforced idle- ness was the most horrible part of the pun- ishment, for, left to brood, a prisoner might
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quickly become insane. But an ameliora- tion of such atrocious conditions was under way.
In 1794, agitation was begun for a State Penitentiary in Providence, but the result was only another County Jail. However, in 1838, a State Prison was erected at Great Point in Providence (about where the State Normal School now stands) at a cost of $51,501, or about $1300 per cell. It was an improvement in size only. Its great gran- ite blocks, clamped together with iron, col- lected moisture, which in the winter turned to frost and ice on the insides of the cells. These were narrow, like the corridors, poorly ventilated and lighted, and the most wretched places imaginable. But the prison had been built and it had to serve, even if it was a disgrace. A new County Jail was joined to the structure in 1838.
A commission of overseers was appointed to look after the upkeep of the prison and
it was due to these men that we find a long- needed workshop proposed and then built. Giving the prisoners something to do was the greatest improvement in two centuries, and their labor aided in the upkeep of the prison. A new wing was aded in 1851, con- taining 88 cells. Six years later a library was established and then another wing with a chapel and new workshop. It was a seri- ous attempt to try to educate and reform the prisoners, and good results were ob- tained.
In 1869, a state farm, with a work-house, asylum for the insane, and an alms-house, was established in Cranston, on the Pontiac Road, and finally, after long argument, a new State Prison was built within the limits of this farm in 1874, and it is this which remains in full use today. A long road has been travelled since the first prisons and cages were established within Rhode Island, but even now there is yet a long way to go.
A COLONIAL COQUETTE
T HIS little tale of the trials and tribula- tions of love in 18th century Rhode Isl- and would really fit easily into any age, but here it is, gleaned from the private cor- respondence of William Palfrey of Boston and Moses Brown, that astute and diplo- matic Quaker, the youngest of the "Four Brown Brothers" of Providence. The lady in the case was Mistress Polly Olney, the charming and strangely facetious daughter of Joseph Olney, a favorite innkeeper of Providence. It was at his tavern that the youth of the town used to gather in the ominous days preceding the War for Inde- pendence, and in the yard of this hostelry grew the elm which was christened "The Liberty Tree," a name by which the tavern itself was later known.
Of Moses Brown, one of the noted char- acters in Rhode Island history, little needs to be said, but perhaps William Palfrey requires further qualification. He was born in Boston, in 1741, being three years older than Mistress Polly. His grandson, an emi- nent New England historian, has described him as "an agreeable person with a frank and generous expression of countenance,
great gayety and heartiness of disposition, a fund of anecdote, a seasoning of original wit, and a somewhat sedulous attention to dress as well as to manners, advantages which, added to his perfectly correct habits, his known industry and trustworthiness, and his forwardness and influence in the political circles of his equals in age, in- troduced him favorably to the good society of the town." In 1761, the year in which this romance began, Palfrey was employed as a clerk in the establishment of Nathaniel Wheelright who was second only to the elder Hancock as a merchant of Boston.
Palfrey came to Providence on business in 1761, being entertained, while in the town, by Moses Brown who introduced him to a number of pretty girls. Among them was Polly Olney who seems to have made a swift conquest of his heart. In his first letter from Boston to Moses Brown, in which he thanked the latter for his past hospitality, he only wished to be remem- bered to "Miss Sally & the other ladies," but, in a later letter of March 26, 1761, he took the Quaker into his full confidence regarding his passion for Miss Polly, re- questing him to convey his "complements"
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to "the dear Polly" toward whom he had feelings which he was quite unable "to express."
Letters were constantly exchanged be- tween the two friends as the courtship of Mistress Polly gained headway, and Moses Brown became the trusted spokesman and aide of the Boston lover who was forced to do most of his wooing by post and by proxy. In April, Palfrey wrote again to his friend, saying "Inclos'd you have a Letter for P-y which I doubt not you will be kind Enough to deliver her and in as private a manner as the Nature of the thing will admit of. I must Confess a Cor- respondence with the fair Sex is vastly agreeable to me. Especially with the one who I have so great a Regard for as I have for P-y & am sorry that I was oblig'd to leave Providence before I had an op- portunity to settle the affair with her, as I was depriv'd of that pleasure by her being gone to one of the Neighbours a Visiting, however hope I shall have another oppor- tunity soon." It is amusing to note that in this letter he also requests that its bearer, a Dr. Jackson, ("who is a friend & Mason") be introduced "Especially to the Females." This was the first letter to Polly.
However, by August of 1761, trouble had begun to arise. Palfrey had paid a visit to Providence, in which he had missed see- ing either Polly or Moses Brown, but had heard a rumor that the former was soon to be married to a Mr. Bowers of Swansea. Subject to the usual credulity and jealousy of a lover, he had inquired further concern- ing this disturbing report, only becoming more upset when informed that it was not Mr. Bowers but Moses Brown himself who was courting Polly. Upon his return to Boston Palfrey wrote at once to Moses Brown, demanding an immediate explana- tion of the rumor and saying, somewhat spiritedly, that he was glad that he had "not as yet advanced so far but that he could Retreat with Honour."
Moses Brown answered quickly, express- ing great surprise at Palfrey's implied ac- cusation. He said that there was nothing in the rumor concerning Polly and Mr. Bowers. Polly had merely gone to Swansea for a visit and returned in the company of Dr. Bowers, who had then stayed in Providence for several days both at the Olney's Tavern
and at the Brown Homestead. But, after admitting it to be true that his friends had accused him, (Moses Brown) of courting Polly (although she was just an intimate friend), the Quaker cleverly turned the tables by asking Palfrey to explain a ru- mor that had it that he, Palfrey, was paying addresses to "a young Lady in Boston,' a rumor which (if true) would make him think both himself and Polly "Very Un- genteely Us'd." With this he neatly turned the tables on his hot-headed accuser.
Upon receipt of the letter from Moses Brown, Palfrey just briefly acknowledged it, for he had to go to New York on busi- ness, but a week later he wrote more fully, apologizing for accusing his friend of duplicity and railing heartily against the evils of all rumors. He said that inasmuch as he was a close friend of a certain Cazneau and had been often invited to the latter's home, he had formed a perfectly nat- ural acquaintanceship with Cazneau's sis- ters and had occasionally taken one of them out walking or carried "her and her sisters with some other Ladies to a play." He called Boston a "Tattling Town" (quite appro- priately) and hoped his explanation would clear up the matter, preserving both his friendship with Moses Brown and his own personal honor. And, in closing, he spoke of journeying to Providence very shortly in order to see Polly.
After this letter Moses Brown heard noth- ing further from Palfrey until February of 1762. He then received a long letter giving a full report of all that had happened be- tween the Bostonian and his sweetheart, Polly. The latter had been at Newport, and Palfrey had sent her a letter in care of Moses Brown, in which he proposed to her fully, explaining that he could not come to Providence again before the end of the year (1761) and asking her to answer by post. No answer came, however, and Palfrey, greatly worried, came to Rhode Island to seek her out. He found Polly at Newport but could not get an opportunity to talk to her privately. "Something or other" was always happening. When Polly returned to Providence, Palfrey came back with her still hoping for a chance to see her alone. Finally, when becoming desperate and thinking he might have to go back to Boston leaving the matter unsettled, he conceived a
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clever plan. With the help of Polly's broth- er, Jo., he succeeded in getting a Miss Paget to invite Polly and himself to her house and then leave them alone. This scheme, he says, "took." However, when he asked Polly if she had received his letter and what she thought of it, her answer was very vague. Pressing the case, he received a very definite rejection, coolly given, with the additional admonition "to think no more of her."
Thinking her answer final, Palfrey re- turned to Boston, deeply humiliated, and never wrote to her after that. But, Polly had since come to Boston, and Palfrey had met her at a ball. However, to him she still seemed "Exceeding Shy & behav'd with an Air of Distant Reserve." He treated her well and still regarded her highly, expressing every wish for her future happiness. In closing this long letter, he said that, al- though rumors were about that he had de- ceived Polly during the whole affair, he had always dealt with her honorably, and, if in doubt, Moses Brown might show this letter to her.
Moses Brown, to his credit, believed his friend's explanation implicitly without hav- ing any further assurance from Polly, and wrote that he was well satisfied with the ex- planation. Although Palfrey had since en- tered into partnership with his friend Caz- neau and had begun to pay serious court to one of his sisters, he was still not quite im- mune to the charms of Polly, for in April he wrote excitedly to Moses Brown that "Polly is this minute gone out of the Store . . . I think I could perceive a visible al- teration in her countenance & bahavior for the better. She did not seem to be quite so much upon the Reserve as usual." Later,
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