USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 17
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House" at the St. Louis Exposition. Young Smith sent across the ocean for marbles for his mantels and hung his fiancee's pic- ture on the wall in a golden frame. And when all was done, and the dream of the "most beautiful house in the county" was realized, alas his money was gone, and the young lady promptly refused to marry him! Stephen Smith remained a bachelor, and lived out his blameless life in a small- er house near by, happier, we hope, with his books and his flowers and the compan- ionship of his relatives than he would have been with the mercenary lady who "threw him over."
From the pages of recorded history we find these facts about this historic neighbor- hood which should be visited by everyone. "The highway on which the Arnold Man- sion stands led to Mendon and thence to other towns in Massachusetts, and was the only traveled road through the section in the early days. At the time when the build- ing was erected the clearing extended to the east, south and west, while to the north- westward, north and northeastward the primeval forest almost touched its walls. To protect this exposed side of the house from the fire-arrows which lurking Indians might direct against it, the house was built with the northerly side of stone, and orig- inally the shingles on the roof were covered with mortar.
The "Butterfly Factory" was built in 1811, by Stephen H. Smith, who also built "Hearthside," and the dam which forms Quinsnicket Lake in the Lincoln woods. The "Butterfly Factory" is so-called be- cause of the curious coloring of two stones placed side by side in the wall, these stones having the appearance of a butterfly. The bell which formerly hung in the belfry bore the date of 1563 (usually erroneously given as 1263) and is said to have original- ly hung in an English convent, and later to have been on the British frigate "Guer- riere" at the time of its capture by the United States ship "Constitution" during the War of 1812.
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THE SPLENDID MANSION
A NEW ENGLAND spring time lay upon the Rhode Island countryside. A young French officer in the uniform of the Regi- ment of Bourbonnais rode from the camps in North Providence over the pleasant, rustic roads, unaccompanied by orderly or servant. At times he rode fast, as though impatient to reach his destination; again, seeming to fall into deep thought, he pro- ceeded at a snail's pace.
The breeze swayed the tall grass in the old Pond Tavern meadow, and he idly re- called seeing, last year, a few old men work- ing in that hay-field where, in times of peace, it had been its owner's boast that forty men could swing their scythes to- gether. The rider presently drew near the Quaker Meeting House, in what is now the town of Lincoln, and his eyes dwelt on the ancient stone which still stands, conven- iently tilted, for the use of equestrians. His reflections, we may presume, were senti- mental, as " "Twas here I saw her first. She was dismounting from her horse at that curious old horse-block, as people call it here, and I seized a fortunate chance to spring from my saddle and help her down ere her lazy servant could reach her side."
Here his eyes roamed beyond the old stepping-stone to the first house beyond the Meeting House, called, in those days, "The Splendid Mansion of Eleazar Arnold." This mansion was the destination of the rider, and he scanned the landscape anxi- ously. Yes, there was Mistress Betsey Whipple, in her uncle's garden, as he had both hoped and feared to find her. In a moment the beautiful great black horse, "Le Duc," and his rider were at the gate of the mansion, the rider dismounted at her side, while a servant took the charger and fastened him in the shade of a con- venient maple tree. The girl looked up at the soldier from the bed of lilies-of-the- valley that she was tending. Her face was, perhaps, of a slight pallor.
"Mistress Betsey," said the young officer, "I recall that last year I helped you plant those lilies, and now I see them blooming here. Time, indeed, passes quickly."
"And now thee comes to say goodby," said the maiden with a clear, direct look, "and soon, victory won over our foes, thee will be returning to thy native country."
"You speak of a speedy victory," said the soldier gravely, "but 'tis now five years and more since Concord and Lexington."
"God give us grace," responded the maid, a noble expression on her young face, "to keep steadfast five years more, if need be; but we have great faith, hereabouts, that our General, with thine, will soon change 'this winter of our discontent and make it glorious summer,' as some words my uncle read me from one of Master Shakespeare's books come haltingly back to me."
"Betsey," burst out the handsome youth, irrelevantly, "in that short gown of thine, as white as milk; with that fichu of snow and your little cap banding your face until I can scarce see a half-inch of your gold hair; Betsey, you look to me like a little holy virgin!
"Nay," he rushed on, "look not so shocked nor yet rebuke me, for of such in- deed you are! Do I not remember that first night after I had helped you dismount at the Meeting House, and on your uncle's in- vitation afterward, supped here, that you would not sing for us, because, forsooth, it was the Sabbath night?
"Thee are at once a merry, happy girl and yet a little saint !
"Betsey, I have remarked thee well, and at all times and places. Thee was as sweet and graceful in thy uncle's kitchen that night thee served two hungry soldiers with the little cakes made of meal and water and toasted by the fire in some fashion that made them sweet as fine wheat bread to Frenchmen, as thee was that night thee sat in state by the great Washington's side in Hacker's Hall, in Providence; thou art al- ways the same, adorable!
"Nay, then, ma chere amie," he rushed on, "thee wouldst never tell me what said the great man to thee that night when thee smiled and blushed and replied to him so amiably."
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The maid desperately seized her oppor- tunity to divert him from the theme he seemed bent on pursuing, and laughing a gay, sweet laugh, said: "Thee may remem- ber that on that night-it was the 13th of last March, I do remember, for 'twas only this morning that I was looking again at my little card of invitation to that ball-I had such a cold and sore throat that I could scarce speak aloud, and would, indeed, have stayed at home but for my uncle's express wish to the contrary. Well, General Wash- ington, noticing my plight, was so kind as to say that he was often troubled himself with sore throat but always applied a rem- edy that he found beneficial. He said he would recommend it to me but for the cer- tainty that I would never use it."
"And what replied you to that?" in- quired the young man, momentarily diverted.
"I said that I would certainly try any remedy that General Washington recom- mended. And the General said, 'Well, then, the remedy is this: Apply onions and mo- lasses, boiled together. They have cured me, many a time.' "
They laughed, the careless laughter of youth, but in a moment, the soldier growing sober again, said: "But this is no time for laughter. Betsey, I love thee, and if duty should call me away from thee, and I should survive the glorious campaign which but for thee I so eagerly anticipate, tell me that thee will some day cross the ocean with me, and grace my home and make my father and myself the happiest of mortals."
The maid's lip quivered, then, with an effort: "Sir, this day while working in my garden I found a curious little object which had lain a century in our soil until a spade upturned it. 'Twas lost, a hundred years ago by my great-great-great-aunt, Nancy. 'Tis a great jest with our family that Aunt Nancy was so slow that she was once a year in making a night-cap. Her slowness is a proverb with the Arnold's. But 'tis known of her that she was a good and hon- orable woman. All of my forebears have been so." Here Betsey held out a little, dark, discolored object at which the young nobleman scarce glances.
"Monsieur, le Vicomte, didst leave no sweetheart behind thee in thy country of
France before thee came with thy noble fa- ther to aid our country?"
The man gave her a startled look, then, in a moment, he was but a boy again. "Bet- sey," he cried, "I am so miserable, for thee it is I love, not her. She between whom there is some bond with me was made my fiancee for 'reasons of convenience,' as we say over there. Thou dost strike at my hon- or, Betsey, but I tell thee truly, the maid loves me not and 'tis thee I love, and it will not be a bond of love I break, but even as I tell thee."
"Thee says the maid loves thee not. Doth she know thee well?"
"Since childhood," he owned, "we have been thrown together."
The girl bent wistfully over her bed of lilies, as if seeking to draw wisdom from their sweetness and purity, and then, as if help had been given her, said firmly: “I have a message for thee. The maid across the sea loves thee well, and lives but for thy homecoming."
An hour later, the youth whose face drawn with pain yet seemed at last in ex- pression to somehow match her noble mood, bent over her hand for a last parting. From his shelter 'neath the maple tree came "Le Duc," the noble horse, and again the maid fed him from her hand as she had so many times before in the time since the young nobleman had made the acquaintance with her family.
And if, after so many generations of men, one should say that a maid's hand was held close to a man's heart for a long moment, who can deny the words? But, finally, with a mighty swing, the youth was on his charger and the beautiful creature had borne him away.
Of the next days an historian says that on the eighteenth of June "The sparkling Regiment of Bourbonnais, on the nineteenth the Royal Deux-Ponts; on the twentieth, the Regiment of Saintongue, left, suc- cessively, the camps of Providence; keep- ing always between each other the distance of a day's march. Crowds were present to witness their departure."
Meanwhile, in the Splendid Mansion of Eleazar Arnold, life went on much as usual. Betsey did not go with her uncle to witness the departure of the French troops.
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But on the twentieth of June, two days after the departure of the Bourbonnais, the girl, waking very early, heard a sound that sent her flying to the window. It was no dream, for there, near the gate, in the shade of the maple tree, pawed a splendid black charger, riderless.
As quickly as might be, Mistress Betsey was down the stair and her arms about the creature's neck. 'Twas in his mane she found the note. It ran:
"Ma chere, I didst say thee art a little holy virgin. Thou art. But I shall die un- less I leave thee some remembrance of a friendship that smells as sweet in memory
as the vale-lilies in thy garden. I know that any gift from my hand would be spurned as thou hast spurned my love. Therefore, I send thee by a messenger whom thou shalt not see, a token of the great regard I bear thee.
"Thou canst not return Le Duc, for his master is far away. I am leaving him in thy care while life lasts.
"Be kind to him for the sake of one who does thy bidding. Adieu, forever."
And firm and free was the signature so proud appended to the note so humble. It read: "Donatien-Marie Joseph De Vineur Rochambeau."
THE FRENCH FLEET
T HE arrival of the French fleet in Amer- ican waters in the third year of the American Revolution was the first evidence of help from the French government. How very nearly this expression of allied sym- pathy came to be converted into serious enmity-due to circumstances almost be- yond human control-will never be known for a certainty, but we may rest assured that it is to the unusual diplomatic skill, sym- pathy, and patriotism of the young LaFay- ette and to the mature wisdom of Washing- ton himself, that credit must go for the reconciliation of feeling between the young American republic and the old French monarchy. While this first French expedi- tion was a failure, no discredit can fall either upon its able commander or his men.
Within forty-eight hours after the cabinet of Louis XVI had signed the treaty of alli- ance with the American envoys, a fleet was being prepared to go to the aid of the Amer- ican Colonies and Comte D'Estaing, one of France's most honorable and able military leaders, had been selected as its commander. Count D'Estaing was about fifty years old at the time, a skilled veteran with a fine rep- utation for bravery and soldierly ability. However, while he had commanded ships from the land in past wars of France, he had never been in actual command of a fleet in action upon the high seas. His selection by the king naturally caused quite a bit of
adverse comment from naval officers of long experience, and the attitude of his own offi- cers under him when he put to sea from Tou- lon in April, 1778, was rather hostile. Starting under sealed orders, the captains of his twelve ships of the line and fourteen frigates did not know their destination was America until they were well out in the open Atlantic. When the destination and purpose of the fleet was then revealed, every man was wildly enthusiastic and anxious to aid a young country which was fighting a nation with which France had long been at odds.
From the first, however, some unlucky star seemed to set upon the expedition. The crossing took eighty days and was made in the face of terrific storms. D'Estaing's orig- inal orders were to proceed to Philadelphia via Delaware Bay and attack the British there. The enemy had evacuated the city, however, and after establishing communica- tion with General Washington and the Con- tinental Congress, D'Estaing sailed up the coast to New York. Here he was handi- capped by the lack of a pilot. When a pilot, sent by Washington, did arrive, he announced that the ships of the fleet drew too much water to be able to cross the bar at the en- trance of New York harbor. D'Estaing was, perhaps, more tantalized than at any other time during the whole voyage, for there in New York harbor lay the fleet of the English Admiral, Lord Howe, all lighter ships which he could probably have captured if
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he could have reached them. His men were bitterly disappointed as they saw their chance of an engagement dwindle to nothing.
At Washington's suggestion, the fleet turned about and headed for a new British stronghold, Newport. Here the French ships came to anchor off Brenton's Reef on July 29, 1778, and D'Estaing sent a message to General Sullivan of the American land forces that he was ready to assist him in an attack upon Newport. The officers and men of D'Estaing's fleet were anxious to attack the enemy at once for they were running short of provisions and the dreaded scurvy was taking severe toll among the members of the crews. However, in obedience to the wish of Washington, D'Estaing put himself under the command of Sullivan and when the latter asked for time to get his forces organized, the French leader held his impa- tient men in readiness until word from the American general should announce the time of attack.
For nine days the fleet lay idle when it could have been almost winning a victory by itself. Such was the courtesy of the vet- eran D'Estaing to the young American, Sul- livan. The plan had been to have the French sail up the three passages of Narragansett Bay, destroy the British warships that lay at anchor there, and capture the 1,500 Hes- sians who were quartered on Canonicut Island. The Americans were then to cross from Tiverton and the French from Canoni- cut, thus striking the British two blows at the same time. No doubt the plan would have succeeded admirably if there had not been a delay. As it was, the extra time allowed the English a chance to get the Hes- sians off the island and also to send word to Lord Howe in New York of their distress.
D'Estaing immediately performed his part of the plan. He sent one ship, the "Sag- ittaire," up the West Passage. Two other frigates sailed up the East Passage, but the ships they hoped to engage were burned upon their approach. One of these, the "Spitfire," was set adrift as a fire ship, and the French officer who had been detailed to tow it to a place of safety was nearly killed with his whole crew for the ship blew up as he fixed the grapnelling irons.
D'Estaing could have captured Canoni- cut, but its evacuation made it worthless.
However, the "Sagittaire," aided by the "Fantasque," sailed north of the island. Again the British destroyed ships. This time they were the frigates "Orpheus," "Lark," "Juno," of 34 guns, the "Cerb- erus," of 28 guns, and the corvette "Fal- con," of 14 guns. After this severe blow to the British another delay set in. The wait- ing produced a great tension in the feelings of the allies, and a lot of tact was required at all moments to smooth the tempers of the allied French officers. LaFayette was invaluable at this period. The Frenchman, though an ardent patriot of his native land, nevertheless was faithful in every particu- lar to the land of his adoption, and his presence as a commander of an American contingent made him available as an astute diplomat. Back and forth and back and forth he travelled between the flagship of D'Estaing and the headquarters of Sullivan, almost exceeding himself in his attempts to maintain the cordiality of spirit between the French and Americans and at the same time to further the cause which would give glory to both.
Finally the tenth of August was set as the day of attack. On the eighth D'Estaing again ran by the British batteries to the island of Canonicut and on the ninth was disembark- ing his men, drilling them on the island and preparing them for the morrow. What was his surprise to find that General Sullivan, without waiting for the tenth and without notifying him, had crossed from Tiverton to Newport on the ninth and then had sent to ask him for aid. To an old campaigner like D'Estaing and to his seasoned French officers and men this was rank discourtesy. Herein started openly the first dissension between the two sides. The French lost their faith in the Americans and the latter thought their allies over-sensitive and petty. Too, the French thought that Sullivan was jealous of French prestige and wanted to make the affair an American victory. Despite the feeling among his officers, D'Estaing was loyal to the American cause and prepared to send aid to the Americans. Yet fate had a hand again in the turn of events, for at that moment the English fleet of Lord Howe appeared off Newport. There was but one thing to do and D'Estaing did it. He assem- bled his ships and men and sailed to meet the English. The rest of the story you well
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know, how the chase began with the English fleeing back to New York with the French in pursuit until, at the time the signal was given for battle, a great storm arose, crip- pling each fleet and sending both limping into port for repairs.
Before setting sail from Newport, D'Es- taing had sent a message to General Sulli- van telling him that he would return after the engagement. The real engagement was a fatal one with the storm, yet D'Estaing kept his word and returned. The Americans wanted him to help them attack Newport at once, but the French leader decided to put on to Boston for repairs according to his first general orders from the French King. At LaFayette's instigation he did agree to send ashore all his extra sailors and his marines to help in the attack if he could be sure it would take place within two days. Another American delay made any definite answer impossible, and the French dared not wait any longer, for they knew for a fact that a new British fleet under Admiral Byron was already near Newport. To have been forced into an engagement with a fresh fleet would have been totally disastrous. The
storm had sunk the French ship "Cesar," and totally crippled the flagship "Langue- doc" and the "Marseillais," and repairs were immediately necessary.
Upon their sailing from Newport the French received a severe denouncement by the Americans which was sent to them as a written and signed protest. In the face of this insult the older D'Estaing realized that the Americans were younger, hot-headed, and disappointed, and, though silent, re- mained true to the American cause. When LaFayette rode to Boston to ask again for the help of his marines, now that his ships were safe, he acquiesced quickly and pre- pared to send them at once. However, by that time the English had attacked and had been repulsed, and General Sullivan had made his famous retreat to the mainland.
To D'Estaing goes sincere sympathy and praise. Several victories should have been his and were snatched from him. The Con- tinental Congress later gave him a vote of thanks and confidence, and cordiality was restored, even with those who had been most violently inclined to denounce both the gal- lant French leader and his men.
CHRISTMAS IN 1780
H E was a veteran of King Louis the XVI. - and in a strange country.
She was a Rhode Island farmer's daughter.
He, fifty years of age, and a giant in stature.
She, a slip of a girl and in her teens.
He could not speak a word of English, while she, alas, knew no French!
He hailed from Lyons, France, and had come across the ocean with Lafayette.
She was born on that avenue in Provi- dence which still bears her family's name.
And how these two invented a common language that long antedated Esperanto is not, after all these years, surely known. But truth to tell, all the townspeople flocked to the French camp during their scanty leisure to watch the daily drills, the flying colors, the dress-parades, and to listen to the martial music of its bands.
Among the townspeople would be the girl and her father, both to gaze with interest at the activities of the camp and also to transact business, for these gay, gallant Frenchmen had brought a certain measure of prosperity to the local farmers, and Olive's father had taken his cue from Jeremiah Dexter, a neigh- bor and one of the owners of the land leased by the foreign troops.
Jeremiah, he had heard, had come into his house one day carrying a bag of silver which he had just received from the French for the use of his land and for farm produce, and dropping the bag on the floor had made a fair offer to his two nieces. If either of them, he said, could lift the bag, alone, it should be hers. And neither could lift the dead weight from the floor, and, chuckling, the sturdy farmer again shouldered the bag and went off with it, leaving the two girls with rueful faces.
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So Olive's father emulated Jeremiah Dex- ter, and sold his chickens, ducks, sheep and now and again a "beef critter" to the offi- cers' chief of cuisine, receiving in return "good, hard money," "lawful silver money," which was especially welcome in those war days.
Sometimes he had to wait a little while for his money, but when he got word from Headquarters to present his bill he had only to walk the short distance from his house to the Commissaire's department, await a care- ful checking up of his charges, and then de- part with a pocket full of silver.
History records that December, 1780, opened "cold and forbidding. Piercing winds, snow and rain contributed greatly to the discomfort of camp life on Rhode Island and created an urgent demand for fuel. . Commissary Blanchard kept one hundred and twenty axemen steadily at work in the woods of Pawtuxet."
Olive's father became one of these axe- men, glad of the opportunity to get the wage that the French were willing to pay him for his labor.
On the 14th day of that December the Commissary set sail for Newport with a cargo of wood, and the girl's father was one of the workers who went with him. The day was terribly cold, and although a gale nearly sunk the boat, they reached Newport safely that night, and next day they began to unload the vessel. It so happened that December 15th, 1780, was the day that poor Admiral De Ternay died of a malignant fever in a house on Washington Street, in Newport, and, because of the nature of his disease, was buried on the very next day, and our farmer saw the funeral procession.
He looked a little the worse for wear, did Olive's father, that night he returned home, and, sitting at the open fire, recounted the details of the spectacle to his family. Every window and house-top along the streets were crowded as sailors from his own flag- ship bore the dead Admiral in his coffin down Washington Street, up the Long Wharf, through Thames Street, up Church Street to Trinity Churchyard. Twelve priests he had counted, walking at the head of the coffin, chanting the Service for the Dead, while the bands of the Army and the Navy played their mournful dirges. All eyes were turned upon the most distinguished captains
of the French Navy with their badges of mourning and the more celebrated officers of the French Army, of whom the most important was the Count de Rochambeau who was accompanied by his staff.
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