USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 18
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It was twilight when the burial took place, and the priests at the grave bore torches while performing the customary rites of the Roman Church. The good farmer, although he had been educated otherwise, was much impressed, and concluded the ceremonies were not "vain things he had imagined them until he had been present himself and felt the solemnity of them."
But now the strain and anxiety of the rough voyage resulted in an illness which afflicted Olive's father, and not even by Christmas Eve would his good wife allow him to go out to present his bill for produce to the Commissaire, although he had been bidden to do so from the Headquarters in the Tavern nearby.
For this reason the sick man decided to send his daughter to carry his respects and his bill to the Commissaire, though ordi- narily he would never have sent his child alone to the camp. But he had come to feel a real respect for the Frenchmen. To a camp so perfectly disciplined, he concluded, he could send his daughter in safety.
So, presently, Olive walked through the snow to the door of the Headquarters. To the tall sentry pacing to and fro before it she endeavored to explain her errand, but, alas! he could not understand a word she said, for he did not know a word of English. But he better understood the paper in her hand, and motioned her into the house and up a staircase. Through the great tap-room where officers sat in groups, talking or writ- ing, and up the stair into a long chamber where logs burned redly on the wide hearth, the slip of a girl wended her modest way. Somebody in uniform took her paper and motioned her to a seat in a dim corner.
As she waited, she noted the table, set out for supper, in the centre of the chamber, and presently saw the officers gather around the board, a magnificent company in their rich uniforms, their dark eyes sparkling under their powdered hair. Each man wore a badge of mourning, and for this reason and the fact that these gallant soldiers were far from their own country on this Christmas Eve, the girl sensed, the gay chatter of their
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native France was not so much in evidence as usual. A noble, commanding figure whom everybody called "Markee" took his place at the head of the table. At his right was seated an apparently honored guest-an elderly man, an American and not a soldier, and his sober garb was in great contrast with the splendid attire of his hosts.
When all were seated, this dignified old man stood up and began to pray. Yes, over that table where the flowing bowl awaited them was pronounced a long prayer. In regular old Puritan fashion the Governor of Connecticut was "saying grace." And in accents of such reverence and with such sin- cerity that from the mustaches of twenty versatile, laughter-loving Frenchmen invol- untarily sprang, at the prayer's close, twenty devout and fervent Amens !
It was when the company, standing, was drinking splendidly to the health of Wash- ington and to the health of the French King that the Commissaire slipped into the room quietly, and from her dim corner Olive saw him move a little slide in the wall and take from behind it a small, heavy bag. Pieces of silver he took from it, and counting out a goodly number he replaced the rest in the bag and put it back again into the hole in the wall so artfully concealed by the little sliding door that appeared a part of the woodwork. One may see this little secret hiding-place to this day in the wall of the upper chamber in the old Pidge Tavern now within the boundaries of Providence.
The Commissaire then beckoned to the girl and gave her the silver pieces which you may be sure were carefully placed in one of her large pockets, and at the foot of
the stair said a word to the gigantic sentinel who just now had been relieved by another, and who followed Olive out of the Tavern door.
It was bitter cold when the slip of a girl and the giant soldier stepped out into the night, but the stars were so bright and so beautiful that they fairly dazzled the eye. "Le Commissaire me commande de vous escorter en sureté a la porte de votre père," ("The Commissary bids me to see you safely to your father's door,") he said, awkwardly. And so he saw her safely to her father's door, and that was the beginning of a friend- ship that blossomed into a love so true that though he was fifty and she but in her teens, and though he spoke not a word of English while she, alas! knew no French, when the French troops sailed for home at the close of the War, Captain John George Curien remained in our country, and he and Olive lived many happy, married years in our own City of Providence.
And Olive,-what was her full maiden name? 'Twas a rather curious combination, for her descendants affirm that it was Olive Branch.
And in all those happy years he never spoke a word save in his native tongue! But be that as it may, when he died his widow wrote in English the verse you may read today on the soldier's headstone in old Min- eral Spring Cemetery in Pawtucket,-and you will note that the grave is a very, very long one. The verse reads:
"He crossed the raging ocean This country for to save, 'Twas France that gave him birth, And America a grave."
A NEWPORT LANDMARK
N TEWPORT has so many landmarks-it is truly historic in atmosphere-that it would be difficult to choose any one spot or object and call it the most distinctive according to historical standards. There is the Old Stone Mill, supposedly reminiscent of the years 1001 to 1008 A. D., when the Vikings visited Narragansett Bay. A later period is represented by the old Redwood
Library, Trinity Church, and the Jewish Synagogue. Again, what of that grand old ship "Constellation," or the old Market House, or the Friend's Meeting House, or the Old Colony House, at the head of Washing- ton Square? All these are outstanding as landmarks, but it is not of them that we shall choose to deal. It is our purpose at this time to turn to another class of land- marks and select the one which is generally
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hailed as the most important. This class of landmarks is made up of the many ven- erable old homesteads that line some of the ancient streets of the city, and the one that we shall discuss here is the Old Vernon House. Few, if any, will dispute with us its importance or deny the richness of its colorful history.
The Vernon property goes back to the days of the founding of Newport, in the year 1639. It was a part of the original grant of land made to the nine original settlers who left the Portsmouth settlement and decided to make a new town farther south on the island. Jeremy Clarke, one of the seven elders among these nine original settlers, was the first owner of the prop- erty. You will remember that it was the son of Jeremy, Walter Clarke, who was one of the early governors of the Colony. And when some of the early streets were laid out, two of them, Clarke and Mary Streets, served as boundaries for this prop- erty. So much then for the land itself.
The Vernon House came later, when the property came into the possession of a prominent Newport merchant named Met- calf Bowler. He bought the piece of land in 1758, and in the same year erected the house at the northeast corner of Clarke and Mary Streets. While it is scarcely prob- able that Peter Harrison was the architect, nevertheless whoever did design the house copied its exterior finish from that of Red- wood Library, rusticating it in a manner very similar to the latter.
It is a typical colonial mansion and, as such, very beautiful. When Bowler, the merchant, built it, it had its setting in spa- cious grounds with surrounding gardens and fruit and shade trees and a coach house and slave quarters in the rear to give it the dignity of an estate. And if the exterior is beautiful, the interior (which has been ex- ceptionally well preserved) is even more so. There one will find the fine wall panel- ling, the spacious halls and rooms, and the graceful staircase just as in the day when Metcalf Bowler lived in the house. The brownstone steps, before the front door, with their triple approaches, are the only ones of this type in Newport (an unusual distinction) and even such small things as the knocker on this door are original.
Metcalf Bowler was an Englishman who had come first to Boston, living there for a number of years on Beacon Hill before he moved to Newport and married the daughter of Major Fairchild. It was about 1750 when he did this and settled down. The family was one which was well cap- able of gracing the mansion in which it lived. Mrs. Bowler was a handsome woman who dressed in satins and silks, wore her hair drawn back tightly, and as a last ac- centuation of her natural beauty wore strik- ing throat jewels. Her husband had not only the wealth and dignity of a very suc- cessful merchant, but had the additional prestige of being a warden of Trinity Church and an honored representative of the Colony in the politics of the day. He owned the only coach in town and in it travelled to New York, in 1765, to attend one of the early conventions at which the rights of all the colonists were being de- cided. In 1767, he gave a great banquet in his beautiful mansion to celebrate the first anniversary of the Stamp Act. Later, it was he who drew up an address to be pre- sented in behalf of the Colony to King George I. In 1768, he was elected to the General Assembly in Newport, and served as speaker of that body for nineteen years. In private life he was a devoted father to his family, and the old house echoed to the happy laughter of his many children.
And where does the name Vernon come in, you ask? We shall come to that at once. In 1773, just before the Revolution, the mansion passed out of the hands of the Bowler family, and became the property of William Vernon, both a merchant and shipowner, and a Rhode Islander of im- portance. His father, Thomas Vernon, had served as the royal postmaster, as a senior warden of Trinity Church, and as the sec- retary of Redwood Library, and, as might be supposed, was decidedly a Tory in his sympathies. But the two sons, William and Samuel, were ardent patriots, and partners in business.
William Vernon did not buy the man- sion that now bears his name until he was fifty-four years old. The price he paid for it was £2000, a small fortune in those days. Life in the house proceeded on a similar scale as in the days when it was inhabited
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by the Bowler family. It was, again, a case of wealth in its natural and proper setting. But the Vernons did not have long to enjoy their new estate in peace. The Revolution was soon upon them, disrupt- ing the business and social life of Newport perhaps more than in any other colonial town. Many of the Newport families went away, but William Vernon stayed on until 1776. Then he, too, closed his estate, buried all silver, stored other articles and furni- ture of especial value, and departed. But one aunt in the family refused to leave and Samuel, one of William Vernon's two sons, remained in town to look out for her and for the estate. The other son, William, Jr., was at Princeton, but was then sent by his father to France at the outbreak of hos- tilities.
William Vernon, Sr., became the presi- dent of the Navy Board which had charge of all the marine affairs of the colonies during the war. He gave much of his own money to the government for the building of new ships, and his own experience as a shipowner was of inestimable value in filling the duties of his new post.
You may imagine his fears for his prop- erty when reports of the destruction of so many Newport buildings by the British, reached his ears. But the mansion did not suffer during the British occupation of the town, and when the French came to take their place in 1780, the Vernon House re- ceived its first baptism of fame. In assign- ing various homes to the officers of the French Army, it was turned over to General Rochambeau to be used as his home and headquarters.
Here, in the north parlor, the great gen- eral received his officers, and here he enter- tained many a distinguished guest, including Lafayette, and, in 1781, General Washing- ton himself. Washington probably slept in the northwest room directly over the parlor, and here it is well to note that this was per- haps the only time that the famous Ameri- can general and his distinguished French aide lived under the same roof. It was at this time that, during a parade held in Newport, in honor of Washington, there occurred the incident of the little boy who
saw Washington at the window of the Vernon House and exclaimed, "Why, father, General Washington is a man!" To which Washington, hearing the child's re- mark, replied, "Yes, my lad, and nothing but a man !"
While Rochambeau occupied the house, he had a large hall built on the estate for the purpose of holding official balls and entertainments for his officers and New- port society. William Vernon thought this a bit presumptuous of him, but the matter was soon smoothed out. After the French left and William Vernon returned to take possession of his estate, he sent in a bill to Rochambeau for necessary repairs after his occupation of the house, but charged the general no rent. The bill was im- mediately honored and paid in good French livres.
Thus, after the war, we find the house comparatively quiet again. William Vernon and his son Samuel once more entered busi- ness as Newport merchants and the former became president of Redwood Library. After remaining in France all during the Reign of Terror until the last of the aris- tocracy with whom he had associated were killed or imprisoned, William, Jr., returned home to Newport, too, bringing with him a copy of the "Mona Lisa" which is reputed to have been given him by his friend Marie Antoinette. It was later returned to France and now hangs in the Louvre.
And now we are near the end of our story. William Vernon, Sr., died in 1806, and his sons lived on in the house until their deaths, William in 1833, and Samuel in 1834. The latter's widow occupied the house until 1858. Then, in 1872, it was sold at auction to Harwood E. Read, and later used by the U. S. Geological Survey, until finally it became the property and home of the Family Welfare Society, which bought the house after Mr. Read's death in 1912, and restored it. It is this organiza- tion that owns and occupies it now.
This, then, is the story of the Vernon House, a landmark of note in old Newport, and you will probably agree that few other homesteads can boast of an equal prestige and romance.
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BELLES OF COLONIAL NEWPORT
TF THE French officers and men who so gallantly left the gay society and court life of their native land to come to the aid of the struggling American colonists ex- pected to find the latter rude in manners and unappreciative of the amenities of so- cial life, they were happily disappointed. And if the people of Newport looked for- ward to the arrival of the French allies with a great deal of misgiving, they too were relieved to find these men not "the effeminate Beings" they "were heretofore taught to believe them, but as large & as likely as can be produced by any nation." Certainly the arrival of these many distin- guished Frenchmen with their dazzling uni- forms and courtly manners made the win- ter of 1780-81 a period of much needed diversion for a war-weary Newport. The inhabitants of the old seaport took their new guests as a form of wine, responding miraculously to their invigorating pres- ence, beginning to laugh again in the gaiety of social life, and turning with new heart to build up a bustling business and trade. The best mansions of the town were thrown open to the French officers and many were directly allotted to them for use as quar- ters. Brilliant parties and balls sprang into immediate vogue, and all Newport outdid itself in courtesy and hospitality.
Nor were the Frenchmen one whit be- hind. Perhaps they knew that a reputation for dissolute living and easy morals had preceded them and deliberately set out to shatter the truth of such evil rumors. Cer- tainly, by acting from the beginning with the most perfect decorum and courtesy, they dispelled whatever apprehensions the people of Newport may have had. Rather, the sight of their brilliant regalia, the white uniforms of the Deux-Ponts regiment, the green and white of the Saintonge, the black and red of the Bourbonnais, and the rose facings of the Soissonnais with white and rose plumes decorating their grenadier caps, soon caused many a feminine heart to flutter, and perhaps to give inward thanks that its owner was alive at such a time.
But the belles of Newport were not the only ones to feel the delightful quickening of the pulse and excited beating of the heart. Charming as the French had found all Newport, they were to a man won by its beautiful women. Accustomed as they had been to the heralded charms of French women, their lavish praise of the fair sex in America (as contained in their many letters ) has a greater significance. Refined, attractive, gallant, and always considerate, they vied among themselves all through the winter for the honor of paying tribute to their fair Colonial hostesses and partners at gay social functions. Many a French heart was left behind in Newport at part- ing time, and many a romance and friend- ship that graced the winter months will never be known. But we can at least con- sider, for a moment, who these fair ones were who captivated so many a French eye and mind.
There were scores of attractive young women in the rounds of social life, but, as in any grouping, some must be granted the reigning places as "belles." Foremost was Polly Lawton, the demure Quakeress, "the very pearl of Newport beauties." Of her, as of others, we shall speak later. Then there were her sister, Eliza; Polly Wanton; Mollie, Amy and Abby Robinson; Isabel and Amey Ward; Eliza, Katherine and Nancy Hunter; Mehetabel Redwood, daugh- ter of Abraham Redwood, founder of New- port's library; Margaret and Mary Champ- lin, daughters of Christopher Champlin, a leading merchant; and lastly Betsy Ellery and her sisters, the daughters of William Ellery, signer of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. The constant flirtation and play of admiration between these young ladies and the all-too-susceptible French officers gave a welcome zest to Newport society.
But what did the French themselves have to say in the matter? The gay Duke de Lauzun, a veritable Don Juan, once French Ambassador to London, was completely won by the Hunter girls and their mother who treated him with the utmost hospital- ity. "Had they been my sisters," he writes,
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"I could not have liked them better, espe- cially the eldest, who is one of the most amiable persons I have ever met." This eld- est daughter, Katherine, made such a con- quest of the gallant gentleman that, on the night before he left America for France, he rode from Providence to Newport in order to have a last hour with her and to bid her good-by.
Prince de Broglie, who has left the best record of the French stay in Newport, adds a bit about the Misses Hunter. He calls them the rivals of Miss Champlin, saying, "The elder of the two Misses Hunter, with- out being regularly beautiful, has what we call 'un ensemble noble et de bonne com- pagnie,' her face is animated and intelli- gent, she is graceful in all her movements, and she dresses quite as well as Miss Champlin, but she is not quite so fresh- looking. Her sister, Miss Nancy Hunter, is the very personification of a rose; she is gay, is always smiling, and has, what is very rare in America, beautiful teeth." Of Miss Champlin, he gives the following de- scription: "She has fine eyes, a pretty mouth, the freshness of youth, a small waist, and pretty foot, and a figure that leaves nothing to be desired. To all these advantages she added that of being dressed and coiffed with much taste, that is to say, in the French style-and of understanding and speaking our language."
Christopher Champlin, her father, used to keep his horse saddled and a groom on the lookout for the appearance of Martha Redwood Ellery so that upon her appear- ance he might immediately ride forth to meet her. His efforts at this method of courtship were successful, for later they were married.
But the one young belle of the town to whom the French officers paid their highest tribute was Polly Lawton, the Quakeress. De Broglie says of her "[she was] a very goddess of grace and beauty-Minerva her- self, but with her warlike attributes ex- changed for the simple garb of a shepard- ess ... she seemed entirely unsuspicious of her own charms ... and I frankly confess that to me this seductive Quakeress seemed to be Nature's masterpiece . .. Polly had a sister, dressed exactly like herself, and who is very pretty, but we had not time to look
at her when her older sister was present." Count de Segur, another gallant who was completely captivated by Newport's belles, adds to this .. . "So much beauty, so much simplicity, so much elegance and so much modesty were perhaps never before com- bined in the same person. ... Her gown was white, like herself, whilst her ample muslin neckerchief and the envious cam- bric of her cap which scarcely allowed me to see her light-colored hair, and the mod- est attire in short, of a pious virgin, seemed vainly to endeavor to conceal the most graceful figure and the most beautiful form imaginable . . . "
So it would be possible to go on in- definitely, listing the comments of these inspired Frenchmen. They were enchanted by women of Newport, as a group and individually; and, if their descriptions of these fair enchantresses are at all accurate, and not too highly colored by their emo- tions, we may credit their taste. Surely the fair ones of Newport were only too glad to have such a chance to make conquests (despite all protestations of their mod- esty), and the departure of the French, bringing an end to all the balls and enter- tainment, was lamented by all of them. In fact so deeply and touchingly did some of these young ladies deplore the absence of their admirers, that several of the latter re- turned to Newport and staged a great final ball for their consolation, a gay and color- ful affair, much like a festival.
How well the women of Rhode Island to- day can match their forebears we should not dare to say. Perhaps we may agree with the. comment made by Louis, Baron de Closen, one of Rochambeau's aides, who said in his Journal ... "perhaps one of the prettiest islands on the globe [is Rhode Island]" ... and "nature has endowed the ladies of Rhode Island with the handsomest, finest features one can imagine; their complexion is clear and white; their feet and hands un- usually small." Certainly we should be prudent to do so. But maybe there is some essence missing today to make the same beauty, or at least its atmosphere, complete. When the youth of today speaks of his fair partner as "an awfully good fellow" he doubtless has little of the feeling of "his ancestor, who used to wait at the street
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corner to see the object of his devotion go by under the convoy of her father and mother and a couple of footmen, thinking himself happy, meanwhile, if his divinity gave him a shy glance." And today's piquant young miss, driving her sport car with an ease and abandon which would have startled her ancestors, is, despite "her charms, quite different from the blushing little beauty of 1780, who, in powdered
hair, quilted petticoat, and high red-heeled shoes, gave her lover a modest little glance at the street corner, thinking it a most de- licious and unforeseen bit of romance to have a lover at all."
We have journeyed on some 150 years since that time, but there may well be times when we could wish that we were French officers in Newport and that the year was again 1780.
THE OLD MARKET HOUSE
L IKE the old Arcade which stands as a monument to the business life of old- time Providence, the old Market House at the foot of College Hill, though threatened on various occasions with destruction, has remained for nearly a hundred and fifty years to strengthen its increasing import- ance as a local landmark. About both of these antiquities is a good deal of that intan- gible romance which time alone, if nothing else, brings. And as the Arcade becomes more and more prominent in sharp contrast with the new Providence which grows toweringly about it on all sides, so the Mar- ket House attains a new significance as the city builds, and re-arranges, and expands all about it.
Back in the 1770's it looked out upon a community that was industrious and thriv- ing. Providence was at that time growing in direct relationship with its sea trade, and ships sent out to all ports of the world by enterprising Providence merchants were constantly returning with full cargoes to make a bustle of unloading at the many wharves. Those were the years of the stage- coaches, of the infancy of Brown Univer- sity (then the College of the English Colony of Rhode Island and the Providence Planta- tions), of dirt streets, of many busy little shops. Those were the times of home-trad- ing, times when the farmers from the out- lying countryside used to drive into the city with their wagon loads of produce and hawk their wares about the streets in search of buyers, following no set routes but driv- ing haphazardly wherever the whims of business might lead.
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