USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 19
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Back in 1758, David Bucklin voiced the need of a common place for the buying and selling of wares and produce in his petition to the General Assembly for permission to have a Market House built for his own use on town property. He had chosen as a site, land at the east end of the old Weybosset Bridge, but was unable to buy the land out- right. The matter started a great deal of public discussion, resulting in his being given permission to build a market house at his own expense. However, the unfortunate applicant, who could not purchase the site, had even less money to build a market house. And there the matter ended for al- most fifteen years.
It came up again in a letter addressed to the Providence Gazette and printed in 1768. But again the citizens of the town, though active enough in other respects, were slug- gish in sensing the need for a Market House. Several more years passed with nothing done, but in 1771 plans were started. That year a petition was drawn up and presented to the General Assembly by the townspeople as a whole, asking for the immediate estab- lishment of a Market House for the common good. But the town, like David Bucklin, had no money for such an enterprise, and the only recourse was to a lottery.
Lotteries had played a large part in the development of early Rhode Island Institu- tions, being then totally free from the stigma which hangs over them now. The First Bap- tist Church, Brown University, and many other public buildings were financed in part, if not in whole, by this method. And it seems very odd and rather amusing that, in a time when theatres were prohibited, such a
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practice should have been not only con- doned but enthusiastically supported. Tic- kets for the Market House lottery had a large sale, and the actual scheme of the lottery was as follows: "Granted by the Honourable General Assembly of the Colony of Rhode Island, to raise Four Thousand Five Hundred Dollars, for build- ing a Market-House in the Town of Provi- dence. This lottery will be divided into five classes, each class to consist of 2,000 tickets.
"The managers appointed are Moses Brown, James Lovett, and David Harris of Providence and Elisha Mowry Jun., of Smithfield, who have given bond for the faithful performance of their trust."
A lot of controversy arose over the choos- ing of a site for this community building, but the original site selected by David Buck- lin so many years before was finally taken. However, this site was then covered with water and had to be filled in before build- ing could commence. John Brown took a contract to do this preliminary work. Final plans were completed by Joseph Brown and Stephen Hopkins and the building begun in May, 1773.
Lumber came from mills at Johnston and Cumberland and bricks from Rehoboth by way of the river. And on Saturday, June 12th, the Providence Gazette echoed the en- thusiasm of the people in the notice: "Tues- day last the first stone of the Market House was laid by Nicholas Brown, Esq." The famous Brown brothers, as you probably have noticed, were again as prominent in this public undertaking as in many others.
The start had been made but the building progressed slowly. Yet, upon the completion of the first story in 1774, a great celebration took place, and the rejoicing of the work- men and people was aided by their tremen- dous consumption of potent New England rum. Whether it was actually their pride in the new Market House or simply a desire for another convivial gathering (enhanced by rum) that brought them together again within a month, nevertheless they re-assem- bled to acclaim the addition of a second story. This jovial old custom, which was always carried out (though to a lesser ex- tent) in the raising of any large building, principally "barn raisings," unhappily passed away many years ago.
Once finished, the Market House sprang into life. Silas Downer, who had made the noted Liberty Tree address, was made the clerk of the Market and had offices on the second floor. The lower floor was given over to trading and was open with the stalls in the places of the full length windows, which were substituted later. The stalls were built in 1776 and auctioned to the highest bidders in the following year.
But there were other matters of far more importance to detract from the importance of the new Market House. The war years were beginning and all Providence was astir. Private business was submerged in the patriotism which demanded the undi- vided attention of all to matters of state. Throughout these years the Market House, along with other public institutions, was used when necessary to aid the war needs of the colonists. In Brown University the French allies under Rochambeau housed many of their sick, while the Market House was appropriated by the War Council as a storage place for grain. Later, the French not only stored their personal baggage in the Market House but occupied it over night as a quarters. When they departed from the city, they left a guard over the munitions and provisions stored there.
With the ending of the war, the Market House regained its normal activity. It served in its original capacity, and also became more and more of a civic center in other ways. The town clerk had his office on the second floor, and, for a long while, it was suggested that the lower floor be re- modelled and used as a town hall. Mean- while the Masonic Fraternity within the city had been growing steadily, meeting like many an infant organization wherever it could, in taverns, private homes, and the like. But, in 1797, the St. John Chapter added a third story to the Market House and used it for Fraternal rooms. Where the clock is now, was a tablet with the Masonic emblems. And in the Market House, on August 23, 1802, Thomas Smith Webb or- ganized Saint John's Encampment Number One, Knights Templars, the oldest Templar organization in the country. Until 1853, the building served as a meeting place for mem- bers of this fraternity, and many a conven-
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tion was held within its walls, but, in that year, the growing organization was obliged to move to more commodious quarters.
For a while the Providence Fire Depart- ment housed an engine on the first floor of the Market House. And so time passed on, bringing changes on every hand. The Great Gale of 1815 whirled its waters about the old building and drove ships up against it. Fires swept the city, and drastic changes came in the transition from commerce to manufacturing. But still the Market House maintained its importance. Its second floor was continually used by the town for public offices, where the Town Council met, and finally the building became the City Hall in 1865, serving in this capacity until the
present City Hall was erected in 1878. The last transfer of occupancy brought the building into the hands of the Board of Trade, in 1880, an organization which has since become the Chamber of Commerce, and which has continued to occupy the building to the present time.
Not without some protests has the build- ing survived in all its historic glory. In 1898 and again in 1906 movements were started to abolish the building in order to widen the square. However, in both instances there were those to whom we may be thankful who would not stand to have traditions so lightly swept aside, and through their cham- pionship the time-scarred structure has re- mained for us to cherish.
A MARINER'S ROMANCE
"What snatches of romance, both sad and sweet, Lie tramped obscure beneath Time's marching feet!"
W HAT snatches of romance indeed! Lost in the unwritten annals of history within this State alone is a world of romance. But every once in a while we come upon some fragment of this world, finding it as we might find some piece of classic statuary among the buried ruins of ancient Greece or Rome. And, like many an excavated piece of sculpture, we find our fragments imperfect even in themselves-their beginning and ending, perhaps, broken off with only a few intervening years intact.
The romance of Captain John Willard Russell and Nancy Smith of Bristol is such a fragment, incomplete in a whole bulk of detail, but of an unusual purity in its main outline. In this case, descriptions of our characters are missing, and the events of whole years in their lives are unknown. Yet there is the thread of a story, illusive though it may be, running through the love letters and ship logs of this forgotten sea captain, and that is worth following.
Captain Russell was born in 1770, prob- ably in Connecticut, for there, three genera- tions of his ancestors had lived before him. His great-grandfather had been one of the ten ministers to found Yale University, in 1700; his grandfather had also been a min-
ister; and his father had been with Washing- ton at Valley Forge. With these men for forefathers, he had a strong commingling of the blood of patriots and Puritans in his veins, blood which gave tone to his whole character.
He was the first of his family to turn to the sea, nor did he do so at once. He went westward in 1796 and pioneered his way through New York State to Michigan, where he settled with a few companions at Presque Isle. Two years later, he was sailing from Virginia to the West Indies on his first voy- age, and by the next year, when he came to Bristol, had been twice captured by French privateers, imprisoned at Petit Ance, bereft of all his possessions, jailed for debt in Philadelphia, but finally successful on a second voyage as master of a sloop which he sold in the West Indies.
At Bristol, his employer was Charles De Wolf, who placed him in command of the schooner "Nancy" and sent him on a first voyage to Havana. Before he left Bristol, however, he was entertained at the DeWolf home and there met Abbey, the daughter of his employer, and her friend and cousin, Nancy Smith. It was about time for the young shipmaster (then twenty-nine) to let his fancy stray toward thoughts of love. This first meeting was in the springtime-in May, and undoubtedly the young captain sailed
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away from his fair Bristol friends with many new and delightful emotions to thrill and trouble him. The two Bristol girls had made him promise to drink their health every Saturday night at nine o'clock during his voyage, and agreed to toast him at the same hour. The first Saturday out he encoun- tered a severe gale and did not recall his promise until the next day, but he drank then to the friends left behind in Bristol. The fol- lowing Saturday he was punctual to the minute, and writes in a letter the next day, "Heark ye there-You Bristol Girls-how went the cheerful bottle last night-I fear you have already forgotten your engage- ment, while I at the appointed hour swigged my Saturday night's allowance and reli- giously toasted."
The voyage was full of many vicissitudes. The West Indies were the rendezvous of privateers and the whole atmosphere of the place was "rough and ready." Before Cap- tain Russell got back to Bristol, he had been robbed and imprisoned by vandals at St. Cruz, freed too late to make the "Nancy," whose mate had sailed off without him, and forced to take a passage in another ship bound for Boston. But through it all he remembered his toasts to Miss DeWolf and Nancy Smith, and found his ship, the "Nancy," safe in Bristol upon his arrival.
Once again he was able to have a short visit with the girls, but almost immediately he had to make plans for a voyage to Africa for slaves. This type of trade he heartily disliked, and yet he was no prig. Later in his life he writes: "This Africa, my friend, ruins the health and takes the lives of nine-tenths who are concerned in it and poisons the morals of most of the survivors."
This voyage, made in the brig "Com- merce," was ill-fated. Captain Russell lost some of his crew through sickness and finally had to give up his ship to French pri- vateers. But he succeeded in getting back to Bristol sometime during the year 1801. Dur- ing this year he must have wooed and won Nancy Smith, judging by his letters to her during subsequent voyages. He writes to a friend: "She is not a beauty-yet in her presence beauties would be discontented with themselves-at first she scarcely ap- pears pretty-but the more she is known the more agreeable she appears-she gains where others lose-what she gains she never
loses-without much knowledge of the world she is attentive, obliging, and grace- ful in all she does."
He always called her "My dear friend," even in letters to her after she had become his wife. During his period of courtship, when he was walking the deck of a ship alone, with a full moon shining overhead, he thought of her and of nights in Bristol and wrote to her all sorts of courtly niceties, asking her to remember him always when the moon is high, to have indulgence for his letters, and to try and love him as he loves her. "Reserve a little berth (in your heart) -will you-for your friend?" he pleads.
The delicacy of his manners and his whole attitude of deference and respect for this girl whom he loved all his life marks him apart from a host of more rudely-mannered mariners. His letters bear the stamp of real literature and he could write some cred- itable poetry on occasion. He had a deep appreciation of art and good books, and yet he was wholly a self-educated man.
In June, 1802, he married his sweetheart, Nancy, and remained ashore for a two- months' honeymoon, but all too soon he had to be off on the high seas again. This was a man who was made for great love, who should never have been separated from happy companionship with his wife ashore. But he had to voyage forth and back to the West Indies and even to Europe, working always with the hope that he might be able to retire some day, writing as often as he could and sending his letter by any ship that was bound for any port near Bristol, and waiting for return letters from his "Friend."
"You can have some idea of my sensa- tions when for the first time I feasted on a letter from my wife," he writes from Havana, in 1802, yet several years later he could say: "This I know, that the longer our Union has been, the stronger I find the ties that bind me to you and to happiness, and that the frequency of being separated from you, so far from lessening the pain, only adds to its poignancy."
In 1803, little Betsy, the first child, was born, while he was held up waiting for a cargo at Havana. His love for the child was almost overwhelming, and we find him writing so anxiously to Nancy about its up- bringing. "Will you teach her, my love, to lisp Papa's name in his absence-will you
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teach her to talk of him and teach her to love him?" he writes, when he is on a long voy- age to Holland. This was the longest sep- aration from his loved ones, nearly six months in all, and there was no way of his hearing from Nancy all the while. But he wrote to her-long letters that he put away in one big packet until he found a ship go- ing to Boston. He visited Antwerp and wrote of the beautiful cathedral, built there by the Spaniards, with its 82 bells ringing every seven and one-half minutes and its great clock. He met a Danish sea captain and took him as a passenger to Copen- hagen, visiting the latter's home there and playing with his children though not under- standing a word of their language. But he only longed for Bristol the more after this, writing: "God grant that I may spend the evening of my days in peace and com- petence in the bosom of those I love." And then again: "Why, my dear Nancy, would you marry a sailor?"
But soon he was on his way home once more, writing with the zest of a sailor: "It does not now blow quite a gale-though
the water is still flying over our Decks- but we are used to it-heigh-ho !!!- " In 1805 and 1806 he turned again to the West India trade, and it was during that time his second daughter, Parnell, was born.
Then he was writing to his three darlings, Betsy now talking and walking, the new babe, and his constant sweetheart, Nancy. The moonlight nights still affected him as in his courting days. He longed to be home, but adversity kept that day just beyond his reach. In 1809, a third daughter, little Nancy, was born and then, in 1810, a first son. But in this year came the supreme tragedy of his life-the friend and sweet- heart to whom he had been writing so long died, sending his hopes of future happiness crashing about him. He had just built a new home opposite that of James DeWolf, but there was now no incentive to move in. He did finally secure the help of a friend, a maiden lady who took care of the child- ren and kept house for him, but his own heart was broken, and he died in 1814. Fate had stolen his romance, and only left tragedy in its place.
CUDDYMONK'S "MOONACK"
TN the mind of the average person, the , word "slavery" invariably associates it- self with one of three things: Lincoln, the South, or the Civil War. In 1860, the issue of slavery reached the exploding point, after smouldering for more than a century. Perhaps, because at that time, Lincoln, the South, and the Civil War were all links in the bitter struggle over slavery, many peo- ple think only of the four war years. It seldom occurs to them that slavery was ac- cepted and even exploited by the most righteous citizens of every community for long years in the early history of the coun- try. In the exploitation of the slave trade, Rhode Island was the leader among the New England states.
As early as 1696, Rhode Island had im- ported a first shipload of negroes from Africa, men and women who were disposed of at $150 and $175 each. In the years im- mediately following, up to 1708, there was
no great demand for slaves. Then Rhode Island merchants began to realize where lay the path to fortune, and the triangular business of rum, sugar, and slaves came into existence. From Newport, ships sailed to Africa with rum. Exchanging the rum for negroes, the captains then set sail for the Barbadoes where the human cargo was exchanged for one of sugar and molasses, the ships then returning to Newport to stock up with rum again. Negroes were still im- ported as the years went on but a $15 duty was levied upon each one brought into New- port. With this money the streets of that fashionable town were renovated and paved.
By 1739, Newport had become the great slave mart of America, as London and Bristol were for England. The triangular business brought in the wealth that was the very foundation of Newport's society and culture. To supply the rum, between twenty and thirty distilleries were operat-
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ing steadily. The ships setting out for Africa, would each take about 140 hogs- heads of the liquor, together with a supply of provisions, muskets, and assorted shackles. A cargo of rum could be ex- changed for 120 negroes, after the traders had bargained with the native chieftains. When the slaves were sold at the Barbadoes, they brought a profit of from $60 to $125 dollars each, so that the owners of the vessels-Newport merchants-cleared the goodly sum of $9,000 or $10,000 on each cargo. This, it must be remembered, was exclusive of the profit reaped on the cargo of sugar and molasses taken on at the Bar- badoes and brought to Newport. Small wonder that the slave trade took on all the aspects of a "boom" during the years from 1739 to 1760.
When the Revolution broke into the order of things and upset Newport in its heigh- day of wealth and culture, it also broke up the triangular slave trade that had made so many fortunes. In 1774, there had been a law prohibiting the importation of slaves into Rhode Island. After the Revolution, in 1787, Rhode Islanders were forbidden to engage in any foreign slave trade, and by 1803, Federal laws had been passed prohibiting foreign slave trade to all American citizens. But, the slave merchant got around these enactments by trading with South Carolina. That State had also forbidden slave importations in 1788, but the law had failed of enforcement, and in 1803 was repealed. Rhode Island mer- chants immediately sent great numbers of slave ships to Charleston, Newport mer- chants vieing with those of Bristol. In 1791, William Ellery, himself a Newporter, wrote: "An Ethiopian could as soon change his skin as a Newport merchant could be induced to change so lucrative a trade as that in slaves for the slow profits of any manufactory." But, in 1807, Congress passed a law forbidding absolutely and for all time the traffic in slaves and the cruel practice was at last brought to a close.
Although Rhode Island merchants had clung to the slave trade with so much ten- acity, it did not mean for a moment that they were strong adherents of slavery it- self. In 1874, the General Assembly had passed an act authorizing the manumission of all slaves, and provided that no persons
born in the State after the first day of the year 1784, be they black or white, should be slaves for life. Slavery was abolished very early, then, as a Rhode Island insti- tution.
Thus, by the time this particular story begins, the Rhode Island negroes had known freedom for some twenty-five years. They had become a distinct element in society and, because of their former intimate as- sociations with the better class of white people, were not even as poorly treated as some of the lower class of whites. Many of the slaves had had kind masters, and free- dom had not been a priceless possession in their eyes. So they lived on under the new conditions, some owning houses and little plots of land, others simply staying on in the households to which they had be- come so well-accustomed.
Of these, Cuddymonk was of the former class. In 1811, he was living in his little home near Lake Petaquamscut in old Narragansett, in perfect contentment with his wife, Rosann. He was well liked by the whites with whom he had a certain measure of influence. He was a good cobbler, a fair tinker, a poor mason, a worse car- penter, but a fine fisherman, and, of course, extremely cheerful. During the various seasons of the year he harvested, planted, fiddled, or raked for his white neighbors. Among his own people his position was outstanding. Three times he had been elec- ted "Black Gov'nor" of Narragansett, on the grand "'Lection Day" which came round each year on the 3rd Saturday of June. Some of the negroes elected in the past had won the election on the strength of some outstanding quality or past ex- ploit, but Cuddymonk was chosen simply because he was a "pollertishun."
The office was an honorary one. It of- fered no attendant salary, merely a wealth of prestige. Called upon as a judge in many disputes between members of his own race, the "Black Gov'nor" was also employed by the whites to impart certain information to the negroes or to handle some minor bits of business between them- selves and the blacks.
Gov'nor Cuddymonk had his portion of prestige. In fact no one had ever made a better "gov'nor." His only great and life- long weakness was one as true to his race
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as the color of his skin. This was his fear of the unnatural-the negro's hereditary superstition. Cuddymonk did not hesitate to practice all kinds of witch charms, "con- jures," and "projects," though he always professed to be a member in good standing of the "Pistikle Church." Great was his fear of the dark, and the spooks and "moon- acks" it contained. It was just this great superstition that made him fear to take the job of driving for old, rheumatic Dr. Greene. Cuddymonk had protested in vain. Rosann, skoffing both at his fear of ghosts and his laziness, made him report to the doctor, and Cuddymonk's era of terror be- gan. Dr. Greene had scores of night calls, and the frightened negro had many a drive over dark country roads, past the little private graveyards that he so much feared.
One evening, when Cuddymonk had be- gun to think that there would be no call for him to go out, young Joe Champlin dashed up on horseback demanding the doctor. Knowing that the Champlin Farm lay be- yond Boston Neck, Cuddymonk tried all kinds of subterfuge, hoping to be allowed to stay at home. But the doctor was ob- durate. Scarcely giving poor Cuddymonk time to put on his coat and waist-coat inside out (a sure protection against ghosts), he made him drive off.
It was a dreary ride. The doctor was by nature extremely taciturn, and Cuddymonk did not even have a chance to talk and re- lieve himself of his many fears. Whenever, he had to get down from the carriage to open a highway gate, it was with the most fearful apprehensions. In his supersti- tious eyes every shadow assumed evil pro- portions, and the whisper of the wind through the trees seemed to be the dismal moaning of spooks and "moonacks."
At the Champlin Farm Cuddymonk again tried to dissuade the doctor from driving any further that night, but the old physician told him to be ready to start back in half an hour. On the return journey, Cuddymonk was even more sensi- tive to shadows and graveyards for Ruth, the Champlin's colored cook, in an at- tempt at sympathy, had filled the suscept- ible "Cuddy" with all the ghost stories she knew. The trip home might have been un- eventful, but for the doctor's decision to return by way of Pender Zeke's corner and
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