USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. III > Part 29
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Gray continued on his course for many days and saw nothing of his friend Ken- drick in the "Columbia." Somewhere along the west coast the sloop was brought in close to the shore permitting the crew to barter with the natives. Unfortu- nately, a dispute arose between the crew and the natives resulting in the death of two of Gray's men, and a narrow escape for several others who had gone ashore in a longboat. It is interesting to note that the voyagers named the little bay where this disastrous encounter occurred, "Mur- derers' Cove."
Gray continued on his journey north to Nootka Sound where the sloop was anchored, and where it was to wait until the "Columbia" put in appearance. Kendrick finally appeared and he reported that his ship had been delayed along the South American coast by stormy weather causing his crew to undergo many priva- tions. But, now that the two ship com- panies were united again, immediate attention was paid to the purpose of the expedition. All hands began to barter with the natives. This particular section of the west coast was not unknown to other countries for the Americans soon found themselves in somewhat friendly competition with British and Spanish companies that had been sent there for the same purpose. For a short time, everything proceeded harmoniously, but, after a period, a clash came in which the Americans and British joined against the Spaniards. Although the dispute was settled without serious results, Captain Kendrick decided to shift the commands of the two vessels. Gray was given the "Columbia" and ordered to proceed to China, and Kendrick decided to go on a short voyage of his own in the other ship, expecting to follow Gray within a few days.
Captain Gray later arrived in Canton, China, without mishap, having made a stop at the Hawaiian Islands on the way. He sold his cargo of skins in China at a slight loss, but immediately loaded a full cargo of tea. Then came the long trip home. Gray sailed from Canton, headed down the Pacific, proceeded around Cape of Good Hope, stopping only at St. Helena and the Ascension Islands before reaching Boston in 1790. He was the
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first American to carry his nation's flag around the world, and the log of the "Columbia" recorded that fifty thousand miles had been covered in the long, epoch- making voyage. A great ovation was given the intrepid mariner and his crew when they arrived in Boston. A fete was given in their honor by Governor Han- cock, and to this affair came Captain Gray of Rhode Island, arm-in-arm with a native chieftain from the Hawaiian Is- lands. From a business standpoint the trip was not very profitable for the owners, but they were not insensible to the great honor which their employee had brought to them and to the nation. Un- discouraged, they ordered the "Colum- bia" overhauled and refitted for a second expedition. The sister ship "Lady Wash- ington" never returned. She was lost somewhere in the Pacific after leaving China, and Captain Kendrick was re- ported accidentally killed while stopping at the Hawaiian Islands.
Captain Gray sailed the second time under specific instructions. He was to proceed to the Pacific Coast and there build a sloop; carry special governmental correspondence to Americans in China, and engage in trade as before. In addi- tion, he was to stop at Japan and Pekin, China, but, on no condition whatsoever, to touch at any Spanish port or make a single trade with a Spanish subject. This last injunction was disobeyed, but justly so. The "Columbia" left Boston late in 1790 and reached the Pacific Coast speedily. There, in one fatal stop along the shore to trade with the natives, three of the crew were massacred. A little farther along the cost, a plan of the natives to capture the ship and kill the crew was frustrated. The natives all had to be watched carefully, for everywhere they were found to be hostile. The new sloop was built according to instructions and was named the "Adventurer."
In 1792, Captain Gray met Vancouver, the British explorer. Vancouver had seen the mouth of the Columbia River, but had not thought it worth exploring. But, Gray held a different opinion, for,
on May 11, 1792, he sailed through the breakers into the quiet channel of this great waterway. He spent about a week in the river, taking on water and bartering with the natives. Then he sent a long- boat ahead to learn more about the interesting stream, while he went ashore to explore the surrounding territory. Finally, the Rhode Islander landed at the mouth of the river and took possession of it and the territory which it drained for the United States, naming the river after his ship the "Columbia." While others may have seen the river, as Van- couver did from the sea, Captain Robert Gray was the first white man to enter it, the first to make a map of the country, and the first to land. This important discovery was the basis for the later over- land expedition by Lewis and Clarke in 1804, and, thus, Great Britain's mistake became America's opportunity.
Later, the "Columbia" was attacked many times by natives in war canoes, and was forced several times to use its guns. After a mishap in which the ship struck a rock, a stop was made at Nootka for repairs. The Spanish governor was so hospitable when that happened that Captain Gray later named a son, Robert Don Quadra, in his memory. Gray sold the "Adventurer" to the Spaniard and then proceeded home, again following the old route to China. He arrived in Boston July 1793 with a cargo of tea, china, sugar and curios. This was the last voyage of the "Columbia" but Gray lived to command several other ships and sail on many profitable expeditions. Captain Robert Gray died in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1806. His little home is still standing on the east side of the Great West Road between Stone Bridge and Little Compton in Tiverton. If ever there was a shrine worthy of preserving as an immortal monument to a great Rhode Islander, it is the little two-storied structure with the close-cropped eaves where Captain Robert Gray, explorer, navigator, adventurer and founder was born, and where he lived the greater part of his distinguished career.
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BISCUIT CITY
IN the year 1657, a small group of immi- I grants, described in Rhode Island history as the Pettasquamscutt Pur- chasers, accumulated sufficient capital to approach the ruling sachems of the powerful Narragansett tribe of Indians and propose to them the purchase of a huge tract of land including a part of that area which is now known as Southern Rhode Island. After many tribal con- claves and after much bargaining, the disheartened Indians, hesitating to admit defeat in their struggle against the inva- sion of the white man, decided to sell a stated portion of their precious territory in return for the glittering gold and silver offered by the Colonists.
In the central portion of this fertile tract was an Indian watering place, known to thousands of wandering tribesmen as the "Great Spring." An unfailing supply of clear, sparkling water bubbled forth from this natural fountain near which was destined to be located the smallest com- munity in America, and possibly in the world, which was to have the imposing designation of "city." There "Biscuit City " was located. As for the actual and highly interesting history of this so-called "city" we are deeply indebted to Mr. William Davis Miller, former President of the Rhode Island Historical Society, for his exhaustive research and colorful writings. From him we have learned the strange romance of Biscuit City, one of the most amusing and intriguing stories ever passed on by our forefathers.
Situated about three quarters of a mile to the southwest of the present village of Kingston, this pseudo-city, in the height of its urban greatness, numbered but one mill, six houses and a population of about two dozen souls. The name, "Biscuit City," has always provoked a smile on the part of those who are familiar with the traditional recordings of Shepard Tom in his quaint "Johnny Cake Papers" regarding the naming of this famous Rhode Island metropolis. The first set- tlers, perhaps a trifle proud and having a flair for originality, sought an appellation
which would divorce the individualistic community from the commonplace details of life, and vigorously protested against adopting such drab names as Millville, Farmington or others descriptive of the nature of toil engaged in by the residents. They sought something romantic, esthetic or poetic, something, perhaps, that might inspire some dreaming genius to turn to couplets or stanzas when he chanced upon and became infatuated with the delightful spot. Lengthy and heated discussions continued; suggestions were inspired all the way from mythology to Indian lore, and, finally, some degree of unanimity was reached by a majority of the village popu- lace. It was decided to call the place "Laureldale," because there, as in many other sections of historic South County, the lovely laurel grew in abundance, and besides, the place was geographically located in a small valley, or dale. The choice was unanimous, and the ambitious citizens were well pleased with their selection. They cherished the hope that the name "Laureldale" would be sung by minstrels throughout the land, and that, someday, a government post-office would bear this carefully-chosen name.
Then, once upon a time in early Colo- nial history, an itinerant peddler with a heavily-laden pack upon his weary back came trudging into the tiny hamlet hoping to dispense, at attractive prices, some of the choice articles that he carried about the country for sale. Dusk was fast approaching as he came within sight of the quiet homesteads in Laureldale; wispy streams of white smoke lazily curled from the tops of the great rough-stone chimneys while the busy housewives rustled up their fires in preparation for the cooking of the evening meal. The footsore peddler approached the door of the first house, threw off his pack, rattled the knocker, and, with all the courtesy and sales presence he could muster after a long day of tramping dusty, stony roads, he graciously questioned the lady of the house in regard to the state of her supply of the particular utensils which he was
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happy to have for sale. Much to the surprise and disappointment of the ven- dor, his first prospect in Laureldale refused bluntly to inspect his wares, or even listen to his well-rehearsed sales talk. She said "she was mixing biscuits for supper and had not a minute to spare." Muttering a rather forced and none too cheery "Good Day, Madam," the peddler readjusted his cumbersome pack and started for the next prospect just across the way. Again he knocked, again he braced himself for his surefire cheery introduction; the door was opened, and, it must have been a coincidence, the second housewife he met in Laureldale was also too busy to talk because she was engaged in preparing biscuit dough for the oven. Likewise, she declined to ex- amine his wares.
From house to house the peddler plod- ded and to his great astonishment, so the story goes, he found every last housewife in the little community of Laureldale industriously engaged in the task of mixing biscuits - and all were far too busy to lend an ear to his convincing sales story or to see what he had to sell. Down- cast, discouraged, and weary, this particu- lar traveling salesman set out to spend the night in the nearby village of King- ston. Upon his arrival there, someone inquired from whence he came, and he replied with emphasis and with an out- ward show of disgust, "From Biscuit City." He then related his experience of the last few hours to several of the town's wags, and from that day to this, the thoughtfully, painstakingly-chosen name of Laureldale has been but a tradition, whereas "Biscuit City" - non-poetic, non-musical - but amusingly appropri- ate, has become the accepted name for the little Rhode Island settlement where, once upon a time, no one had any time for peddlers.
The lands included in Biscuit City were deeded to a William Knowles, in 1671, about fifteen years following the purchase from the Narragansetts. In addition to the Great Spring, heretofore mentioned, was a fast-running narrow stream that flowed into a small pond, later to be known as the Mill Pond. This location with an abundance of natural
water power was an ideal one for a mill and it was probably during the ownership of the spot by Colonel Elisha Reynolds, a prominent merchant of Little Rest, or Kingston, that the first mill was con- structed there, thereby beginning the mercantile era of the so-called "city." Records do show that a grist mill was operated there prior to 1800, and records also disclose that the title of the property passed through several hands. The natural advantages of Biscuit City even- tually became known, and the place apparently reached the height of its prominence in the year 1808 when Jona- than Babcock put aside his title of "Schoolmaster alias Yoeman" and there- after described himself as a "miller," and sold a parcel of his Biscuit City lands to the "President, Directors and Company of South Kingston Cotton Manufactury." This sale gave the place an individual distinction, for it is said that this was the very first company ever organized in the United States for the purpose of manufacturing cotton cloth. Previous to this date, crude domestic looms had pro- vided a sufficient amount of homespun to meet the limited requirements of the day.
In Colonial times, or more precisely, prior to 1809, the old approach to Biscuit City and its historic mill was across the property owned by Elisha Reynolds Pot- ter at the western foot of Little Rest Hill, leaving the present road from Kingston to West Kingston near the point where the road crosses Whitehorn Brook. In 1809, Potter wanted the cotton company to release its right of way to this particu- lar portion of his property so he deeded "the copartners and proprietors of the Cotton Factory " a lot of land to be "used and occupied as a road or public highway across lands of the grantor." This new road was laid out and is the present approach used by many of us, and by peddlers too, who journey to Biscuit City. The cotton company experienced several years of doubtful success and was finally sold to Mr. Rouse Clarke early in the year 1819, who believed that he could revive the business that had dwindled rapidly previous to his purchase. Mr. Clarke reopened the mill at Biscuit City, not for the manufacture of textiles but for
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the construction and sale of pleasure car- riages and farm wagons - vehicles which were then in great demand and which commanded fancy prices for the times. Clarke's carriage company, however, like the cotton factory, was doomed to failure, and we find him deeding "lock, stock, and barrel" including a list of many finished and unfinished carts and car- riages, tools and gears to one Asa Potter. The next owners transformed the factory back into a grist mill and it was operated successfully for many years. Eventually the property came into the hands of a Judge Elisha Reynolds Potter, the great grandson of the Elisha Reynolds who had
purchased the place one hundred and thirty years before. Biscuit City re- mained in the possession of the Potter family until recently when it was pur- chased by the Kingston Water Works. The famous Great Spring has now been harnessed and is being used as an auxiliary source in the water system of Kingston village and surrounding territory. Gone are the Indians who once quenched their thirsts with the crystal clear waters; the old mill is in ruins; only two of the houses are standing today, but Biscuit City remains as a precious tradition, one of the many that give historic South County its immortal distinction.
COTTON AND RHODE ISLAND
TT was not until shortly before the Chris- tian Era that the use of cotton cloth was known in Rome, when it was intro- duced by Caesar and other generals for tent coverings and awnings. Previous to that, cotton had been used and cultivated in India and the East Indies. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, writing about five hundred years B.C., described the cotton tree and the manufacture of the product into cloth. Although this is the earliest known historical mention, it is likely that the Hindoos had long before known the use of cotton. But it was not until the fifteenth century that cotton machinery was first invented and per- fected and thereafter the increase in cotton importation was enormous. Until the time of King Henry VIII the distaff was the only cotton spinning instrument used in England, and the spinning wheel is said to have been invented in 1530, although some authorities claim that this device was originally brought from India, and then came into use supplying yarn for the handloom weavers.
The invention of the fly shuttle in 1733 gave such an impetus to domestic hand- loom weaving that the spinning wheel could not keep up with the demand for yarn, but the invention of the spinning Jenny, a development of the spinning wheel principle, supplied the need for
faster yarn production. The great inven- tor of cotton machinery was Richard Arkwright, born in Preston, England, in 1732, the year of George Washington's birth. Originally a barber and later a manufacturer of wigs and a dealer in hair, Arkwright finally turned his attention to mechanical pursuits. By 1769, he had perfected a machine with rollers for spinning cotton, secured a patent on his creation and moved to Nottingham, a manufacturing center. There he obtained capital from men of wealth, who per- ceived the merits of his invention, and he immediately proceeded to revamp the whole operations of manufacture in a small cotton mill which he started. The invention of roller spinning, as applied in the spinning frame by Arkwright, intro- duced an entirely new principle and was destined to revolutionize the industry wherever it was known.
The next event of importance in the manufacture of cotton was the invention, in 1779, of the mule or mule Jenny, a combination of Arkwright's roller spin- ning frame and the original spinning Jenny. Then came the power loom, invented in 1785 by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright, a clergyman. These and many other inventions and improvements stimulated the demand for cotton to a great extent. Until near the close of the
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eighteenth century three fourths of all the cotton used in England came from the West Indies. Following the close of the Revolutionary War and the estab- lishment of peace between England and this nation, the reports of all these inven- tions induced planters in the southern sections of the United States to attempt an extended cultivation of the cotton plant, which had previously been grown there only on a small scale for domestic use. But the difficulty of separating the seed from the fiber was so great that it was a day's work for one person to pro- duce a pound of clean cotton staple. It can readily be seen that, under such cir- cumstances, the extensive raising of cotton for market was heavily handi- capped.
Now we shall see how Rhode Island had a hand in overcoming this serious obstacle. Following the sudden death of General Nathanael Greene, born and raised in Rhode Island and second in command of Washington's Continental Army, Greene's young widow continued to live on the estate presented to the distinguished Rhode Island Revolution- ary hero by Georgia. This estate was called "Mulberry Grove " and was located on the Savannah River about fourteen miles above the City of Savannah, where the General's remains rest today. Cath- erine Littlefield was born on Block Island in 1754; she was married to Nathanael Greene in 1774, and the couple first lived in the lovely old homestead in Coventry that is still standing today.
Following a trip north, after her hus- band's death, Catherine Littlefield Greene made the journey back to the South accompanied by her children. It was on this return trip that she made the ac- quaintance of a young man, a graduate of Yale and a native of Massachusetts. His name was Eli Whitney and he was on his way to enter the employ of a Savannah gentleman as a tutor. After he reached his destination he was disappointed to learn that his salary was to be far less than he had anticipated and so, with no resources, he resolved to return North. Mrs. Greene had become interested in the young man (he had mended her children's toys and amused them on their long
journey together) and, learning of his predicament, extended him an invitation to visit the Greene plantation at Mul- berry Grove. He accepted and while there overheard several former army officers discussing the need for some sort of mechanical device that would suc- cessfully clean cotton.
At the suggestion of Mrs. Greene, young Eli Whitney soon began to experi- ment in the basement of the house, the only persons in the secret being Mrs. Greene and Phineas Miller, who subse- quently married the General's widow. When Whitney believed that he had a practical machine, he called Mrs. Greene to come and watch it in operation. Full of interest and enthusiasm she watched the crude contrivance pull the cotton from the seeds. Overjoyed the two eagerly observed the working of this original cotton-gin, and then disappointment ban- ished their high hopes. The cotton fibers massed against the wires until the teeth of the machine were clogged. Whitney was completely discouraged, but the young widow rushed quickly to the fire- place and, so the story goes, snatched up a hearth brush and with it cleared the wires of the clogging fibers. Whitney then con- structed another cylinder with a brush attachment and this device practically perfected the cotton-gin, an invention that stimulated cotton cultivation vastly, and rendered profitable the labor of slaves on the plantations. At the end of the last century cotton exports were two thousand times as great as they were in 1794, one year following the invention of the cotton- gin.
Cotton spinning machinery was not introduced into America for many years after Arkwright had obtained his first patent because England did everything during the Colonial period to discourage manufacturing on this side of the Atlantic. There were two objects in this policy: first, to keep the Colonists dependent upon the mother country, and second, to provide a market and insure profits to English merchants and manufacturers. Even after the Revolution, it was a serious offence to export machinery, tools, imple- ments, etc. from England, and individuals were fined and imprisoned for attempts to
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thwart the law of the Kingdom. The influx of foreign goods after the Revolu- tion drove domestic products in a measure out of the market, discouraging and throwing into bankruptcy many of the pioneer manufacturers. To overcome this condition a knowledge of improved meth- ods and machinery was essential and this great American want in the cotton indus- try was supplied by Samuel Slater, whose achievements mark the beginning of an industrial era on the American continent.
Samuel Slater was born in Belper, Derbyshire, England, June 6, 1768, and at the age of fourteen apprenticed himself to Jedediah Strutt of Milford, near Bel- per, to learn the art of cotton spinning. This apprenticeship expired in 1789 and it was about this time that his attention was attracted to the lack of efficient machinery in America and to the bounties which were offered to inventors and manufacturers. With his mind filled with facts and figures, but with no drawings, descriptions or models of cotton spinning or carding machinery, he sailed from London and arrived in New York on November 18, 1789. Thus a youth of 21 brought the first accurate knowledge of the world's finest automatic machinery, which his experience, skill and remarkable memory enabled him to reproduce in America and put into successful operation at a time when all other similar efforts had utterly failed.
He worked a short while in New York and shortly learned through a sea captain that Moses Brown was anxious to promote cotton spinning and the construction of machinery at Providence. Slater at once wrote to him offering his services as "a manager of cotton spinning" and stating that he could build machinery and make as good yarn as could be made in England, but he preferred to accomplish this on Arkwright type of machinery. Moses Brown replied at once and offered Slater all the profits above the interest of the money and the wear and tear of the machinery, for a period of six months, if he would perfect the machines that he had and operate them successfully. Slater accepted and went to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with Moses Brown, but when he saw the American-made machines which
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