USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. III > Part 4
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His career in this exciting service was brilliant and reached a high point in the year 1522 when he captured a treasure ship which Cortes, Conqueror of Mexico, was sending to the Spanish king. The value of the vessel and its cargo amounted to millions, much of it being made up of the spoils of Montezuma's palace. With the capture of this ship the eyes of the French king were at last opened to the enormous treasures which Spain con- trolled across the Atlantic. He quickly perceived that any delay in joining the great tide of exploration and conquest in America would be disastrous for France. It is amusing to note that this French monarch, with a keen sense of humor, wrote to his contemporary, the king of
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Spain, and inquired why it was that France was neglected when the world was divided between Spain and Portugal. He asked if Adam, the first man, had left a will and testament designating these two kingdoms as his sole heirs. Naturally, no answer was made to this facetious inquiry, so the king of France sent for Verrazzano and directed him to go out in search of lands which contained gold and precious stones, and to look for a through passage to China.
At the start of this historic expedition, sometime in 1523, Verrazzano had four ships under his command, but a severe storm totally disabled two of these, and the other two were forced to seek shelter on the coast of Brittany. When the two remaining ships had been repaired, Ver- razzano cruised southward along the coast of Spain; but, by the time he reached the Island of Madeira, he had decided to make the voyage to America with just one ship, the "Delfina." Sailing from Madeira, on January 17, 1524, he had with him fifty men, provisions for eight months, arms, a supply of munitions, and a store of naval supplies. In twenty-five days he had sailed westward eight hundred leagues, encountering one terrific storm but other- wise the voyage was quiet and unevent- ful. Changing his course slightly north- ward he covered four hundred more leagues before land was sighted. The spot where he first dropped anchor before proceeding northward up the coast of North America, was in the vicinity of Wilmington, North Carolina.
In the account which this Italian navigator rendered to the king of France upon his return, he constantly mentions the lack of harbors along the coast, which necessitated the sending of a small boat to the shore whenever the crew wished to barter with the natives. This absence of harbors did not appear to endanger navigation, for nearly everywhere along the coast the water was deep enough to anchor the "Delfina " a short distance off shore.
Verrazzano stopped at the mouth of the Hudson River to engage in some more bartering and finally sailed the shores of Long Island, on the ocean side ; he passed what has since been named Block Island,
and entered the mouth of Narragansett Bay. This region seemed to attract him more than any other visited. He found the harbors excellent, and he was greeted in a friendly manner by the Indians who approached the ship in small boats and uttered strange cries, which, of course, he could not understand. Having first won the friendship of these Indian inhabitants by throwing trinkets to them, Verrazzano finally induced them to step upon the decks of the "Delfina." Both men and women were the finest specimens of natives he had yet seen. He reported that they were extremely good tempered and generous, and not only helped the white strangers to move the ship to a safe anchorage, but also supplied the com- mander and his crew with all provisions needed. Verrazzano was greatly im- pressed with the fertility of the soil in the country that surrounded the lower end of the Bay ; he found plains adapted to any sort of cultivation, luxurious trees, some bearing fruits and nuts, and great num- bers of deer and other wild animals. Especially did he notice the wild grapes which grew in abundance when crudely cultivated by the natives.
After a stay of fourteen days he de- parted from Rhode Island waters, sailed northward along the shore for a few leagues, then turned seaward and headed for Europe. Despite the fact that he did not discover a northwest passage to China, he believed he had, for he concluded that North America was a group of islands and not a continent. Giovanni da Verrazzano did not live to achieve more glory and greater knowledge of lands and waters on this side of the Atlantic, for on his second voyage to America he was captured by the Spaniards and taken to Colmenar, Spain, and there put to death in 1527. Neverthe- less, he was either the first or the second white man to come to what is now Rhode Island, and a great many people believe that the distinction of being the first be- longs to him.
The first definite information about Rhode Island was supplied by Verrazzano. His maps were destroyed but he succeeded in returning some important and detailed notes to his sponsor, Francis I of France. Verrazzano named Block Island "L'isle de
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Louise" in honor of the king's mother, and Maggiollo, who later assembled all known facts concerning the New World, desig-
nated the present Point Judith as "Cape de Saint Joani," a name that gave honor to Verrazzano's patron saint.
THE FIRST SETTLER
L' ITTLE is known of William Blackstone's early life in England. Even the date of his birth has been lost in the shadow of the more illustrious Sir William Black- stone of legal fame who may or may not have been of the same family. The first records of William Blackstone of Rhode Island connection are those that include reference to his education in England. It is known that he received his degree of Bachelor of Arts from Emanuel College, Cambridge, in 1617, and his Master of Arts degree in 1621. He was ordained an Episcopal clergyman in 1621 and two years later joined an expedition to found a New England colony, with headquarters at or near Boston, having jurisdiction, civil and ecclesiastical, over all settle- ments in the New England section of America. The expedition arrived at its destination and a settlement was started, but it received so little backing from the mother country that the leaders soon gave up and returned home. William Black- stone remained and, in about 1625, settled at Shawmut, now called Boston, and built the first house erected there. This pioneer homestead stood on the west slope of Beacon Hill, on land now bounded by Beacon and Charles Streets, and faced the public park lands today known as Boston Common. He lived alone, traded with the Indians, cultivated gardens and tenderly nursed his apple trees, said to have comprised the first apple orchard in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. According to one historian, Blackstone's nearest neighbors were the Walfords at what is now Charlestown and Samuel Maverick, a trader, who lived at what is now East Boston. Although Blackstone was still a member of the Established Church of England and a recognized official in that denomination, he was a true Separatist, openly declared his inde-
pendence and rebelled against the rules and regulations of the lord bishops back in England.
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In 1630, Governor Winthrop and his group of prospective colonists arrived from England and established a settle- ment on the north side of the Charles River at a spot where Charlestown is now located. Later, when many of the Winthrop band fell sick because of the lack of pure water, Blackstone crossed the river and invited them to make their homes within his territory where there were many untainted springs that gushed ample supplies of fresh water. It must have been with a great deal of surprise that these weary and discouraged settlers made the acquaintance of this hospitable stranger, for they hardly expected to find an Englishman already established in a land regarded by them as an absolute wilderness. They were also surprised to observe that he wore the garb of an Eng- lish clergyman, and this habit of his must have been hard for them to understand when he explained that he had left Eng- land to escape the tyranny of the poten- tates of the English Church. It is evident that Blackstone's quarrel was not one of doctrine but of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over individuals.
At any rate, Winthrop and his party crossed over into the section where Black- stone lived, built houses there, and called the place Boston, after Boston, England, the home of some of the company. Ac- cording to tradition these invited guests later attempted to oust their host on the pretext of having a grant to the lands from the king. It is said that Blackstone replied to this ungracious attempt as follows: "The king asserteth sovereignty over this New Virginia (that was the name then applied to the lands along the Atlantic coast) in respect that John and
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Sebastian Cabot sailed along the coast without ever landing at any place; and if the quality of sovereignty can subsist upon the substratum of mere inspection, surely the quality of property can subsist upon that of actual occupancy which is my claim." Whether or not those were his actual words, the contention is charac- teristic of his ingenious logic and inde- pendence. However, the records show that each member of the Boston Colony paid him six shillings for his rights to the land, and he retained a few acres for his own use. On this land of his he continued to maintain his residence, his apple trees flourished and so did the roses that he imported from England.
Blackstone remained in the midst of the Boston Colonists for five years although he consistently refused to join with them. Doubtless his social activities were not particularly pleasant, for he was quoted as saying on one occasion: "I came from England because I did not like the lord- bishops, but I cannot join with you be- cause I would not be under the lord- brethren." It was all too clear to him that there was intolerance within and without the church, and like Roger Williams he soon discovered that the Puritans, with all their good intentions, had added little to man's liberty of actions or of conscience here in this new land whence they had come to escape persecution.
Finally, in 1635, urged by his desire to pursue a sequestered life of contemplation and study, in addition to other reasons, William Blackstone invested his small capital in cattle, and with his few belong- ings, including his precious books, he set out into the wilderness in search of a new home. He took with him one companion, named Abbot, from whom Abbot's Run in Cumberland takes its name. This little expedition of two men and a few head of cattle, including a bull, followed the Indian trails and finally came to a place called Wawepoonseag by the Indians. There a settlement was established in a territory without a single white inhab- itant. It was then a part of Rehoboth, and is now Cumberland. His home was built at the foot of a three-terraced hill near present Lonsdale. On the second terrace he dug a well, and on the top a
shelter was erected which was called a study. Consequently the hill became known as "Study Hill." Of course, one of the first things he did was to plant fresh shoots from his Boston apple trees and slips from his imported English rosebushes.
In this new and lonesome abode Black- stone pursued his philosophical studies, and his library consisting of eighty-six volumes occupied the bulk of his time and attention. His books as well as his writ- ings were destroyed after his death when his home was burned in an Indian attack in 1675. He, like his contemporary Roger Williams, had no trouble with the Indians at any time, for he probably respected their rights and looked upon them not as savages and enemies but as neighbors. Despite the fact that William Blackstone has been referred to in many histories as a recluse, or as an eccentric, he did not re- main a bachelor. After he had become well established in the shadow of Study Hill he frequently made journeys to Boston, riding on a bull, and these visits finally resulted in his marriage to Sarah Stevenson, the widow of John Stevenson. The wedding ceremony was performed in 1659 by Governor Endicott, the groom preferring a civil magistrate to a minister of the Boston church, which he persisted in refusing to join. Mrs. Stevenson had a son John by her first marriage, and she also gave the name of John to her son by the second marriage. This caused con- siderable confusion in the family records as time went on. John Stevenson was given fifty acres of the Blackstone farm after the death of his stepfather, while John Blackstone became somewhat dissi- pated and squandered his heritage of the land. But the latter eventually settled down to a respectable life in Branford, Connecticut, where his descendants ac- quired a high place in public esteem.
Mrs. Blackstone died in 1673, two years before her pioneer husband, and both were buried at the foot of Study Hill. It is interesting to read what Stephen Hopkins, the distinguished citizen of Providence, once said about William Blackstone: "Mr. Blackstone used frequently to come to Providence to preach the gospel. .. . . Many of the trees which he planted about 150 years ago are still pretty, thrifty fruit-
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bearing trees." These visits referred to by Mr. Hopkins were made when William Blackstone was quite old. He did not walk easily and therefore rode a bull on these excursions. Some people of his time looked upon him as a radical, but the children all loved him because he always brought them sweet, rosy apples, the first they had ever seen or tasted.
His case is an interesting one especially since little or no space is devoted to him in the history books. He was the first white inhabitant of Boston and the first of Rhode Island. He maintained his devotion to the principles of the Estab- lished Church of England but he refused to submit to the intolerance of those who attempted to force religion upon him by civil decree. Later when he found himself among refugees who sought to escape religious persecution, and they continued
to allow intolerance to persist in their own circles, he sought liberty in the wilderness and there found what he had long sought. And with it all he stood as a keen thinker, a true apostle of pure religion, a rugged character of unflinching purpose, one of those rare individuals who maintain ideals in the face of obstacles to which weaker souls succumb. In no way can he be classed as a great leader in man's age-long struggle to gain true liberty and freedom of conscience, but he was one who wanted such privileges and he persisted in his en- deavors until his ideals had been attained to their fullest degree. It seems proper that William Blackstone found absolute independence of the individual man in things of the spirit in lands that are today a part of Rhode Island, the acknowledged birthplace of full and complete religious liberty.
ROGER WILLIAMS
TT WAS one of those dreary, gray Febru- ary days in the year of 1631 when a small English ship suddenly appeared in Massachusetts waters and stolidly made her way into Boston harbor. The same "rockbound coast and woods against a stormy sky" that had met the wondering gaze of their Pilgrim forerunners lay be- fore the eyes of the little group of people that huddled on the deck of this stranger from the seas. These people had sailed westward from England to come to the Colonies, where they might escape per- secution because of their religious beliefs. Here in this new land they sought liberty and the freedom to worship God in the way they pleased.
Of this band of Puritans there was one who received an unusually warm welcome from the members of that sect which had already settled in New England. He was Roger Williams, a young clergyman. He was known to the colonists, who had often heard him referred to as "a godly min- ister."
Roger Williams was born in London about 1603, the son of James and Alice
(Pemberton) Williams; his father was a merchant tailor. He was graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1626, and immediately thereafter became deeply interested in theology. To Cambridge, where Williams attended college, there had migrated from Holland many Ana- baptists and Mennonites who had preached the doctrine of severance of Church from State. This idea appealed to him strongly and soon he was completely won over to that belief, in spite of almost universal opposition to its tenets. His extremely radical views on this momentous question of the times brought him into great disfavor with his friends and asso- ciates, and presently he began to consider that unknown land across the Atlantic, whither the Nottinghamshire Pilgrims had embarked on their great adventure several years before. Now, the Winthrop company of Puritans were soon to set out for the land of Massachusetts Bay, and Williams turned his eyes in the same direction, determined to renounce for- ever the land of his birth with its associa- tions.
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Shortly after his arrival he went with his wife to Salem, Massachusetts, where he accepted the pulpit in the local church. Because he had completely left the Eng- lish church, and since the Boston church had never separated entirely from the Church of England, Williams was able to retain his appointment in Salem but a very short time.
From the very beginning - even before Williams had left his mother country - he had had a warm spot in his heart for the American Indian. In England, he had read of these unfortunate red-men in the new land across the sea. He had heard of the miserable way in which they lived, knowing little or nothing about God and religion; he felt sorry for them and made up his mind that some time he would do his best to assist them.
Here in Massachusetts among the Indi- ans, his love for them and his interest in their welfare provoked increasing criti- cism, and it was but a short time after his arrival that the colonists pointedly cen- sured him for his radical activities. There were but few men in Massachusetts who believed that this country rightfully be- longed to those who first were here. Roger Williams was one of those who had that opinion and his ideas were a great offence to the Puritans. It seemed like treason to him to say that the land rightfully be- longed to the king, and that the heathen savages had no right to it. In spite of the colonists' great terror of the Indians who lived about them, Williams felt no fear of the savages. He spent days and weeks at a time among them learning their ways and language; he tried to teach them about God and how to live better and cleaner lives. His whole life was devoted to helping them and lifting them above the station in which the white man seemed willing to have his red neighbors remain.
The Indians in New England belonged to one large main tribe known as Algon- quins, and this tribe was subdivided into several smaller tribes, of which the Narra- gansetts were the most friendly. Among the Narragansetts Williams spent most of his time, where he developed a warm friendship for the powerful but very bash- ful Canonicus. All this increased his unpopularity with the Puritans, and more
so, perhaps, because he disagreed with them in regard to all their ideas of church and government. He was always quar- relling with them over some point of law or religious belief. On the subject of punishment for breaking church laws, Williams was at sword's point with the Puritan fathers. He believed that the magistrates had no power to punish people for not attending church or for breaking the Sabbath day.
Hatred of Williams and his views in- creased until it was decided that the Colony no longer had room for him; he was such a trouble maker that the Colony could never hope to have peace as long as he was permitted to remain and air his disturbing doctrines. Finally an order was issued that he must leave and take abode elsewhere, far from the Massa- chusetts Colony. Because of illness at the time the order arrived, the annoying crusader was not deported at the time specified, and was allowed to remain at his home until the spring of 1636.
In the meantime he continued his radical preaching and campaigning, and many colonists became his ardent follow- ers. This news eventually reached the ears of those who had permitted him to extend his period of grace, and they decided to end matters then and there. He was to be kidnapped secretly and sent away on a ship to England where the authorities would make sure that he ceased his mischief. Luckily Williams got wind of the plot, and, at a minute's notice, he disappeared into the wilderness accom- panied by one lone companion, his faithful servant, Thomas Angell. Leaving behind him home, family and his few friends, he cast his lot with Angell, and the two wandered about from place to place for nearly fourteen weeks.
Most of this time the two refugees plodded through the snow and ice on foot, and at times they paddled aimlessly along New England streams in native canoes. Starvation and death by freezing faced them at every turn during the cold wintry months of lonely wandering in search of food and shelter. They managed to exist until spring, when the two found it easier to procure food, but still Williams feared to make his appearance in Massachusetts.
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The only way out seemed to be to make a settlement in some place where he might build a home for his wife and family, and where he might live in peace among his beloved Indians, far from the discordance of English life.
At last he decided to locate his settle- ment on the east bank of what is now the Seekonk River, somewhere in the present town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. A short while after he had established him- self, five of his devoted followers came out to join him and make their homes in more pleasant and peaceful surroundings. It is said that this handful of pioneers found conditions in the Colonies about as dis- tasteful as had Williams, and for much the same reason.
Hopefully they went to work to improve living conditions in the home of their adoption. Lumber was hewn for the homes that they had planned, gardens were laid out, and the soil was prepared for sowing the seed. Everywhere about them lived friendly Indians who tolerated their presence without the slightest sign of hostility. Williams' friends in the forest seemed to value his friendship and take an interest in his good fortune and safety. About the time he decided to send for his wife and children, an event occurred which made it seem as though nothing but ill luck stood in the way of the "godly minister," who loved Indians better than he did his white brothers. Williams was advised in a letter from Governor Winslow of Plymouth that the place selected for a settlement was in territory under the jurisdiction of Plymouth Colony. Ex- pressing his regret over the circumstance, the Plymouth Governor ordered Williams to break up his settlement and depart.
Sad of heart and disappointed, the plucky little band gathered together their few belongings and loaded them into the one canoe they owned. Forsaking their half-built homes, the seeded gardens and crude wilderness improvements, they reluctantly paddled out into the lonely river which marked the western boundary of the Colony from which they had just been ejected. Where to go they did not know, so they paddled the heavily loaded canoe toward the opposite shore. Out- lined against the sky like a painted scene,
a motionless and formidable group of warriors loomed suddenly before the gaze of the startled strangers as they ap- proached the shore. Little hospitality appeared in the attitude of these stony- faced Indians until their spokesman shouted the greeting which Rhode Is- landers have come to regard as the friendliest of welcomes.
"What Cheer, Netop?" That greeting was the turning-point in the fortunes of Roger Williams. It represented the corner stone of the State that was to evolve from the incident.
Williams answered the natives in their own tongue, and in conversation with them learned that he had come to the land of his friend, Canonicus, and his mighty tribe. This was cheering news to the wanderers, for Canonicus was still a close and trusted friend of Williams. They knew that a warm welcome awaited them wherever Canonicus' word was law. With smiling faces and lighter hearts they paddled back into the stream, and followed the shoreline south in search of a convenient landing place. This they found after rounding what is now known as Fox Point and coming up a short dis- tance along the Moshassock River. At the point where three bodies of water converge, they disembarked and carried their goods ashore. Here again they were confronted with surprised natives who plainly showed their goodwill toward the white men. The Indians expressed a desire to have the strangers remain and settle among them, and, as a token of their friendly feeling, a meal of fish and corn was spread before them. Of this the red-men and their white brothers partook with a sincere spirit of mutual friendli- ness.
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