USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. IV > Part 16
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elaborately painted, which stood before most cigar and tobacco shops. If we go back a number of decades we will find this quite an ordinary procedure, this an- nouncement of the stock carried by a shop, heralded graphically in its sign. And then it was the custom for the dealers of a bygone day to refer to their shops in their advertisements with the familiar phrase "at the sign of." Thus, we find such expressions as "At the Sign of the Bunch of Grapes," "At the Sign of Shake- speare's Head," and so on through a hun- dred more. A few of these expressions have secured a fixed place as business slogans, and, of course, a few of the old signs have come safely through the ruck of change to keep their place among the blatant announcements of this present day. It is upon one of these survivors that we shall reminisce for the moment - the long established Turk's Head that has given a name to a busy corner, a city block, and a tall modern office building, not to mention such other things as clubs and business establishments.
Every day, if he will crane his neck slightly, the passerby who braves the winds and traffic of the corner can look up and frown back with equal ferocity at the grim visage that looks on him with a gran- ite scowl from the façade of the Turk's Head Building. And after he has gazed for a moment at that savage face with its cruel eyes, weather-bitten skin, and sin- ister drooping moustache, he may wonder how such a face ever dared make its ap- pearance in Roger Williams' peaceful Providence. It is odd, is it not? - the personification of many a barbarous tale of a barbarous East, achieving a kind of immortality in a city founded in peace and tolerance.
Decades ago, in 1763 and before, the Turk's Head was not located on the pres- ent site, nor was it very much like the one
FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION OF ORIGINAL TURK'S HEAD ON DISPLAY AT RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
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STENCILS
RUBBER STAMP-STENCIL WORKS
A.GOFE
MONUMENTE
H&K
TIRI
S
FL
ANNERA
5
FLORIDA 4
41.2
Courtesy, Town Criers of Rhode Island
WHITMAN BLOCK, ERECTED IN 1820'S, ON PRESENT SITE OF TURK'S HEAD BUILDING.
we see today. This is the second of two to be carved and so displayed. The first was of wood and by whom or when it was carved are questions that are still unan- swered. But we do know a little of its his- tory. In 1763, the following advertise- ment appeared in the Providence Gazette:
"Smith and Sabin, Hereby notify their Customers and others, that they have entered into Partnership, and have opened their new Shop called the Sultan, at the Sign of Mustapha, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, at the Corner near the East End of Wey- bosset Great Bridge in Providence, where they have a complete Assort- ment of European, East and West India Goods, which they will sell at the very lowest Rate, besides using their Customers in the most obliging Manner."
Evidently it was here that the name Turk's Head began its evolution. The "sign," spoken of in the advertisement, was not the carved head but merely a
painted head of a sultan, a more benevo- lent figure with an elaborate turban and flowing beard. It was then known as the Sultan's Head. The carving was set up later.
Various theories have been advanced in the past as to the origin of the carved head. Some have attributed it to local sculptors. The more romantic theory is that it was once the figurehead of an East Indiaman that sailed out its career be- tween Occident and Orient and finally came to an end at Providence, being dis- carded and dismantled. The firm of Smith and Sabin did own a vessel called the "Sultan," but that alone does not neces- sarily establish the fact we are seeking.
In 1750, a Mr. Whitman bought the tract of land now occupied by the Turk's Head Building and adjacent stores and built a house at the junction of what are now Westminster and Weybosset Streets. The second floor of this house had a large piazza facing on the front and north sides, and it was on a post at one corner of this piazza that the Turk's Head next made its
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appearance. Whether this was the same head as that formerly displayed by Smith and Sabin, we do not know but opinion seems to be that it was a copy. Yet it may well have been the one and same for the same tradition of its recovery from an old ship clings about it. This was the popular tradition. The Whitman family had the impression that the sign was copied from the carved head of a Turk, displayed above a printing establishment in Fleet Street, London, in the period around 1670. They believed that a printer who worked there brought the name, at least, to Providence. It was not until 1791 that Jacob Whitman, Jr., began calling it the Turk's Head.
But to go on with the story, the carving remained at the corner until the year 1815. In size it was a huge thing of hideous ap- pearance, the "head enveloped in a black turban, the eyes enormous, starting from their sockets, the nostrils distended as if breathing perdition and ruin, the mouth open, with beard and moustache, and the fiery tongue hanging out broad and long as if to lap up whole schools of human beings as they passed! It was painted in' the most exaggerated colors, and the terror
of all strange children, and was a never- ending subject of remark to the country people who came in to market."
At one time two old market women were overheard making the following com- ments. One said, "I do declare, 'tis wicked to have that 'ere head up there; if I was a man, I would shoot it down and not have it frightening folks' wits out." To which the other replied, "Oh ! no you wouldn't do no sech a thing, for it's the picture of the man of the home.".
In the Great Gale of 1815, the head was blown down and washed up into the old Cove, about where the railroad yards are now. Mr. Whitman believed it lost, but a while after the storm, when he and his son were out in a small boat recovering other wreckage, they sighted a large, black object drifting about and, upon investigat- ing, found it was the Turk's Head. Shortly afterwards the Whitman Building was erected, and the head reposed at the top of a column in front of it. From there it went into temporary seclusion in the cellar of the old Angell homestead at High Street and Love Lane, a house then owned by Mr. Whitman.
MUTUAL FIRE
PRINTING
MANUFACTORY.
BLANK 300X_BOWERS SIGN PAINTING
NCE CF WORCESTER MAAS
American wood Paper Co.
BUTLER MUTUAL FIRE INS. C. STATE BANK.
BAMLIN & CF
CKHAM
Courtesy, Rhode Island Historical Society 1
SIGNS OF TIMES GONE BY - LOOKING ACROSS TURK'S HEAD SQUARE AT LOWER WEYBOSSET STREET.
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In 1824, Mr. Whitman dug it out, dusted it off, perhaps repainted it a bit, and sent it to his son who had since moved to Montgomery, Alabama. There the son set it up in front of his place of business where it soon achieved a notoriety equal to that which it had had in Providence. One night a party of witty and hilarious young men took it down, packed it in saw- dust in a box, and sent it off to the gover- nor of Alabama with the information that it was the head of an Indian chief they had captured. Its rightful owner soon recovered it; and when he moved on to New Orleans, set it up anew. There it remained until such timc as he retired from business.
Its final ending is as vague as its origin. One story is that it was stored by its owner in a warchouse and destroycd when the warehouse burned down. Another is that it was not destroyed but passed on in some manner to the Cherokee Indians who set it up as an idol.
That is the account of the carving that gave the name to the corner and building of the present day. As far as we know,. there was no immediate predecessor, al- though undoubtedly stores located on or close to the site had pictures of a Turk's Head to use as business signs, and they probably kept the name alive after the generations who knew the original figure had passed on. At any rate, almost a cen- tury passed before the present piece of sculpture came into existence to preserve the name, "Turk's Head," for the future. The Turk's Head Building was erected in 1912, and it was then that the head and visage we know now was fastened in place.
Compared to his predecessor, our Turk is a mild barbarian, fierce as he may seem to us. At least he has closed his mouth and drawn in his tongue. But, for all that, he is savage enough to surprise our daily complacency and make us speculate on his ancestry.
BY COACH AND SIX
A FREQUENT winding of horns, snapping of whips, rattling, jouncing, swaying, splattering mud in the springtime, bucking drifts in the winter, stuffy inside, wet or freezing outside - such was stagecoach- ing in its hey-day. "Creaky, mud-covered old caravans," "diving bells," "distiller's vats," or "violoncello cases hung equally balanced between front and back springs riding like a "ship rocking or beating against a heavy sea; straining all her tim- bers with a low moaning sound as she drives over the contending waves" - these were terms used to describe the familiar coaches.
A traveler in Tristam's Coaching Days and Coaching Ways gives more detail relat- ing to stagecoach adventures:
"Inside - Crammed full of pas- sengers - three fat, fusty old men - a young mother and sick child - a cross old maid - a poll parrot - a bag of red herrings - a double bar- relled gun (which you are afraid is
loaded) - a snarling lap dog in addi- tion to yourself - Awake out of a sound nap with the cramp in one leg and the other in a lady's band box - pay the damage (four or five shillings) for gallantry's sake - getting out in the dark at the halfway house, in the hurry stepping into the return coach and finding yourself next morning at the very spot you had started from the evening before - not a breath of air - asthmatic old woman and child with measles - window closed in consequence - unpleasant smell - shoes filled with warm water look up and find it's the child - obliged to bear it - no appeal - shut your eyes and scold the dog - pretend sleep and pinch the child - mistake - pinch dog and get bit Execrate child in return - black looks - no gentleman - pay the coachman and drop a piece of gold in the straw - not to be found - fell through a crevice - coachman says
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'He'll find it!'-can't - get out yourself - gone - picked up by the ostler - no time for blowing up - coach off for next stage - lose your money - get in - lose your seat - stuck in the middle - get laughed at - lose your temper - turn sulky - and turn over in a horse pond.
"Outside - your eye cut by the lash of a clumsy Coachman's whip - hat blown off into a pond by a sudden gust of wind - seated between two apprehended murderers and a noted sheep stealer in irons who are being conveyed to gaol - a drunken fellow half asleep falls off the Coach - and in attempting to save himself drags you along with him into the mud - musical guard, and driver horn mad - turned over - one leg under bale of cotton - the other under coach -- hands in breeches pockets - head in hamper of wines - lots of broken bottles versus broken heads - cut and run - send for surgeon - wounds dressed - lotion and lint four dollars - take post chaise - get home - lay down - and laid up."
Perhaps this gentleman was crotchety and pessimistic, but he was not far wrong. Traveling by stagecoach was a distinct adventure. It was hard to prophesy what might happen - seldom that something or everything did not happen.
Stagecoaching began in 1736 in Rhode Island when Alexander Thorp and Isaac Cushno were permitted to run a stage to Massachusetts for a period of seven years. This was only sporadic, however, and the regular travel by this means did not get under way until Thomas Sabin began to run stagecoaches in 1767 between Provi- dence and Boston. They left Providence on Tuesdays and came back from Boston on Thursdays. Before this time the owner of a coach only made a trip when he was fully assured in advance of a full load of passengers. He would give plenty of notice and passengers would make as much fuss in preparation as a transatlan- tic passenger of today.
After the Revolution two stagecoaches a week were in service between Boston
and Providence, and with the develop- ment of the turnpike system (by which roads were built and owned by private corporations) they became common. Lines were extended from Providence to Taunton, New Bedford, Worcester, and Springfield as well as to New York and Boston, and the service offered became fairly efficient.
The almanacs of the day carried the time-tables for stagecoach travel to va- rious points, not only giving the starting and terminal points but all the way-sta- tions and mileages between. Taverns, the depots of the stagecoach lines, were listed with the names of the tavern-keepers. Thus in the New England Town and County Almanack for 1769 we find such notes as the following:
"The Norwich coach comes once a week from Mr. Azariah Lathrop's, in Norwich, to Dr. Samuel Carew's, on the west side of the Great Bridge, in Providence, where travellers will meet with the best enter- tainment. The stage performed in a day."
"The Providence coaches kept by Mr. Thomas Sabin and Knight Dexter, Esq., go twice a week from Providence to Bos- ton, performing their respective stages in a day."
Around 1793 Israel Hatch issued the following notice:
"ISRAEL HATCH
"Most respectfully informs the publick that his line of Stages will run every day in the week, excepting Sun- days. His Coach leaves Boston at 5 o'clock, and arrives at Providence by 2 P.M. The Stages from Providence start at the same early hour and ar- rive in Boston by 2 o'clock. Twenty- four excellent horses, six good coaches, and as many experienced drivers are always provided. The horses will be regularly changed at the half-way house, in Walpole. Passengers may be accommodated with places at the sign of the Grand Turk, No. 25 New- bury Street, Boston; at Mrs. Cather- ine Gray's, State Street; and in Provi- dence at Mrs. Rice's, the sign of the Golden Ball; or at Mr. Coggeshall's, the sign of the Coach and Horses *
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The increase in the number of packets docking and sailing from Providence had a marked influence on the stagecoaches, in- creasing their business tenfold. Passen- gers from Boston, Worcester, and Spring- field would generally come to Providence, hence to proceed by packet to New York. Many a race between rival coach lines gave a zest of excitement to this form of travel. Frequently a number of them would arrive in Providence at once all bound for the same boat and the sight of them thundering down the streets, lurch- ing precariously from side to side, crammed with passengers and loaded with baggage, the horses plunging and sweating, the whips snapping and the rival coachmen yelling and blowing blasts on their horns was enough to send townsfolk scurrying for safety in doorways. A large number of horses and coaches were always kept on hand at Copeland's old livery stable to meet the boats from New York and carry the passengers on to Boston. A signal system established at Field's Point relayed the information from boat to stable concerning the number of passen- gers aboard and the necessary coaches needed. Then there was a deal of hurry- ing and cursing, getting the horses har- nessed and the coaches rattling away to the wharf in time to be ready when the boat docked. In regard to the time made by such coaches between Providence and Boston, we find the editor of the Gazette in 1832 proclaiming in pride "we were rattled from Providence to Boston last Monday in four hours and fifty minutes including all stops on the road. If any one wants to go faster, he may send to Kentucky and charter a streak of lightning, or wait for a railroad, if he pleases.'
At this period the great center for the starting and arrival of coaches in Provi- dence was the area in front of the Manu- facturer's Hotel, where the What Cheer Block came to stand. Here sometimes as many as a dozen coaches, each with its six horses, would be drawn up waiting for the incoming stages. When these latter arrived and the business of transferring baggage and passengers, holding horses, and transacting business began, one can easily picture the grand confusion.
The number of passengers carried by
stage in those days was very large, con- sidering that only about a dozen could be crowded into a coach. Two lines alone transported 24,000 passengers between Boston and Providence in the course of a year. But by 1830 there had begun the . talk of a railroad. The coaches were be- ginning to be too slow. By 1840, the rail- road had come to stay and although the
Courtesy, Milton M. Cranston
TURNPIKE MILESTONE, SOUTH SIDE OF SMITH STREET, TWO MILES FROM CENTER OF PROVIDENCE.
stagecoach lines cut rates and did every- thing else to secure passengers, they were beaten at every turn. Flesh and blood could not compete with the "iron horses," and dirt turnpikes, no matter how smooth, could not be kept as smooth as steel rails. And so, within a very short period of time the stagecoach became obsolete. A few minor lines continued to run to sparsely settled districts in the country, places where the railroad did not touch. These were called "omnibuses" and had their
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vogue. But this type of travel was sent hustling into decline with the advent of the horse-car lines in 1863. Now, only in the very poorly inhabited country districts do we find the "omnibus," generally pick- ing up children and carrying them to
school. The stagecoach is now no more than a colorful item in the history of trans- portation. Its rattle and clatter and the echoing of the coachman's horn among the hills are locked in silence behind scores of years.
SHIPBUILDING
SHIPBUILDING, one of Rhode Island's first, and at one time, great industries, has come back to Bristol, to Warren and East Greenwich, and to Providence. When scores of ships, during World War II, slid from ways built at Providence upon new land, their hulls splashed into old waters, long accustomed to receiving fresh bot- toms destined to transport man and his goods, and to fight his battles upon the seas.
Is history repeating itself? Is it possible that these familiar, sheltered waters are on the way to regain their one-time inter- national prestige in the world of shipping and ship-building? And, if so, why not? Narragansett Bay, a great broad arm of land-protected sea, still stretches from an ocean front door far inland to the very heart of an important industrial and com- mercial center. On either side of this large deep water bay, the mouths of rivers, coves, inlets, harbors and little bays, at one time busy with the business of the sea, are just waiting, that's all, just waiting, to be something more than anchorages for pleasure boats and pleasant views for vacationists and for those who happen to live near the water.
Wherever the land meets the water from Napatree Point to Sakonnet Point, and on all sides of Narragansett Bay from Newport to Providence and beyond to the falls at Pawtucket, the shores of Rhode Island are ready to serve, whether that service be the building, supplying, fitting- out, the loading or unloading of ships, huge ships for the translantic trade, small ships for coast-wise commerce, or ships that fight for American honor on the seas. Of course, sea trade in the days of wooden sailing ships offers little comparison with modern shipping, now carried on in large,
deep draught engine-propelled ocean lin- ers, but, Narragansett Bay is yet on the main line of water traffic; it is at the source of industrial and commercial supply; all forms of modern land transportation ex- tend to its very shores. And, too, many of those who live in or near the once famous seaports of this once very much sea- minded colony and state, may have in- herited some of the spirit of daring, the salt water fever, the skill at making ships and the resourcefulness, all of which dis- tinguished our ancestors who, at an early date in Rhode Island's history, turned from the soil to that broad green highway that sweeps out past Brenton's Point to high adventure everywhere beyond the horizon.
The building of ships became a Rhode Island interest and activity within a few years after the settlement of Providence. Although no definite records show that any considerable amount of ship-building was done previous to 1700, yet the prob- abilities are that such small craft, sloops chiefly, as were used in the local trade with the Dutch and with neighboring Eng- lish colonies, were built on the large island down the Bay and at Providence. In Governor Cranston's reply to the English Board of Trade, dated 1708, it is reported that in eleven years previous to that date, eighty-four vessels of all sizes had been built in the colony, and of these the larger part evidently had been built for other colonies, as only twenty-nine were then owned by the colony. Less than seventy- five years after its founding, when prac- tically all of what is now Rhode Island was still an untouched wilderness, ships fashioned from the giant trees that grew right to the water's edge of Narragansett
FROM GRACE CHURCH SPIRE
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PROVIDENCE
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Courtesy, Rhode Island Historical Society
RARE VIEW OF PROVIDENCE SHOWING EXPANSE OF COVE. PHOTOGRAPHED FROM GRACE CHURCH SPIRE IN 1860.
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F
THE "CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON" A PIONEER STEAMBOAT FITTED WITH AUXILIARY SAILS AND WHICH RAN BETWEEN PROVIDENCE AND NEW YORK IN 1829. REPRODUCED FROM SERIES OF ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS OF FAMOUS RHODE ISLAND SHIPS BY JOHN P. BENSON AND ON DISPLAY AT EMPIRE-ABORN BRANCH OF THE PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS.
Bay had found a ready market among the colonial merchants.
Town records show that on many of the coves and harbors of the Bay, vessels were built during the early and middle years of the eighteenth century. At Providence, in 1711, Nathaniel Brown, who had been building vessels at Bullock's Cove, was granted, by vote of the town meeting, two half acres of ground on Weybosset Neck "so long as he shall use it for building vessels." This loca- tion is now downtown Providence, not far from present Exchange Place. Mr. Brown's Providence-built ships were sloops and schooners, the largest of which were in the neighborhood of sixty tons. They carried colonial exports to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, and even to the coast of Africa. From other records it is evident that a shipyard was in operation at or near present Fox Point in very early seventeen hundreds;
also that, before 1720, a John Barnes was filling orders at his yard near the foot of present Waterman Street. Incidentally, the schooner was an American invention, the first with that rig having been launched at Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1714.
About the middle of the eighteenth cen- tury, most of the shipbuilding was carried on along the banks of the Moshassuck River, in the vicinity of present Smith Street, which seems a long distance away from deep water now, but, no doubt, keels were laid, sawmills and forges erected as close as possible to the source of timber supply. There, ships, brigs and schooners were built to serve in the foreign com- merce of Providence and as privateers in the Spanish War.
In order to trace the evolution of Rhode Island shipping one must go to the records. In 1740, when Rhode Island was well past its 100th birthday, the Governor in his report to the English authorities, men-
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"THE OLD STONE BANK"
tioned the fact that approximately 120 vessels belonged to inhabitants of the colony, and all were employed in trade. No doubt, most of these, if not all, were built right on Narragansett Bay. Besides, Newport had sent out five privateers, with crews numbering about 400 men in search of ships flying the flag of Spain, then at war with England. At this point, it might be interesting to list some of the articles which these ships were transport- ing to the West Indies and elsewhere. From an old shipping book of the firm of Arthur Fenner & Company, dated around 1750, we come across the following varied assortment : butter, flour, potatoes, apples, pork, beef, bread, salt, salt pork, ale- wives, mackerel, tongue, cider, onions, cheese, peas, tobacco, rum, horses, sheep, hogs, oats, corn, boards, shingles, stoves, hoops, water casks, brick, turpentine, oil, tar, hog fat and tallow.
At the time of the Revolution, the mer- chants of Providence built their own ships. Brown & Francis and Brown & Ives built at their own yards at India Point the large vessels they employed in the East India trade, and Gibbs & Channing and the Champlains did the same at Newport. After the Revolution, shipbuilding was carried on quite extensively at Warren. The frigate, General Greene, of six hun- dred tons and carrying 32 guns was built there in 1799 for the United States Gov- ernment by Cromwell & Child. The pri- vateer, MacDonough, of 300 tons was built by Captain Caleb Carr at Warren in 1813 and sailed from Bristol. Captain Carr, in 1814, also built the U. S. Sloop of war Chippewa, of 411 tons and carrying sixteen guns. There were a number of yards about 1830 in Providence on the west side of the river where many large vessels were turned out. At this period the American, a vessel of 600 tons, was built at the foot of Peck Street, and on Eddy's Point, foot of Point Street, near present bridge, the Eliza and Abbey, of 200 tons, and the Rhode Island, of 400 tons, were constructed. Eddy's Point, by the way, was the scene of construction of many large vessels up to and beyond the middle of the nineteenth century, among them being the steamers, John W. Richmond and Kingston. The old
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