USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 10
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The New London Turnpike (1816) followed the Greenwich road (Elmwood and Reservoir avenues) in Cranston (page 28), starting at the town line (Parkis Avenue) and continuing through the towns of Warwick, Coventry, West Greenwich, Exeter, Richmond, Hopkinton, and Westerly into Connecticut.
The Norwich and Hartford turnpikes (1803) started from the Providence-Johnston line (Olneyville Square). The former followed the Plainfield road (see map, page 27), continuing along the Johnston-Cranston boundary and through Scituate, Foster, and Coventry into Connecticut; and the latter was constructed on the lines of the present Hartford Avenue and was extended through Johnston, Scituate, and Foster to Killingly, Connecticut.
The Woonasquatucket Turnpike (1810) was a continuation of "a four-rod road" (Atwells Avenue), laid out by the Town Council in 1809 from Aborn Street to the North Providence line at Woonasquatucket river. It ran through North Providence over Atwells Avenue, terminating at Manton Avenue.
The Powder Mill Turnpike (1815), named for a Revolutionary powder mill in North Providence, started at the Providence-North Providence line (near Holden Street) in extension of Broad Lane (Smith Street) and followed the present Smith Street and Putnam Avenue to Greenville where it connected with the Glocester (1804) and West Glocester (1794) turnpikes which continued to the Connecticut line.
The Douglas Turnpike (1807) ran northwesterly through North Providence on the lines of the present Douglas Avenue, from the town line near Orms Street, and continued in a nearly straight line through Smithfield, North Smithfield, and Burrill- ville into Massachusetts. A Branch of that turnpike, now Branch Avenue, followed the lines of the Wanskuck road (page 23) easterly to Moshassuck river.
The Louisquisset Turnpike (1805) started from Charles Street at the Providence- North Providence line near West River Street and followed Charles Street and the old Louisquisset road (page 15) through North Providence and Lincoln to the village of Limerock.
13. Frederick J. Wood, The Turnpikes of New England (Boston, 1919).
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1812-1822
The Smithfield Turnpike (1823) followed the old highway (Smithfield Avenue), stated in 1683, from the Branch Turnpike through North Providence to Saylesville in Lincoln.
The Pawtucket Turnpike (1807) started at the Providence-North Providence line (Cemetery Street) on the east side of the old Pawtucket road (page 15) and ran to Pawtucket falls. Both the old road and the turnpike are incorporated in the present North Main Street.
The East Turnpike (1825) was built in extension of Hope Street, north of Olney Street, and followed the present Hope Street and East Avenue into Pawtucket.
The Taunton Turnpike (1825), chartered in Massachusetts, started at the easterly end of India Bridge in Rehoboth (now East Providence) and followed the present Taunton Avenue to Taunton, Massachusetts. The approach to the bridge from Provi- dence was over Hope and India streets.
The first steamboat in Narragansett bay, after the brief career of Captain Ormsbee's Experiment in 1792 (page 57), was the Firefly which made trips between Carrington's Wharf14 and Newport in 1817. President James Monroe was a passenger when he visited Providence on June 30.15 Regular sailings to New York commenced two years later in the Fulton and in 1822 the Rhode Island and New York Steamboat Company was organized with two boats making semi-weekly trips with stops at Newport. In 1827 Richard Borden of Fall River organized a steamboat line, under ownership of the Fall River Iron Works Company, between that town and Providence. Coastwise trade had been maintained, since 1800, by lines of packets16 transporting both passengers and freight. In 1825 lines were running from Providence to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Albany, Hartford, and Boston as well as local lines in Narragansett bay to Newport, Bristol, Fall River, East Greenwich, and Wickford.17
Overland transportation was provided by stage coaches which made daily runs over the turnpikes to Boston, Worcester, Hartford, Taunton, New Bedford, and New York. In some cases they were operated in connection with the packets as, for example, a line from New York to Boston which went by water to Providence and thence overland to Boston.18 In 1829, during a part of the summer, 323 stages were operating weekly to and from Providence, exclusive of purely local lines.19
The First Congregational Meeting House, erected in 1794, was destroyed by fire June 14, 181420 and, pending its replacement by a new building, church services were held in the original edifice (page 26) that had been sold to the town 20 years previously.
The new First Congregational Church, designed by John Holden Greene, was built on the site of the burned meeting house. The cornerstone was laid May 29, 1815 and the church was dedicated October 31, 1816.21 It is rectangular in plan, with a wide front vestibule containing stairs to the main floor and the gallery. The forebuilding is treated as a portico with Doric columns set close to the wall, resting on pedestals, and the entablature is broken by a great arched window with Gothic tracery. A stone clock tower stands above the roof
14. Located at the foot of Transit Street. 15. Greene, p. 74.
16. The earliest packets were sloops and small schooners, succeeded after 1820 by steamboats.
17. Field, II, 506. 18. Ibid.
19. Charles H. Dow, History of Steam Navigation between New York and Providence (New York, 1877),
p. IO.
20. Providence Gazette, June 18, 1814.
21. From the records of the First Congregational Society. The name was changed to First Unitarian Society in 1953.
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WEYBOSSET SIDE
of the vestibule from which an octagonal steeple rises 200 feet above the ground (illustration below). The main walls of the church are granite with Gothic windows. In the interior the ceiling is in the form of a dome supported, together with the galleries, by four Corinthian fluted columns.
Three churches were erected in 1822, namely, the First Methodist at the corner of
R.I.H.S.
First Congregational Church, 1815, corner of Benefit and Benevo- lent streets.
Clifford and Chestnut streets, the Third Baptist on Tockwotton Plain (the present corner of Wickenden and Hope streets), and the Fourth Baptist at 20 Howell Street (C. P. Hartshorn, architect). The congregations of these churches were merged with others and only the latter building was standing in 1950, for some years known as Ahavth-Sholem Synagogue.
Friends School22 was opened, in 1819, in a building designed by John Holden Greene, 22. Established in Portsmouth, in 1784, as the New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School.
86
1812-1822
located on a 43-acre tract of land extending from Hope Street to Featherbed Lane (Arlington Avenue) which had been donated by Moses Brown to the Society of Friends in 1814.23 The school house was built of brick and consisted of a center building, 312-stories high, flanked by two 212-story wings, with a basement under the whole. A small Doric entrance vestibule, reached by a high flight of granite steps, led to the center building and an octagonal spire rose from its gable roof. The building was greatly enlarged and altered in later years, new buildings were erected on the grounds, and the name was changed, in 1904, to Moses Brown School.
Brown University acquired in 1822 a parcel of land directly north of the original tract (page 43), extending along the present Waterman Street from Prospect to Brown. On that site the university's second academic building was erected with funds given by Nicholas Brown, Jr., and was named Hope College after the sister of the donor.24 It has brick walls, four-stories high, rising from a granite base, and the center of each facade has a slight projection with a pedimented top. Certain changes in technique from the Colonial traditions of the original College Edifice are noted, including the elliptical toplights, with granite trimmings, over the entrances, and granite window lintels (see illustration, page 88).
In 1820 the Manufacturers' and Farmers' Journal was founded as a semi-weekly news- paper, to be succeeded by the Providence Daily Journal whose first issue appeared July 21, 1829, with a printing office located in the Coffee House (page 58) on Market Square. Publication of the Providence Gazette25 was discontinued in 1825, when it was consolidated with the Rhode Island American (established 1808), and the latter newspaper was continued, under various names, until 1854.
The use of the public highways by pedestrians at night time was somewhat hazardous and "it was not uncommon to meet persons in the evening, wending their way through the streets, over the uneven sidewalks, making sure of their steps by the flickering light of hand lanterns."26 Accordingly, public safety measures were taken by the Town Council in directing the erection of oil lamps on the principal streets, in 1820, and by appointing a committee on sidewalks, two years later, for the purpose of "making the rough places smooth and the crooked straight in the foot-ways of the town." Its initial project was on South Main Street, where flagstone sidewalks were laid, replacing the cobble stones which previously had extended across the street from house to house.27
In 1822 the Town Council appointed Zachariah Allen and Elisha Dyer a committee to procure up-to-date fire fighting apparatus,28 with the result that a suction engine was purchased, together with 1000 feet of hose. The engine was named Hydraulion No. I, was manned by a volunteer company of the same name, and was housed in a wood building, with a tower, erected at the present northwest corner of Exchange Place and Exchange Street.
23. R. W. Kelsey, History of Moses Brown School (Providence, 1919).
24. Bronson, p. 172. Mrs. Hope Ives, wife of Thomas P. Ives, was Mr. Brown's only surviving sister.
25. See page 41. John Carter retired as editor and publisher of the Gazette shortly before his death in 1814 and was succeeded by William Wilkinson. The office had been moved from Shakespeare's Head to the Coffee House in 1793.
26. Staples, p. 386. 27. Greene, p. 74.
28. Ibid, p. 122. Volunteer fire fighting was organized in 1759 by the appointment of fire wards (see pp. 36, 60). A hook and ladder company was organized in 1820.
87
Courtesy of the Brown Alumni Monthly
Hope College (1822) and University Hall (1770), from a drawing by James Kidder, c. 1828.
CHAPTER 9 1822 -1832
A SECOND map of Providence by Daniel Anthony (page 90), bearing the date 1823, shows a substantial expansion in the highway pattern. The southern part of the Neck was developed as far as Hope Street on the east and George Street on the north. On Weybosset side the built-up area extended southerly to Point Street, westerly to Tan Yard Lane (Dean Street), northerly to Fountain Street, and northwesterly along Atwells Avenue, Federal Street, and Abbott (Aborn) Street toward the cove.
The publication of this "new, elegant and accurate map of the town" and the activities of a committee, headed by Edward R. Young, in "numbering the houses in the most important streets and procuring signs for such streets as required them" provided incentives for the publication in 1824 of the first Providence Directory. This was undertaken by Brown and Danforth at their printing office, "3 South Main-street," and contained "the names of the inhabitants, their occupations, places of business, and dwelling houses, with lists of the streets, lanes, wharves, &c, also banks, insurance offices, and other public institutions, the whole carefully collected and arranged."1 The directory listed 2,958 persons2 and the highways, in addition to 117 "streets" and five "alleys," included Market Square, West- minster (Washington) Row, Atwells Avenue and Cheapside. The latter was a name given to a shopping center on the west side of North Main Street, north of Market Square (illustration, page 91). It was there that Watson and Gladding began its career at the "Sign of the Bunch of Grapes" in 1805, succeeded by B. H. Gladding Company, now located at 291 Westminster Street.
The erection of three important buildings on Market Square in 1823-24, all designed by John Holden Greene, gave the former Town Parade a distinctly metropolitan aspect. Charles Potter acquired the former Ephraim Bowen lot (page 48) at the northeast corner of College Street and built a hotel known as Franklin House (illustrations, pages 120, 180). The facade facing the square was composed of a stone basement with brick walls rising four stories above it, crowned by a gable with raised wall between the end chimneys and a lunette window in the center. The entrance was in the center of the basement, with stores on either side, and a stone stairway led from the entrance hall to the main floor of the hotel, which was entered also at grade from a 20-foot gangway leading from College Hill to a courtyard at the east end of the building. Mr. Potter also acquired the Pardon Bowen house, adjacent on the hillside, and connected it with the hotel by means of a two-story unit carried across the gangway on large wooden lintels. Franklin House was considerably altered and made a part of the Helen Rowe Metcalf Building of the Rhode Island School of Design in 1936 (page 257). The lot facing Market Square north of Franklin House, where the Joseph Jenckes house (page 48) stood, was purchased by the Roger Williams Bank (incorporated 1803) which erected a five-story business building there in 1824 (illustrations,
I. The directory was re-printed by Sampson, Murdock and Company in connection with the 250th anniversary observance of the settlement of Providence, in 1886.
2. The names were confined to white males over 21 and white females who were heads of families. The estimated population of Providence in 1824, according to the directory, was 15,000, including about 1,400 colored persons.
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1822-1832
pages 92, 180). Its facade was composed of windows, separated by granite piers, and was crowned by a parapet with a rectangular sculptured panel. This building was fabricated in skeleton construction, with a frame of heavy timbers bolted to the granite facing, in much the same technique as modern steel construction. It was demolished in 1912 and replaced by the People's Savings Bank (page 228). On the north side of Market Square a four-story business building, later known as Granite Block (illustrations, pages 91, 92), was erected in three units, separated by party walls, somewhat similar in exterior treatment
R.I.H.S.
Cheapside, from painting by George W. Harris, 1843. Granite Block (1823) at left.
and method of construction to the Roger Williams Bank Building. The western part, abutting the Coffee House (page 58), was owned by John Larchar, the next by Potter and Russell, and the eastern unit, at the corner of Cheapside, by Holden, Wood and Butts. The building was razed in 1939 and replaced by the School of Design Auditorium (page 265).
In 1824 the town of Providence inherited, by will of Ebenezer Knight Dexter, the greater part of his property, estimated at a value of $60,000, to be applied to the support of the poor.
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WEYBOSSET SIDE
Administration of the bequest, which included two farms, one on Hope Street and the other on Cranston Street, was entrusted to the Commissioners of Dexter Donation.3 Dexter Asylum, a three-story stone building, designed by John Holden Greene, was erected in 1830 on the 38-acre Hope Street estate. It was composed of a center section, crowned by a gable roof and cupola, and flanking wings. Alterations made in 1870 provided additional stories but changed the Classic design to that of the French Empire. The asylum grounds, encircled by a mile-long stone wall, were still maintained in the heart of the East Side residential district in 1957.4 The Cranston Street property, comprising about ten acres, was conveyed to the town for purposes of a training field for militia.
R.I.H.S.
A view of Market Square c. 1823, from engraving of membership certificate in the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers, by Annin & Smith.
The highway system on the swamp land west of Providence river followed a different pattern from that on the opposite shore (page 83). Dyer Street5 was laid out in 1825 starting at the slip south of Long Wharf (Custom House Street) and extending southerly to intersect Eddy Street south of Ship Street (see map, page 93). Three gangways running southeasterly from Weybosset Street, platted by the Proprietors in 1717 (page 24), were extended to Dyer Street and identified, respectively, as Butler's (Hay Street), Peck's (Peck Street), and Lippitt's (Orange Street). Docks were built opposite the gangways from Dyer Street to the Harbor line. Muddy Dock (page 35) was filled and Dorrance Street6 was built from
3. Staples, pp. 390-392. In accordance with the bequest Dexter Town Meetings are held annually, on the third Saturday in December, to vote upon its administration.
4. In that year the sale of Dexter Asylum was under consideration by the city.
5. P.B., I, 47. Originally identified as the "New Street."
6. Daniel Anthony, Map of Muddy Dock Street, July 8, 1812; Benoni Lockwood, Plat of Dorrance Street Association Lands, October 24, 1827.
92
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R.I.H.S.
A view of the cove from Smith's Hill, 1827, from an engraving by J. P. Murphy.
1822-1832
the river to Weybosset Street. Central Wharf was constructed, extending southeasterly from Dyer Street to the harbor line, and a brick store house was built upon the wharf (see map, page 93) which survived until the 1940's.
The docks and slips east of Dyer Street served a useful purpose for nearly 100 years. With the gradual abandonment of steamboats in the upper harbor during the present cen- tury, however, those water front areas, like the ones on the opposite shore (page 84), be- came obsolete and eventually were used for automobile parking.7
Although the cove had been closed to sea-going vessels by the erection of a fixed bridge in 1816 (page 83) its use for shipping was revived, temporarily, upon construction of Blackstone Canal from Providence to Worcester, Massachusetts, a project intended to provide better means of transportation between the two towns and to stimulate the develop- ment of the villages along Moshassuck and Blackstone rivers. The Blackstone Canal Company, incorporated by the Rhode Island General Assembly in the June session, 1823, was authorized "to locate, construct and fully complete a navigable canal, with locks, tow paths, basins, dams, wharves, embankments, toll houses, and other necessary appendages" from the cove to the Massachusetts line. A Massachusetts corporation was given similar authority in that commonwealth. Organization was effected in May, 1825, subscriptions to stock were filled, and work was commenced under the auspices of a board of commis- sioners consisting of Edward Carrington, Stephen H. Smith and Moses B. Ives.8
While construction of the canal was under way various public improvements were made in the vicinity of the cove (see map, page 93). Canal Street (page 58) was extended from Steeple Street to Smith Street in 1825,9 40 feet wide with a retaining wall built along the east shore of the cove, and Cove Street was constructed on what is now the south roadway of Exchange Place. Two bridges were built by the Providence Washington Insur- ance Company (page 62), 1827-29, under authority of the town; one was located north of and parallel to Weybosset Bridge, extending Cove Street easterly to Canal Street, and the other was erected over the west bank of the river, connecting the Cove Street Bridge with Weybosset Bridge and coinciding with the present Washington Row. A public fish market, established in 1819 in a wood building north of Weybosset Bridge on Canal Street (illus- tration, page 92) was moved to a point just north of Cove Street Bridge in 1828.10
A causeway, with a roadway and bridge, was built from Canal Street, opposite the jail11 (Haymarket Street) northwesterly across the cove to its north shore, terminating at a point near the present Gaspee Street (see map, page 93). The waters above the causeway were appropriated by the Blackstone Canal Company for a boat basin, and a tidal lock was built adjacent to Canal Street at the eastern end of the causeway.12 The first of 49 canal locks was erected in Moshassuck river, a short distance north of Mill Bridge, near the site of the falls where the first town mill was established in 1646 (page 7). The tow path was on the east bank, passing under the Smith Street and Mill bridges. The canal followed Moshassuck valley as far as Scott's pond in Lincoln and continued to Worcester along Blackstone valley. It was opened July 1, 1828, when the packet Lady Carrington,
7. Plans for re-developing the area were under way in 1956.
8. Report of Blackstone Canal Company, May 7, 1828.
9. C.C. Records, 11, 299.
II. The County Jail was erected in 1799 in replacement of its predecessor of 1753. See page 35.
12. Report of Blackstone Canal Company, May 7, 1828; Map of the Blackstone Canal and its Appendages as constructed in the year 1828, compiled from actual surveys by Ed. E. Phelps, Resident Engineer, owned by the Lonsdale Company; Record Book No. I, p. 89.
10. Greene, p. 74.
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WEYBOSSET SIDE
drawn by two horses from the boat landing on Canal Street, made the trip to Worcester, returning the day following.13 The canal was used for about 20 years and was abandoned soon after the inauguration of the Providence and Worcester Railroad in 1847 (page 115).
A brick market house, later identified as Canal Market, was erected in 1826 at the corner of North Main and Mill streets, as a private venture. The basement was occupied
BOARD OF TRADE.
R.I.H.S.
Whitman Block, 1825-1912, Turks Head
by stores, the main floor by the market, the second floor by the Merchants and Mechanics Bank (incorporated 1827) and the top floor by a large hall, used occasionally for public meetings.14 In the following year another brick market house, two stories high, was built at the junction of Broad (Weybosset) and Pawtuxet (Broad) streets. For many years that highway intersection was known as New Market Place. Neither of these markets survives.
13. Field, II, 498.
14. . Staples, p. 375.
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1822-1832
By the year 1827 Westminster Street had become closely built up on both sides as far west as Aborn Street15 with wood houses predominating, interspaced here and there by more substantial brick buildings. The largest structure was Whitman Block (illustration, page 96), a three-story brick building, erected at Turks Head in 1825 on the site of the former Jacob Whitman house (page 40), a part of which stood until replaced by the Turks Head Building in 1913 (page 227). Nearly opposite, at the northeast corner of Westminster and Exchange streets, stood the Hamilton Building (illustration, page 136), a brick three-story business block erected about 1824 which survived until 1870. The Washington Insurance Building (page 62) was at the corner of Washington Row. Farther west, at the corner of Union
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