USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 11
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From an anonymous photograph
Benjamin Hoppin house, 1816 - c. 1875, corner of Westminster and Aborn streets.
Street, was the First Universalist Church, erected in 1825 on the site of its predecessor (1822) which had been destroyed by fire May 24, 1825. The church, designed by John Holden Greene, was brick and a steeple rose from its roof; it was demolished in 1872 and the site is now a part of the Boston Store.16 The Providence Theatre (page 60) was at the corner of Mathewson Street where Grace Church stands. The most distinguished dwelling on Westminster Street was built by Benjamin Hoppin in 1816 (illustration above) at the corner of Snow Street, designed by Greene with three-story brick walls and a low hipped roof and deck, the cornice crowned by a balustrade. Its unusual feature was the front, which had a stone terrace and a two-story Corinthian porch in the Colossal order, with curves
15. Westminster Street, Providence as it was about 1824, from drawings made by Francis Reed, a publication of the Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, 1917).
16. Boston Store was established by Callender, McAuslan & Troup Co. on Westminster Street in 1866. A building was erected 1873 (William R. Walker, architect), subsequently enlarged and altered.
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concentric with those of two bay windows and repeated in the fence upon the lot line. The house was replaced by Hoppin Homestead Building in 1875 (page 155).
The first monumental business building was the Arcade, erected by Cyrus Butler and the Arcade Realty Company in 1828. This structure, designed by Russell Warren and James C. Bucklin,17 and extending through to Weybosset Street, instituted a Greek revival in architectural technique that was destined to supersede Colonial traditions. Its walls were built of granite, 216 feet long, with center projections giving the plan the form of a cross. At each end is a portico, 74 feet wide and 15 feet deep, with six Ionic columns, set between
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The Arcade, 1828, Weybosset Street.
square antae or pilasters, from which stone steps descend to the sidewalk. Above the entablatures the two street facades differ, Bucklin's Westminster Street end having a pediment and Warren's end, on Weybosset Street (illustration above), having an attic or parapet. The shafts, cut by Joseph Olney at Bare Ledge quarry in Johnston, are 21 feet high and three feet wide- the largest monoliths in America at the time of erection. They were hauled to the building site on low gears or sledges, drawn by many yokes of oxen. A corridor extends through the building, open to the skylighted roof, flanked by three stories of shops, those on the upper levels fronting on balconies which are reached by flights of
17. Russell Warren (1784-1882), born in Tiverton and a resident of Bristol, was a self-trained architect and the earliest exponent of the Greek revival in Rhode Island. James C. Bucklin (1801-80) served an appren- ticeship with John Holden Greene and later entered partnership with William Tallman, a builder and dealer in lumber. Bucklin was architect of the Westminster Street half of the Arcade and Warren was retained by the Arcade Realty Company for the Weybosset Street half.
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stone stairs in the porticos. The Arcade was threatened with demolition in 1944, but escaped the building wrecker through its purchase by the Rhode Island Association for the Blind as an investment for its capital funds and as a historic monument.
Bucklin again used the Greek temple motive in the design of Westminster Congrega- tional Church, erected on Mathewson Street in 1829. This was a stucco-covered stone building with a prostyle portico composed of eight fluted Ionic columns and an entablature, all of wood. The building was discontinued as a church when the society erected Woodbury Memorial Chapel on Adelaide Avenue in 1902. The portico was removed and the building altered as a motion picture theatre, later remodeled for business uses.
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Candace Allen house, 1822, 12 Benevolent Street.
During the closing years of the Early Republican period of architecture the works of John Holden Greene were of particular significance for their monitor roof design, a technique effected by raising the central hipped roof section to provide a row of small attic windows on all four sides. Three dwellings have survived which were erected, respectively, for Candace Allen (1822) at 12 Benevolent Street, Truman Beckwith (1826) at 42 College Street (now the Handicraft Club), and Benoni Cooke (1828) at 112 South Main Street (the Old Stone Bank annex). These houses are brick, two stories each, and follow the Colonial plan of a central hall and end chimneys (plan C, page 46), with wings and stable yards. The Allen and Beckwith houses have front entrance porches, the former Corinthian and the latter Ionic, each with an elliptical window in the second story over the porch (see illustrations,
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pages 99 and 128). The Cooke entrance is on the side, a story above a stone basement (now a banking room), and reached by a long flight of stone steps. Originally this was one of a pair of similar houses with a common courtyard; the other, built for Rufus Greene, was demol- ished in 1898.
The monitor roof was also adopted for small wood houses in which the entrance and hall were in a corner. The William Watson house18 at 69 College Street (razed 1954), attributed to Greene, had corner quoins and a fine entrance with elliptical toplight framed with colonnettes. A similar entrance survives at 116 Hope Street.
Actuated by the rapid increase in population and the apparent need of a change in the form of municipal government the freemen of Providence petitioned the General Assembly in 1829 for a city charter. This was granted, subject to approval of three-fifths vote of the freemen, but failed of ratification by ballot February 15, 1830. In September, 1831, serious riots took place in Olney's Lane and Smith Street that were not broken up until the state militia had been summoned. Town meetings were held at which the riots were attributed to inefficiency on the part of the town government, and the question of a city charter was re-opened with the result that over 70 percent of the freemen voted on October 22 in favor of the charter. On November 22, 1831, an act to incorporate the City of Providence was passed by the General Assembly, and went into operation June 4, 1832. Inauguration of the new city government took place on that date in the hall of the House of Representatives at the State House (the former Colony House), when the oath of office was administered to Samuel W. Bridgham, the first mayor.
Under the city charter Providence was divided into six wards,19 for each of which an alderman and four councilmen were elected who, together with the mayor, constituted the administrative authority. In principle the mayor and the Board of Aldermen took over the powers of the former Town Council; the Common Council, representing the citizens, exercised control of matters formerly requiring approval of the town; and the two boards in convention assumed the activities of former town meetings.20
18. This was for many years the home of Mr. and Mrs. Sydney R. Burleigh. Mr. Burleigh, a distinguished water-colorist, erected a studio, Fleur-de-lis House, at 7 Thomas Street in 1885 (Stone, Carpenter & Willson, architects).
19. The ward boundaries were approximately as follows: Ward 1, the upper East Side north of Lloyd Avenue, and the area between Moshassuck river and the North Providence line north of Woonasquatucket river. Ward 2, the middle East Side, from Lloyd Avenue southerly to a line zigzagging from Power Street to Pitman Street. Ward 3, the lower East Side. Ward 4, the West Side south of Woonasquatucket river, east of Dean Street and north of Westminster and Weybosset streets. Ward 5, the West Side, south of Weybosset and Broad streets, east of Plain Street, and west of Providence river. Ward 6, the western part of the West Side. 20. Field, III, 83.
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CHAPTER 10 1832 - 1845
A T the time Providence received a city charter Andrew Jackson was President of the United States and 20 states had been admitted to the Union, extending the territory westward to Mississippi river. Rhode Island was composed of five counties and 31 corporate municipalities and its governor, elected under the Royal Charter of 1663, was Lemuel H. Arnold of Providence. The city's population numbered about 17,000 and its
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CITY HOTEL
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City Hotel, 1832-1903, Weybosset Street.
area included about 512 square miles, with 60 miles of streets, the more important of which were lighted at night by oil lamps. Fire protection was provided by volunteer fire companies equipped with hand engines and stationary force pumps. A night watch performed the functions of a police department.
The City Hotel (illustration above) was erected on Broad (Weybosset) Street in 1832, a four-story building with a well-proportioned facade and a Greek Doric entrance
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porch, which received distinguished patronage for many years.1 Other hotels in operation at that time included Hoyle Tavern (page 54), Mansion House (page 55), Franklin House (page 89), Manufacturers Hotel (page 48), American House (southwest corner of North Main and Steeple streets), National House (North Main Street, opposite School of Design Auditorium), and Providence Hotel (North Main Street, north of Thomas Street).
Following the repeal of the school act (page 62) by the General Assembly in 1803 Providence maintained public schools without state assistance until a new act was passed in 1828. Under provisions of that act a new school committee of 21 members was elected with exclusive control of the schools. When the city charter was adopted there were twelve public schools with a total enrollment of 1200 pupils.2 An ordinance was passed in 1838, involving broad principles and important changes in the school system, including the establishment of graded schools and the creation of the office of superintendent of schools
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Standard primary school design, 1842, by Tallman and Bucklin.
to which Nathan Bishop was appointed in 1839. Following passage of the ordinance a committee was named to make an examination of the public schoolhouses, and reported that all of them were "unfit for use in their present condition ... either too small, too delapidated, or too badly constructed to be worth rebuilding." Forthwith a building com- mittee was authorized to proceed with a construction program of new buildings and alterations, and engaged Tallman and Bucklin as architects. That firm prepared standard plans for graded schools (illustration above) and, by the close of 1842, six grammar and
I. The City Hotel adjoined Teutonia House (page 79) on the east. It was torn down in 1903 and replaced by a unit of the Outlet Company.
2. Staples, pp. 512-513. The schools were incorporated into five districts, each with a writing (grammar) and a primary school. The writing schools were located on Meeting Street (Brick Schoolhouse), Benefit Street (Whipple Hall), Transit Street, Claverick Street and Pond Street. There were, in addition, one writing and one primary school for colored children.
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ten primary schoolhouses were erected.3 Typical of the grammar schools was the Benefit Street School, erected on the site of Whipple Hall (page 62), a two-story brick building, 70 by 40 feet in area, enlarged in 1893 and still in use in 1950 at the corner of Benefit and Halsey streets.
The first high school (illustration below) was built at the corner of Benefit and Angell streets and was dedicated March 20, 1843.4 It is a three-story building, designed by Tallman and Bucklin, with walls of granite and pressed brick, a Classic pilastered entrance, and a low gable roof. It was purchased by the state and enlarged for a normal school in 1877 (page 152) and later was occupied, successively, by the University School, the Rhode Island
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High School, 1843, 205 Benefit Street, later known as Supreme Court Building.
College of Pharmacy, the Rhode Island Supreme Court and, more recently, by social service agencies.
The functions of stage coaches, for the carriage of passengers and freight, were challenged upon the advent of the steam railroads. Long distance routes were the first affected while local lines continued to operate until horse cars (page 132) made their appear- ance in the Civil War period.
3. "A Brief Sketch of the Establishment of the High School," C.D. No. 29, 1878, pp. 3-9.
4. C.D. No. 29, 1878. Nathan Bishop, Superintendent of Schools, was principal of the high school.
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The first steam railroad line to operate out of Providence was the Boston and Provi- dence, incorporated in Massachusetts in 1831. Rails were laid from Boston through Attleboro, East Junction and Rumford and followed the east shore of Seekonk river, then a part of Massachusetts, to a spot opposite India Point. Subsequently the Providence Railroad and Transportation Company, chartered in Rhode Island, erected a bridge across Seekonk river, a short distance below India Bridge (page 83), over which the rails were
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Boston & Providence Railroad carriage.
extended to a terminus at India Point where a passenger depot and wharves were erected.5 The two companies were merged in 1853.
The first passage over the route from Providence to Boston was made, somewhat prematurely, June 2, 1835. The engine, delivered from a firm in Philadelphia the day before, proved defective and each of the two cars was drawn, instead, by a pair of horses as far as Canton, Massachusetts, where the rails were blocked by an uncompleted viaduct. The passengers were transported a short distance by stages and completed the journey
5. The depot stood at the foot of Ives Street until destroyed in the hurricane of September 21, 1938 (page 270). See illustration, page 106.
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to Boston by steam power.6 After a few days the railroad was operating without inter- ruptions (illustration, page 104).
In 1837 a railroad was opened from Providence to Stonington, Connecticut, by the New York, Providence and Boston Railroad Company, incorporated 1832. The rails approached Providence from the south over the route now followed by the main line and the Harbor Junction Branch of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and continued over Pawtuxet Turnpike (Eddy Street, page 84) to a terminus on a wharf opposite the end of the present Crary Street, from which passengers were ferried to the Boston and Providence depot at India Point. The opening of the road was celebrated at Stonington, November 10, 1837, upon arrival of the steamboat Narragansett which had sailed from New York with invited guests the previous evening. The party left Stonington in two trains of "superb cars" and by means of the locomotives Stonington and Little Rest they "sped rapidly over the course on their way to Providence."7 The railroad was opened to the public November 17 with trains scheduled to leave Stonington Wednesday, Friday and Sunday mornings, after the arrival of the steamboat from New York, and to leave Providence Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons on arrival of the "New York trains of railroad cars from Boston."®
The two terminals in Providence, and the connecting ferry, were maintained until a through railroad line was opened in 1848 (page 115) and, during that period, the India Point section (page 57), a scene of commercial activity during the seafaring age, again became a busy center. In the year in which the railroad depot was opened a large dwelling, erected about 1810 by J. B. Mason, son-in-law of John Brown (page 57), on the site of the present Fox Point School, was converted into a hotel known as Tockwotton Hall (illustration, page 106). This was an imposing three-story building, surrounded on three sides by a Doric portico and crowned by a square cupola in the center of the roof. It was purchased by the city in 1850 and converted into a reform school (page 123); it was razed in the 1880's.
The Boston and Providence Railroad proved a stimulus to steamboat traffic between Providence and New York, as appears by advertisements in the Manufacturers' and Farmers' Journal, in 1837. The New York and Boston Steamboat Company operated the Providence and Benjamin Franklin with daily trips from Fox Point to New York, and the Boston and Lexington were run by rival companies. The Tremont mail coach from Boston made connection with some of the steamboats.
The General Assembly passed an act at the January session, 1837, requiring that whenever any flat, shoal, or piece of land covered with tidewaters, within the limits of the city of Providence, thereafter should be filled in, a permanent stone wall should first be erected at the water line of same to prevent the filling from being crowded outward into the public waters.9 The provisions of the act led to the extension of the stone retaining walls bordering Providence river north of Fox Point and, eventually to the erection of walls for the confinement of the cove basin (page 115).
By direction of Mayor Bridgham a committee made an investigation, in 1838, as to the state of Weybosset Bridge and the one "next north" (Cove Street Bridge, page 95). In its report, dated November 5 of that year, recommendation was made that both bridges should be "repaired and rebuilt of wood of the best materials gravelled and paved upon the most approved plan." Subsequently a petition was filed with the City Council for widening Weybosset Bridge 30 feet on the south side thereof, which was protested March 1I, 1839
6. Manufacturers' and Farmers' Journal, June 8, 1835. 7. Ibid, Nov. 13, 1837.
8. Ibid (advertisement). 9. Report of the Commissioners of the Cove Lands, 1877, P. 171.
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View of India Point, c. 1840, from a drawing made from a painting in possession of the Rhode Island Historical Society. Railroad depot in right foreground; Tockwotton Hall above.
PROVIDENCE, NORFOLK AND
BALTIMORE STEAMSHIP LINE
MERCHANTS AND MINERS TRANSPORTATION CO.
From Greene's Providence Plantations
Lonsdale Wharf, India Street, c. 1885
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by a committee of freemen of the city, including Nathaniel Bishop, Joshua Mauran and 46 others, on the ground that the proposed widening would "greatly impede if not entirely prevent vessels and boats from landing and marketing their cargoes of fish, vegetables and fruit so essential to their convenience and so necessary for the inhabitants of our common city."10 Action was delayed until 1843 in which year Weybosset Bridge was rebuilt, 135 feet in width, 40 feet wider than the preceding span.11
Architectural design, during the 1830s, underwent a transition from Colonial precedent to a Greek revival, as illustrated by two contemporary houses still standing on Brown Street. The Goddard house (No. 38) originally was a square three-story hipped roof block, following traditional motives, with its entrance on George Street. The Moses B. Ives house (No. 10), originally entered from Charles Field Street, was similar in plan, but the two-story walls were stuccoed and the pedimented roof ends were Greek-influenced. Chancellor William Goddard of Brown University added a large wing to the Goddard house in 1881 (Stone and Carpenter, architects), including a Doric entrance porch. To the Ives house a service wing and a piazza were added in 1870. This house was given by Mrs. Henry G. Russell, daughter of Mr. Ives, to the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island as a bishop's residence in 1898. Chancellor Goddard's house was deeded in his memory to Brown by his daughter, Mrs. C. Oliver Iselin, in 1940.
The Greek revival had its origin in England in the latter part of the 18th century. Its techniques were exemplified in architectural books containing measured reproductions of many of the temples of ancient Greece, the facades of which were copied to serve as frontis- pieces for buildings in which modern requirements were accommodated.12 The earliest temple design in Providence was the Arcade (page 98), erected in 1828, whose associated architects, Russell Warren and James C. Bucklin, became the leading exponents of the Greek revival in subsequent years.
The temple form of facade, including a pronaos or portico, was used in the design of Manning Hall, the Greene Street School, and Providence Athenæum, the first two prostyle in form, having full length colonnades, and the third in antis, its columns enclosed between the projecting side walls. Manning Hall (illustration, page 108), erected on the Brown campus in 1834 and named for the first president of the college,13 was designed by Bucklin who took as his model the temple of Diana-Propylea in Eleusis. The building, designed for a library and a chapel, is stucco-coated and has four fluted Doric columns rising from a stylobate or platform on the principal facade, crowned by an entablature and pediment ornamented by academic details. In contrast with the Arcade, where the temple design is confined to the two street facades, Manning Hall has four exposed walls and a continuous entablature.
The Providence Athenæum (illustration, page 109), designed by William Strickland of Philadelphia, was erected, in 1838, at the corner of Benefit and College streets. The library was founded in 1831, with headquarters first established in the Arcade, and was merged with the Providence Library Company (page 28) and incorporated in 1836. The facade of the two-story granite building, less academic than that of Manning Hall, has a recessed portico on the second or main floor level, reached by steps rising between two
10. C.C. Papers, March 11, 1839.
II. C.E., Plan showing River Lines and Street Lines between Crawford Street Bridge and Weybosset Bridge, No. 040215, July 15, 1914.
12. A. D. F. Hamlin, A Text-Book of the History of Architecture (New York, 1904), p. 354.
13. James Manning, 1765-91.
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Doric columns. The ground floor, entered by side doors, was designed to accommodate the Providence Franklin Society by which it was used until 1849. The main floor was altered to its present status, with alcoves and galleries, in 1867, from plans by Bucklin and an east wing, designed by Norman M. Isham, was added in 1913. A drinking fountain, donated by Mrs. Anna Richmond, was set up in front of the building in 1873.
Greene Street School, erected in 1837, was noteworthy for its portico, composed of six Doric columns. This private school, of which B. F. Jacobs and Miss Sarah S. Jacobs were principals, included on its faculty such distinguished educators as Margaret Fuller and Richard Harding Dana.14 The school was discontinued after ten years of operation; it is no longer standing.
Courtesy of the Brown Alumni Monthly Manning Hall, 1834, Brown University.
In many buildings of the Greek Revival period the traditional portico and columns were omitted and the walls were divided into vertical panels by antae or pilasters, crowned by an academic entablature and gable roof. Of such design was the State Prison (see map, page 117), erected in 1838 at Great Point,15 on the west shore of the cove. It was a two-story
14. Mason Wade, Margaret Fuller, Whetstone of Genius (New York, 1940).
1 5. When the cove basin was constructed in 1845 Gaspee Street was opened from Smith Street to the prison. The site later became a part of the grounds of the Rhode Island College of Education (page 194).
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building composed of a keeper's house, its small entrance porch set in the center of the pedimented facade on the east, and a cell block extending toward the west. A north wing was built in 1839 for a county jail, superseding the former jail on Haymarket Street (page 95) and a south wing was added to the prison in 1852. The group of buildings was maintained until the present State Prison was opened in Cranston in 1878.16
In the design of Rhode Island Hall, erected on the Brown campus in 184017 for the Department of Natural History and other sciences, architects Tallman and Bucklin departed from the academic plan by placing the entrance in the side wall, and providing an enclosed vestibule projecting from the center of the building. A rear wing was added in 1875.
Courtesy of Providence Athenaeum
Providence Athenaum, 1838, 251 Benefit Street.
A small cabinet at 68 Waterman Street, designed for the Rhode Island Historical Society18 by Bucklin and erected in 1844, has a facade framed by corner pilasters and a
16. Field, III, 460.
17. The site was a parcel of land, south of the original college tract, donated by Nicholas Brown, Jr., in 1840. It was adjacent to the lot whereon the Edward Dexter house was then standing (page 64). Mr. Brown was a generous contributor to the cost of building Rhode Island Hall and the president's house, erected the same year on Prospect Street where John Hay Library now stands.
18. The formation of the Historical Society had its inception at a meeting held April 19, 1822, in the office of Judge William R. Staples, when means were considered for the collection and preservation of Rhode Island material. The society was incorporated in June, 1822, by Jeremiah Lippitt, William Aplin, Charles N. Tibbetts, Walter R. Danforth, William R. Staples, Richard W. Greene, John Brown Francis, William G. Goddard, Charles F. Tillinghast, Richard J. Arnold, Charles Jackson, and William E. Richmond. Before erection of the cabinet meetings were held, successively, in the State House, the counting house of Brown and Ives, and the Arcade.
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