USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 13
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12I
E
E
Scale
OUCIAS
LINE
1936
Miles
TURNPIKE
SET
TURNPIKE
NECK
SINGH Point
Cemetry
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Zenards
North
Pand
Brutal
Joll Gate
HAWRING
Ground
H
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Toll Gate
Hospital
VICA ROAD
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Road
Friends
CHALKSTONE
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Derter -Asylum
U
HOPE
WOONASQUATUCKET
TURNPIKE
1000
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ROAD TO JAUZION
CONNECTICUT
TURNPIKE
00
H
Solitary Hill
HOAD 10
HARREN
Neutaconhanut Hill
TON
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Benedict Pond
"Pond
PUBLIC
00000
Tongue Pond
Mashapaug Pond"
"PROVIDENCE HARBOR
TURN PIKE
PAWTULET
Field's
PY
se
S
Brock
CITY LINE 1936 13º
NEW LONDON
TURNPIKE
Map of the
CITY of PROVIDENCE Rhode Island 1850
MESHANTICUT
Blackmore Pond
PAWTUXET
Fenner's Pond
State Planning Board 1936
John Hutchins Cady consultant - Wm A Perry del.
Adapted from Cushing and Walling map of 1849
Nail Rrad to Boston
TAUNTON
TURNPIN
TURNPIKE
Jerry
A
Grace
TIN
Church
emeter
The Firefty 1817
FEATHERDID LASE
Woonasquafucket
River
India
RIVER
T
TURNPIKE
DOLGlas
Butler
TURNPIM
FAST TURNPIKE TO PAWTUCKET
MO
TURNPIKE
Point
CITY LINE 1850
POWDER Mitt TERAPIAI
TINAL
Cena
Train
Grose
Spectacle Pond
R
1845-1860
pattern had been achieved, many of the cross streets were of such excessive steepness as to be almost impassable. The confinement of the waters of the cove into an elliptical basin was a help in overcoming the handicap imposed by the waterways. The Neck and Weybosset Side were now joined by three highway bridges and additional means of traffic were provided by the operation of river ferries, one crossing from James Street to Ship Street and the other from India Street to the New York, Providence and Boston dock. In granting a right of way to the railroads, however, with their tracks laid at grade, the City Council, unwittingly, was imposing another obstacle to the highway system that was to cause much trouble in later generations.
In 1850 the Providence Reform School was organized under control of a board of trustees of which the mayor was chairman. For a building the city purchased Tockwotton Hall, near India Point (page 105), and later extended its grounds by the acquisition of adjoining property. Control of the school was transferred to the state in 1880 and the institution was removed from Providence, two years later, upon completion of Sockanosset School for boys and Oaklawn School for girls, in Cranston.
A police force was established in 1851 by the appointment of ten men to patrol the streets in daytime, under direction of a city sergeant. The night watch (page 60) was reorganized and divided into five districts, with the central station quartered in the Town House (page 67) on College Street and the other stations located, respectively, on Charles, Wickenden, Summer and Richmond streets.
The volunteer fire companies15 were disbanded in 1854 when an ordinance was passed establishing a board of engineers, its staff consisting of a chief engineer, five assistants and 450 firemen. Most of the latter were subject to call, were paid for each fire answered, and were fined for each failure to report. A fire alarm telegraph system, invented by Charles E. Carpenter, a veteran fireman, was installed in 1860, connecting signal boxes with bells located in the fire stations, the Gardner T. Swarts tower on Dorrance Street and several churches. In that year the mechanical equipment comprised three steam fire engines and seven hand-engines, beside hooks, ladders, buckets, et cetera.16
In order to provide adequately for the increased size of vessels engaged in coastwise trade the channel of Providence river was surveyed in 1853 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and subsequently was dredged, south of Fox Point, to a depth of ten feet and a width of 100 feet. In 1867 the depth was increased to twelve feet and the anchor- age basin was enlarged. The improved channel facilities proved a stimulus to steamboat traffic and a good-sized fleet made regular runs from Providence to Nayatt, Warren, Bristol, Fall River, and Newport, as well as excursion trips to shore resorts at Rocky Point, Warwick Neck, Field's Point, Mount Hope, Portsmouth Grove, Smith's Palace, Walnut Grove, Vue de l'Eau, and Block Island.
An act in relation to the "laying out, enlarging, straightening or otherwise altering the streets in the city of Providence" was passed by the General Assembly in 1854 providing for the creation of a commission of estimate and assessment to determine the amount of damages to pay property owners, or the amount of benefits to assess them, when highway changes were anticipated. Under authority of that act the city embarked upon a major
15. See page 87. The companies and their locations were as follows: Hydraulion No. I, Exchange Street; Hydraulion No. 2, Haymarket Street; Eagle, High (Westminster) Street near Valley; Niagara, North Main Street north of Mill; Gazelle, Transit Street; Fire King, Summer Street; Water Witch, Benefit Street, south of College; Ocean, Richmond Street; What Cheer, Benefit Street opposite Arnold; Express, Carpenter Street; Hope, Codding Street; and Pioneer, South Main Street.
16. Greene, p. 122.
123
WEYBOSSET SIDE
highway improvement program. The two highways flanking Providence river - South Water and Dyer streets - were each widened to 40 feet (illustration, page 120); the Dyer Street project involved its extension northerly across the former Long Wharf to absorb West Water Street, and included the removal of the eastern end of the Union Bank Building on Market (Westminster) Street.17 In 1855 Dorrance Street (page 92) was extended from Weybosset Street to Exchange Place and North Main Street was widened to 60 feet from Market Square to Smith Street.18 Washington Street was extended westward to Knight Street in 1858. Broadway was improved, and became the city's broadest highway, 80 feet in width; it was laid out originally about the year 1834 from Sabin Street to Dean Street and later extended to Olneyville.
The Board of Aldermen, in 1857, adopted rules and regulations with respect to garbage removal, under which licenses were granted for the collection of garbage to be fed to swine outside the city limits. Water-tight carts were specified for this purpose, each marked "swill cart," and collections were required from every house twice a week in winter and every day in summer.19
By the middle of the century the Greek revival in architecture had waned and designers were receiving their inspiration from elements of the English Gothic, Romanesque and Italian Renaissance.
The business buildings, as a rule, reflected Italian precedent, their facades composed of moulded belt courses, ornamental cornices and large windows capped with pediments. Some were brick with brownstone trimming; others had all-brownstone fronts. Of the latter the only survivals in 1956 were the Bank of North America Building (Thomas A. Tefft, architect, illustration, page 129) at 50 Weybosset Street, its first story replaced with show windows, and the Merchants Bank Building20 (Morse and Hall, architects, illustration, page 183) at 32 Westminster Street. Arnold Block (N. B. Schubarth, architect, 1855) at 54 North Main Street was demolished in 1913 for the extension of Waterman Street (page 215). Perhaps the most imposing brownstone front was that of What Cheer Block (illustration, page 133), in a conspicuous location at 20 Market Square, designed by C. G. and J. R. Hall and erected in 1850 on the site of Manufacturers Hotel (page 48). The five-story facade was ornamented with rusticated quoins and voussoirs and honeycombed piers. A passage through the building, with a segmental-arched entrance, led through the first story, provid- ing access to an office building erected by the Providence Gas Company in 1856 (Thomas A. Tefft, architect). What Cheer Block later was altered by the addition of copper bay windows and a classic entrance. It was re-named Providence Washington Building and occupied by that insurance company 1875-1949.21
The Providence Institution for Savings (incorporated 1819) erected a small building with granite walls on South Main Street, adjacent to Providence Bank (page 51), in 1854
17. A Plat of the Extension of Dyer Street, surveyed and platted March 28, 1848, by Atwater and Schubarth. See also pages 72, 92.
18. Commenting on the advantages to the city of the 1854 highway act Mayor Doyle reported, in his inaugural address in 1872, that "there are upwards of forty more stores rented [on North Main Street] than before the widening, while the numerous fine blocks which have been built and the enhanced value given to property on the street already yield an increased annual return to the city treasury in taxation."
19. C.D. No. 4, 1866-67.
20. Known in 1956 as the Citizens Bank Building.
2I. The Providence Gas Company Building and the Providence Washington Building were acquired by the Rhode Island School of Design. The former was used for school purposes and later was razed. The latter was demolished in 1955 and a parking lot established on the site.
I24
1845-1860
PROVIDENCE INSTITUTION FOR SAVINGS
1 -
From Greene's Providence Plantations
Providence Institution for Savings, 1854, 86 South Main Street. Joseph Brown house (1774) at left; Rufus Greene house (1828-1898) at right.
-
R.I.H.S.
Providence Institution for Savings as enlarged 1898.
125
WEYBOSSET SIDE
(C. G. and J. R. Hall, architects, illustration, page 125). It was rebuilt and enlarged in 1898 (page 188), retaining at its north end a part of the original block, including one window, and a balcony below it, which served as a motive for the new design. The Institution for Savings is popularly known as the Old Stone Bank.
The Franklin Lyceum, founded in 1831 for the encouragement of literary pursuits, erected the Lyceum Building at 92 Westminster Street in 1858. The four-story facade was ornamental cast iron, its arched windows similar in treatment to the Granite Block on Market Square (page 91). In a niche in the center stood a statue of Benjamin Franklin. The building was razed in 1926 and was replaced by the Providence National Bank Building (page 247).
The Italian Renaissance style was followed in some of the larger dwellings of the period. The Tully D. Bowen house (1853) at 389 Benefit Street, designed by Tefft, is a three-story block of brownstone, one of the few surviving brownstone residences in Providence, now converted into apartments. The Thomas Hoppin house at 383 Benefit Street (Alpheus C. Morse, architect, c. 1853) is brick, three stories, with brownstone trimmings, its design suggestive of contemporary London mansions (illustration, page 140). It is now used for business purposes. Less academic than either was the Seth Adams house (c. 1855) at 51 Prospect Street, designed by Richard Upjohn of New York; its four-story brick tower was a conspicuous feature of the East Side skyline until the dwelling was demolished in 1942.
Several suburban houses were erected during this period, in a section of North Providence which subsequently, in 1874, was re-annexed to Providence (page 149). Two of these, located on the north side of Eaton Street, were on the adjoining estates of William M. Bailey and George M. Bradley comprising, respectively, 23 and 63 acres. The two asymmetric stone houses of the Italian villa type, each with a tower, set well back from the highway, were still standing 1950, the Bailey estate having become the House of the Good Shepherd and the Bradley estate a unit of Providence College (page 225). On a 23-acre estate on the Powder Mill Turnpike (Smith Street) William Grosvenor erected an ornate brick and brownstone mansion, later covered with stucco. He purchased the Seth Adams house in the early seventies and sold his North Providence estate to the Academy of the Sacred Heart, under whose ownership extensive alterations were made.
Among the earlier multiple dwellings of Providence were Dyer Block (c. 1845, illustra- tion, page 153) on Broad Street (now 211-219 Weybosset) and Brown and Ives Block (c. 1850) at 257-267 Benefit Street. Both are brick, four stories high, the former now greatly altered and used for business purposes and the latter, with its attractive Ionic entrance porches, fitted for apartments and known later as Athenæum Row.
The outstanding example of Ecclesiastical Gothic of the period was Grace Church (illustration, page 128), designed by Richard Upjohn and erected 1845-46 on the site of the former edifice which originally had been Providence Theatre (page III). The exterior is brownstone, its buttressed walls pierced by pointed windows, and the tower is located at the corner, providing the first asymmetrical church composition in Providence. The nave is arcaded in the 14th century English manner and is crowned by an elaborate trussed roof. The spire was built over the corner tower in 1860, in which chimes were installed, consisting of 16 bells, on each of which were inscribed the names of the donors. A chapel was erected at the rear of the church in 1857, reconstructed in 1892, and removed in 1912 when a new chancel and parish house were built, designed by Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson of Boston.22
22. Henry Barrett Huntington, A History of Grace Church, pp. 56, 77, 118, 153, 214. The parish house was altered and enlarged in 1950 (Harkness and Geddes, architects).
126
1845-1860
Stewart Street Baptist Church (now Second Free Will Baptist) was erected at the corner of Stewart and Pine streets in 1852 with funds provided by Perry Davis. It is a brick building with large, square towers flanking the gable roof, and Romanesque windows. Mr. Davis was founder of Perry Davis and Company, manufacturers of "pain killer"; its office building on High (Westminster) Street, west of Franklin Street, was a landmark for many years.
Courtesy of Grace Church
Grace Church, 1846, Westminster and Mathewson streets, from an engraving by Albert R. Thayer in the church office.
Thomas A. Tefft designed two churches in the Romanesque style, namely, the Central Congregational on Benefit Street in 1853 and the Central Baptist on Broad (Weybosset) Street in 1856 (page 75). The pedimented facade of the brownstone Congregational Church (illustration, page 128), was flanked by two graceful towers, each with lancet windows in the walls and crowned by hipped roofs with diagonal faces; the auditorium originally extended from the ground floor to the roof rafters, with galleries on three sides. The building, now a part of the Rhode Island School of Design and known as Memorial Hall, has been considerably altered in the interior (page 207); the towers were taken down in 1950. In the
127
R.I.H.S.
View of College and Benefit streets showing Central Congregational Church, c. 1853 (Memorial Hall) and Truman Beckwith house, 1827.
1845-1860
design of the Central Baptist Church Tefft adopted the corner tower motive introduced by Upjohn, and made extensive use of ornamental brickwork. The building was removed in 1915 when Empire Street was constructed (page 215).
Saint Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, erected in 1853 on the site of the former Arnold family burial ground at the corner of Hope and Arnold streets, was badly damaged by fire a few years later. It was rebuilt in the English Gothic style (P. C. Keeley, architect), with walls of granite and a central portal, crowned by a tower, in which a chime of four bells was installed in 1890.
PONY
From an anonymous photograph c. 1860
Federal Building, 1856, Weybosset Street, showing Bank of North America Building (c. 1855) at extreme right.
The most important public building of the middle century was the Federal Building (illustration above), designed by Ammi D. Young, supervising architect of the United States Treasury Department, for a post office and custom house. It is a three-story granite block in the Italian Renaissance style, its roof crowned by a dome and lantern, erected in 1857 on Weybosset Street at the corner of Long Wharf (Custom House) Street. The custom house previously had been on South Main Street (page 57) and the post office, shifted during the years from one spot to another, had most recently been located in What Cheer Block (page 124). Both departments were maintained in the Weybosset Street building until the present Federal Building was erected on Exchange Place in 1908 (page 201).
129
PAWTUCKET
NORTH PROVIDENCE
From North 4
From North Providence 1873
6
Providence J873
From North Providence 1874
1
From North Providence 1767
Woonasquetusket river
JOHNSTON
Bounds of established by General Assembly
Providence the
1765
From Johnston 1898
.
EAST PROVIDENCE
From Johnston 1919
Providence
of river
riv
Pocasset
2 From Cranston 1868
N
&
From Cranston 1873
3
9
From Cranston 1887
8
From Cranston 1892
A MAP SHOWING THE RE-ANNEXATIONS OF PROVIDENCE 1767 - 1919
0
1
Scale in miles
Seekonk river. .1.
:
0
CRANSTON
CHAPTER 12 1860-1870
T HE bombardment of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, by Confeder- ate forces April 12, 1861, inaugurated the Civil War. Three days later President Lincoln sent out a call for 75,000 Federal troops and on April 18th the first detachment of Rhode Island volunteers, armed and equipped, left for Washington under command of Colonel Ambrose E. Burnside. On June 8 Governor William Sprague called for volunteers for a regiment of infantry and a battery of artillery, and those units were soon organized and encamped on Dexter Training Ground (page 92). During the four years of war Rhode Island contributed over 24,000 men comprising, in all, eight regiments of infantry, three regiments and one squadron of cavalry, three regiments of heavy artillery, one regiment and two batteries of light artillery, and one company of hospital guards. The Burnside Rifle Company, the Providence Tool Company, and the Builders Iron Foundry1 manufactured rifles and cannon for the Federal troops and uniforms were made by Provi- dence tailors from cloth made in Rhode Island mills. Hostilities ended with the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Richmond, Virginia, April 9, 1865.
A readjustment of the state boundary was effected by the State of Rhode Island and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1862, whereby a portion of Fall River, which had been set off from Tiverton in 1856, was ceded to Massachusetts, and the territory on the east bank of Seekonk river, extending easterly to Ten Mile and Runnins rivers, was annexed to Rhode Island.2 The latter territory included a portion of Seekonk (set off from Rehoboth, Massachusetts in 1812), which was incorporated as East Providence, and the town of Pawtucket (taken from Seekonk in 1828) adjoining it on the north. The village of Pawtucket, located on the west bank of Seekonk and Blackstone rivers, was at that time a part of North Providence, from which it subsequently was set off in 1874 (page 149) and united with the town annexed from Massachusetts.
In 1864 Thomas A. Doyle was elected mayor of Providence, an office held, with two interruptions, until his death in 1886. One of his initial activities was a reorganization of the police department, effected by passage of an ordinance which placed the department under control of a city marshal with a staff consisting of a captain of police, a superintendent of lights, and a superintendent of hacks.3 The police force, under Captain Thomas W. Hart, was divided into five districts with headquarters in the First District Station, a building erected in 1861 at the corner of Canal and Haymarket streets on the site of the former
I. Providence Tool Company, founded 1844, occupied a building on Wickenden Street east of Point Street Bridge; it was reorganized as Rhode Island Tool Company, in 1833, and is still in operation at 148 West River Street. Burnside Rifle Works was established in 1862, near the corner of Valley and Hemlock streets; it was reorganized as the Rhode Island Locomotive Works in 1865 and suspended operations about 1890. Builders Iron Foundry was founded on Codding Street in 1822 as High Street Furnace and was incorporated 1853; it is still in operation.
2. This exchange of territory terminated a boundary dispute of nearly 200 years' duration, the origin of which was an overlapping of bounds as defined in the Plymouth patent of 1629 and the Rhode Island charter of 1663. See page 12.
3. C.M., 1865-66, p. 3.
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WEYBOSSET SIDE
jail.4 The other stations were located, respectively, on Mill, Wickenden, Knight and Rich- mond streets, the latter replaced by a new building in 1867. The force included a sergeant in charge of each district and a total of 20 day and 72 night patrolmen.5 The office of chief of police was created in 1866, with Nelson Viall as first incumbent. The functions of the superintendent of lights (John M. Clark) included supervision of the location, construction, repairs, cleaning, and trimming of the street lamps. A total of 1,231 of these lights were in operation in 1865, about one-quarter of which were oil lamps on wood poles, and the remainder gas lights mounted on cast iron standards. The superintendent of hacks (William B. Cranston) issued licenses for the operation of hacks, omnibuses, drays, trucks and other vehicles.
R.I.H.S.
Union Railroad Depot, 1867-1897, Market Square. Washington Buildings in background.
The first street railway line in Rhode Island was the Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls Railroad, chartered in March, 1861, which commenced the operation of horse cars in May, 1864 from a terminus on Canal Street. Charters were granted to several
4. See page 95. The First District Station, a three-story brick building, was vacated on completion of the Central Police Station on Fountain Street in 1895 (page 184) and served subsequently as headquarters for the Department of Public Aid. It was razed in 1950.
5. See page 123. The former night watch was abolished under the reorganization.
I32
1860-1870
independent lines in Providence which were consolidated, through the activities of William and Amasa Sprague, in the Union Railroad Company, incorporated in January, 1865. Its first horse car route was opened February 22 of that year, providing service from Market Square to Olneyville over rails laid on Westminster, High and Weybosset streets. By the latter part of that year the Broadway, Elmwood, South Providence and Cranston horse car lines were in operation and two years later the Olneyville line was extended easterly from Market Square over South Main, Wickenden and Hope streets.6
An ordinance was passed by the City Council December 24, 1864, regulating horse car travel. It limited speed to seven miles per hour with a special limit of five miles on principal streets. Cars going in the same direction were to be kept at least 300 feet apart; conductors were not to allow aged or infirm persons, women, or children, to enter or leave cars while
FIRE
From an anonymous photograph
View of Market Square c. 1885 showing (left to right) two brownstone blocks (c. 1855-1939), Granite Block (1823-1939), What Cheer Block (1850-1955) and Market House (1773).
in motion. When highways were in condition for sleighing street railway companies were not to run snow plows except by consent of the surveyor of highways and, when required by him, sleighs were to be operated instead of cars.7 In winter the cars were heated by stoves and the floors were covered with straw to provide foot warmth. A pair of horses was used for each car, with an additional "hill horse" for steep grades.
6. Henry V. A. Joslin, "Street Railway Lines in Rhode Island," a chapter in William T. Davis, The New England States (Boston, 1897), IV, 2520.
7. C.M., 1865-66, p. IIO.
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WEYBOSSET SIDE
Under authority of the General Assembly the Union Railroad Company erected a passenger depot in 1867, supported by piles driven in the river north of and adjacent to Weybosset Bridge (illustration, page 132). As this spot was passed by nearly all horse car routes the building provided a convenient waiting room for passengers.
Stage coaches continued in operation between Providence and communities not served by the steam or horse railroads. From a terminus at the Exchange Hotel on Washington Street (page 121) coaches carried passengers to Pawtuxet, Warwick Neck, Centredale, North Scituate, Clayville, Pascoag, Brooklyn and Putnam, Connecticut, and Framingham, Massa- chusetts.8 At the same time water transportation lines were running steamboats from Providence to Fall River, Newport, New York and Philadelphia.9
The Market House was remodeled in 1865 and 1866 for the exclusive use of the munici- pal government, and was re-christened the City Building. Previous alterations had effected various changes in the building since the erection of a third story by Saint John's Lodge of Masons in 1797 (page 50). A wing, designed by James C. Bucklin, was added to the east end in 1833 to provide an entrance and stairway to the masonic hall; in accordance with the architectural trend of the period the pilastered walls and roof balustrade of the addition followed Greek tradition. Somewhat later the first floor line was raised about three feet above the street level and a basement story was added, the latter used as a market with bulkhead entrances and steep stone steps set in the arched openings. In 1865 the basement was abandoned as a market and was remodeled for city uses.1º The City Council enacted an ordinance June 12, 1866, designating the use of certain rooms in the building; on the second floor the mayor was assigned the two southeast rooms, the city clerk the west room, and the Municipal Court the northeast room; and on the third floor the west room became the Council Chamber and the northeast room was assigned to the Board of Aldermen. In 1866 the first story was altered to provide offices for municipal departments. Installation was made of vaults for the storage of records, speaking tubes, a plumbing system, and a heating plant.
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