USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 4
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1712
Pond
100
Pond
PAWTUNET
Bulloch
---
0991
QUI
WARWICK
WARWICK #
A
Harwich Nech
5
North Boundary of King's Province
EAST
womut
Patience is
GREENWICHY
- Original Bounds
po
and Watwich
K
PORTSMOUTHY
Inc. 1677
FRENCHTOWN
Hope
IS.
COUNTY
RIVER --.
Connecticut claimed all territory south of Warwick, east to "Narragansett River" under her
WICKFORD
R
Royal Charter 1662
NA
parated 1678
Incorporated
1 1 LITTLE COMPTON 1
1703
EWPORT
KIN
GS PROVINCE Boundaries Established 1666
LITTLE REST
EXPORT
Sabonnet 'Pt.
Beaver Tail
iver
E
Purchased and occupied 1661 Admitted to Colony 1664
WESTERLY
Pt.Judith (
BLOCK JSIAND
SHOREHAM
Incorporated 1672
Part of Rhode Island County
-State Boundary as defined by the Charter of 1603. ( According to R.I. claim)
Tonaway State Boundary
KINGSTOWN Called ROCHESTER 1686 89 Inc. 1674.
Incorpor
JAMESTOWN
RHODEOISLAND
PORTS- MOUTH
sachusetts and Rhode Island
Bounds According to R.I. Chatter of 1663.
Agreed upon by Commissioners of R.J. and Conn . 1703 Finally adjusted 31728
Incorporated COUNTY OF PROVIDEN
BRISTOL MIT. HOPE
I HOPE BA
CONNECTI
A
River
Pawtuxe
2018414408 Disputed Territory between
MIL
Moswansicut
Line ,
Wes
1404
PROVIDENCE
DATION
Mashapa
River
asSOSC
Rive
SETTS
Bounds According to Plymouth Patent
Claimed by .Greenwich
EAST GREENWICH Called DEDFORD 1686-89 #
1703
PRUDENCE
A
--- DAKONNE
Wood Hiver
WESTERLY Not Called HAVERSHAM 1686-89 Ind 1669
Great Pond
Pawcaluck
IC
A
Blackstone
Moshassuch
Twenty Mile Line 1659
From Rhode Island Boundaries, 1636-1936
1676- 1720
the Towne side to Wayboysett side Cross the Water & from Wayboysett side to the Towne with Cannooes & Boates, Rideing & Carting & Swimming over of Cattell from side to side; & the Streame often times Running so swift, & many times Rough Water by Reason of stormy Winds, whereby neither Cannooes Boates nor Cattell swimming can make any Certaine place to land, but must land where they can git on shore, which if the land by the shore were appropreated it would hinder any landing & so damage accrew."31 Accord- ingly, it was ordered that all of the land between the Towne street and the salt water from Thomas Field's home lot (near Crawford Street) northward to Thomas Olney's home lot (near the railroad viaduct), as well as the shore above Weybosset Neck, should "be & Continually Remaine in Comon." The area defined was bordered, roughly, by the present Crawford, South Main, North Main, and Steeple streets, Memorial Square, Exchange Place, Dorrance and Dyer streets, and Crawford Bridge. While it is a matter of record that the major part of the area so designated has not "continually remained in common" the town's order undoubtedly prevailed so long as the river was forded by carts and swum by cattle and, therefore, fulfilled its purpose.
The Town Council appointed Gideon Crawford and Joseph Whipple a committee "to Enquire of the inhabitants of Providence, & also of other Persons Elsewhere in the Country to see what they will Contribute to the building of a Bridge, from the Towne side of the salt water .. . begining against ye west End of the lott whereon Daniell Abbott his dwelling house standeth [page [I], & so cross the water unto the hill called Wayboset"32 which covered the area between the present Turks Head Building and the Arcade. Several years were required to finance the project but, by 1711, a sufficient sum of money had been raised to warrant its undertaking. The General Assembly sanctioned the project in that year and granted £200 out of the general treasury toward the construction of the bridge at Weybosset and of two others spanning Pawtucket [Blackstone] and Pawtuxet rivers, respectively.33
Weybosset Bridge and its approaches (see map, page 144), which were backed up with earth, extended from the north side of the present Market House to Turks Head. It was about 14 feet wide, having one section constructed in such a way that it could be moved to permit the passage of boats into the cove. The bridge was carried away by a freshet and was rebuilt, about 1719, at the expense of the town.34
With the completion of the three bridges traffic was greatly facilitated on the main road which ran through the colony, mostly following old Indian trails (page II), from Pawtucket river to Pawcatuck river, over which was the principal part of the travel between Massachusetts and New York.35 This road followed the lines of the present Main Street in Pawtucket; North Main Street, Market Square, Weybosset Street, and Broad Street in Providence; Broad Street in Cranston; and the Post Road in Warwick, East Greenwich, North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Charlestown, and Westerly.
In 1712 the town granted to Nathaniel Brown of Rehoboth, a newcomer to Providence, "halfe one acre of land lieing on Waybosset Neck betweene Mr. Waterman his Marsh & the salt water; the which he might have the use of for building vessels thereon."36 The site was near the present corner of Pine and Orange streets. The advent of shipbuilding was a significant step in the early maritime history of the town.
The American Colonial style of architecture of the 18th century, like the contemporary English Georgian style, descended from the motives used in ancient Rome as codified by Marcus Vitruvius in the first century B. C. After ages of disuse those classic forms were
31. E.R.P., XI, 88.
34. Staples, p. 198.
32. Ibid, 91. 35. Ibid, p. 187.
33. R.I.C.R., IV, 118. 36. E.R.P., XI, 1 58.
21
THE NECK
R.I.H.S.
Jones-Crawford house (c. 1715 - c. 1898), Mill Street.
HILO TILLINCHAZT.
R.I.H.S.
Philip Tillinghast house (c. 1710 - c. 1910), South Main Street.
22
1676- 1720
revived by Andrea Palladio and other architects of the Italian Renaissance and introduced in England by Inigo Jones in the early 17th century. They provided a basis for Sir Christopher Wren's designs after the great fire of London in 1666.
Early 18th century architects and builders in New England acquired their knowledge of classic forms from books of plans, mostly of English origin, containing drawings of the five orders of architecture and other details and giving general rules for proportions. Those motives were used in the design of all types of buildings, large and small. The typical house plan was an evolution of the central-chimney type (page 9) with the rear leantos eventually incorporated in the main block, providing a rectangular unit with three fireplaces set in the chimney (see plan A, page 46).
The change from Tudor Gothic to Colonial architecture in Rhode Island occurred during the first two decades of the century. While end-chimney houses were not uncommon in the early years of the transition period, they usually had two full stories and the chimneys were built of brick, the manufacture of which had been commenced in the colony about 1690. An example was the house built by Nathaniel Jones on Mill Street about 1715 (illustration, page 22), purchased by Capt. John Crawford, which stood until 1898 - the last house of record in which a summer beam was used in Providence.37 There are two brick-end survivors in the Providence metropolitan area, namely, the Smith-Cushing house (c. 1705) on Smithfield Road, North Providence, and the James Greene house (c. 1715) at Buttonwoods.38 In contrast to these end-chimney examples was the center-chimney hipped roof house erected by Philip Tillinghast (c. 1710) which stood for about 200 years on South Main Street (illustration, page 22). The orderly arrangement of windows and doors and the use of classic mouldings and other details at the entrance are Colonial characteristics.
As farms became established at spots somewhat remote from the compact part of the town it became necessary to lay out more roads over which farm products could be trans- ported to market (see map, page 27). The road to Plainfield was built in 1714, starting at Weybosset Bridge, following the old Pawtuxet road (page 21), now Weybosset Street, as far as its intersection with Broad Street, and continuing over the course of Weybosset, Westminster and Plainfield streets through western Rhode Island into Connecticut.39 A branch of that road "towards Mashantatack" was ordered in 1717,40 this being the origin of Cranston Street. A 17th century road running westerly from Moshassuck river bridge, near the town mill (pages 8, 12), was extended in the early 18th century into two branches, each identified as a "road through the stated common;" the south branch followed the course of Chalkstone Avenue to Mount Pleasant Avenue, and the north branch followed Douglas Avenue and Eaton Street to River Avenue.41 The Wanskuck road (page 15), branching westerly from the Pawtucket road, was extended over Branch and Douglas avenues to Wionkhiege Hill some time after 1706.42
The taverns, most of which were located in the north end of the town, had increased in number to thirteen in 1717. The tavern keepers, licensed that year, included William Harris, William Turpin, James Olney, Benjamin Potter, John House, Samuel Irons, William
37. Isham, p. 52. 38. Ibid, p. 53.
41. The stated common was a large tract of land, north of Woonasquatucket river, ordered in town E.R.P., IX, 22. 39. E.R.P., XI, 140, 145; P.S.H., I, 12. 40.
meeting, 1658, "perpetually to lye & be in Comon" (E.R.P., VIII, 157). That order did not hinder the town from disposing of the land to private interests as opportunities arose. The dates of the roads through the common are uncertain; the south branch was built before 1729 and the north branch before 1733 (E.R.P., IX, 53, 66).
42. E.R.P., V, 140; XI, 76, 110. The road was first proposed in 1701 and was still being agitated in 1706; it was probably laid out soon after that year.
23
THE NECK
Edmunds, James Arnold, Othniel Gorton, John Potter, John Sayles, John Guile, and Thomas Parker.43 Near the Olney tavern (page 16) a town pound was put up in 1717.44
Supplementing the original distribution of home lots (page 7) a second division of lots was platted, in 1717-18, and allotted, individually, to the proprietors or their assigns. The lots were in two groups, one on the Neck and the other on Weybosset side. The areas platted on the Neck (see map, page 56) included a row of 12 lots, on the south side of the present Olney Street, north of and adjacent to the northernmost home lot of the 1638 division and 38 lots within the area now bounded by North Main, Charles, Bark, and Hewes streets.45 "A street twenty foot wide over Stampers Hill" was recorded on the plat, later known as Stampers Street (page 7). It ran midway between the present North Main and Bark streets and became a part of Carleton Davis Boulevard46 in 1931 (page 238). On Weybosset side 84 lots were platted, with gangways at intervals, on the south side of "A Highway Fourty Feet Wide" (originally the Pequot path, now Weybosset Street), and six lots were platted on the north side of a highway leading to Cowpen Point (illustration page 80), all extending to the shore.47
43.
E.R.P., XII, 58.
44.
Ibid, XIII, 9.
45. P.S.H., I, 12; see also footnote 33, page 6.
46. Capt. J. Carleton Davis of Providence, in whose memory the boulevard was named, was an officer in the 26th Division, A.E.F., in World War I.
47. P.B., IV, 34, "A Map of the House Lots, 1717-18." The fronts of the lots, on the 40-foot highway, extended along the present Westminster and Weybosset streets from Dyer to Dorrance. Cowpen Point, docu- mented as early as 1710 (E.R.P., XI, 146), was located near the foot of Ship Street.
From Downing, Early Homes of Rhode Island John Tripp house , c. 1725, 95312 Manton Avenue
24
CHAPTER 3 1720 - 1760
T HERE developed in the 1720's a considerable activity in church building. For some time a movement had been under way to establish the Church of England in Providence, and this was advanced when Nathaniel Brown (page 21), who had
R.I.H.S.
King's Church, 1722-1810, North Main Street, from an en- graving made from a drawing by Zechariah Allen, owned by R. I. Historical Society.
erected his home in 1712 on the Towne street (North Main, near Howland), donated the adjoining lot for a church. Through his energy and that of Gabriel Bernon and Colonel Joseph Whipple in securing donations, King's Church was erected in 1722 on the site where
25
THE NECK
the Cathedral of Saint John stands. It was a very simple frame edifice (illustration, page 25), "sixty-two feet long by forty-one broad, and twenty-six feet high,"1 with a low pitch roof and high curved-top windows. A steeple, containing the first town bell, was built over the front vestibule about 1771 with funds raised from a lottery. The church stood until 1810 when it was demolished to make way for the present building (page 75). A glebe was erected in the upper part of the Neck (near the present Brown stadium) in 1729 for Reverend Arthur Browne, the rector.
A Congregational society, formed in 1720, purchased a lot on Weybosset Side, within the junction of the Pawtuxet and Plainfield roads (Broad and Weybosset streets) in 1722 and commenced the erection of a meeting house. The site proved too remote to suit most of the society's members however, and the timbers were taken down and removed to a lot "up Rosemary Lane," (southwest corner of College and Benefit), purchased from Daniel Abbott, where the meeting house was erected in 1723.2 It was a wood structure with an entrance tower and steeple on the east front. The building underwent alterations from time to time, including the removal of the steeple,3 and was sold to the town in 1793 (page 67, illustration, page 68). The Congregational society was divided in 1743 upon the withdrawal of a group who erected the New Light Meeting House on Weybosset side (page 35). The remainder continued to worship on the Neck under the name of the First Congregational Society. The lot originally purchased was used as a burying ground from 1722 until it was vacated by order of the General Assembly in 1785; in that year the two societies, which had maintained it jointly, established individual cemeteries in the West Burial Ground (page 60).
In 1725 a Quaker Meeting House was built on the east side of the Towne street, north of the present Meeting Street. Here town meetings were held and a school was maintained.4 An addition was made in 1725, and the building continued in use until replaced by a larger structure in 1844 (page III).
A new Baptist church was erected in 1726 at the northwest corner of the present North Main and Smith streets, opposite the original building of that denomination built in 1700 (page 16). At high water the tide flowed nearly up to the west end of the building. From the entrance on the Towne street an aisle, flanked by benches, extended to a raised pulpit at the rear. There was a gallery reached by a stairway from a south entrance. The church was maintained until completion of the present First Baptist Meeting House in 1775 (page 50), after which it was used, successively as a sugar refinery, a rag depository for Thurber's Paper Mill (page 61), and a store house.5
The compact part of the town at this period was still confined to a section of the Neck. There were a few houses on the road (Weybosset Street) leading from the town bridge to Plainfield and on scattered farms to the west. The only public improvements on Weybosset side were the town highways. The principal obstacle to the development of the lands at Weybosset Point was a hill which rose westward from the present Turk's Head. Its leveling was desired but the town could not afford the project. It was then discovered
I. Staples, p. 144.
2. From the records of the First Congregational Society.
3. R.I.C.R., VII, 206. The society, in seeking the grant of a lottery for repairs to the building in 1773, reported that "the steeple .. . is in so ruinous a condition that it must be immediately taken down." It was proposed to erect a clock tower on the rear of the meeting house, but there is no evidence that the project was consummated.
4. Staples, p. 430. 5. Stone, p. 29; R.I.Hist., X, 46.
26
Road to Louisquisset
CITY LINE
1936
of Miles?
ni
Common Road to Pawtucket
Highway to Pawtucket Falls
art Point
Burying Ground 1700
Hearnton's
"Lane
Burroughs Bridges
T
Hurtleberry Hill
T
Glebe 1730
"
Cat Swamp Lane
H
Turpin Tavern
Cat Swamp
E
Olney's Tavern "Olneys Lane
Bailey's
20
Mill Bridge 1239
AOld Gael
King's Church 1722
2
Church
Queter M. H 1723
Ferry
E
Highway to Ferry
Gaol Lane
Great Pt.
0
Ruttenhere's
Wrybosset Bridge 1747
Cain Cong. Church 1723
trebuilt
K
Muddy Bridge
Power's Tone
Snow'sMeeting
BC
House 3716
entro pook
Plainfield Road 1714
Fox Pt,
Solitary
Neutaconhanut Hill
A
ZHawkin's Cora
MI
Benedict Pona
Long
PonDE
1730
Pawtuxet
Middle
Road.
Pocasset
Spectacle Pond
Field's Pl-
Benj. Greene's' Bridge
CITY LINE 1936
Ephraim's Wading Place
Brook
Bidet
Highway to Pawtuxct --- hood
Flachmore
MESHANTICUT
.1743
PAWTUXET
Ferner's Pond
State Planning Board 1956 John Hutchins Gady consultant Win. A. Perry del.
the town bounds included Cranston, Johnston, North Providence and the western part of Pawtucket
Wionkhieg«
WANSKUCK
Scale
Read/ 1706
Road to the North B
mundial the Teori. 1933.
North Road this the
Stated Common
Brook
the Statisti Common
love
Roa to Willingly 1729
Kasrth Road to
GREAT SALT COPE
Woo
The Torne
River
street
Road to Cowper
Compert
Fox Hill
Pc
Milebad
Cove
1717
Road
PROVIDENCE
Broad love
HARBOR
CITYL
Tongue Pond f
Mashapaug Pond
LINE 19360
Greenwich
174
Highway to Cove
Map of a Portion of the TOWN of PROVIDENCE) Located in Providence County in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in the year 1750
West
Wanshuck
Moshassuch
Great
Swamp
Road.
RIVCE
RIVER
The ora Way by A Mill
en Those Biyet
Small
SEEKONK
U
County House 175% .God 1723
Road
Road to Killingly Road 1729
y1746
Meshanticut
Road
1st. Baptist
Stated Common
THE NECK
that there was clay in the hill and, pursuant to a request by Thomas Staples, the town readily granted him permission in 1724 to dig the clay to make bricks.6 The advantages to the town by that act were two-fold: a brick-kiln was established in Providence and Wey- bosset Hill eventually was leveled, permitting the later construction of Westminster Street (page 35).
After the establishment of the road to Plainfield in 1714 (page 23) intercourse with Connecticut increased to such an extent that another road to that colony was required. Accordingly, by order of the Town Council in 1729 the road to Killingly was laid out through the stated common (page 23), following Chalkstone, Manton, Greenville and Putnam avenues into Connecticut. A branch from that road, starting a short distance west of Woonasquatucket river, was built over the present Killingly Street southerly to join the Plainfield Road (page 23) east of Neutaconkanut Hill. The northerly road through the stated common was extended over Eaton and Smith streets to Centredale in 1733.
In 1730 a road defined as the Masipauge Way was laid out from Mashapaug pond southerly to Pettaconsett, extending an earlier highway which branched from the Pawtuxet road. The whole extent, later known as Greenwich Middle Road, is now identified as Elmwood, Reservoir and Pontiac avenues from Trinity Square in Providence to Sockanosset Avenue in Cranston.8
By act of the General Assembly in 1729 the county of Providence Plantations was subdivided with Providence, Warwick and East Greenwich constituting Providence County and North Kingstown, South Kingstown and Westerly forming a new King's County (see map, page 34). At the same time the name Rhode Island County was changed to Newport County.9
The General Assembly then took steps for the erection of a county house in Providence and purchased, for a site, the lot on the north side of the present Meeting Street, between North Main and Benefit, on which the Brick Schoolhouse (page 43) now stands. The funds appropriated for the building were augmented by a sum of money paid out of the Providence town treasury "so that said house might be made so Large as to be Servable for the Townes Publick use." The County House, as completed in 1731, was "fourty foot Long and thirty foot wide and eighteene foot Stud betwixt Joynts." It was used by the colony for the sessions of the General Assembly and the courts, and by the town for town meetings, but when not needed by either colony or town it was utilized for other purposes.10
In 1735 the General Assembly granted permission to George Taylor to keep school in one of the chambers of the County House, provided "he keeps the glass of said house in constant good repair ... and erect a handsome sun-dial in the front of said house, both for ornament and use, and build a necessary house convenient, to prevent nuisance, and to serve the public."11
The County House later was headquarters of the first public library in Providence, established under the name of the Providence Library Company. A collection of several hundred volumes was purchased in England and, by authority of the General Assembly in 1754, shelves were erected in the council chamber for their accommodation.12 The build-
6. E.R.P., IX, 41. 7. Ibid, IX, 49, 53, 65. See maps, pp. 14, 27.
8. Ibid, IX, 55-57. See map, p. 27.
9. R.I.C.R., IV, 427. IO. Ibid, 430.
IO. Howard W. Preston, "The Old County House in Providence," R.I.H.S.C., XI, 37-44.
II. R.I.C.R., IV, 511.
I 2. R.I.C.R., V, 379. The Providence Library Company was united with the Providence Athenæum in 1836. See page 107.
28
1720-1760
ing, together with the library, was destroyed by fire December 24, 1758 (page 36). In 1731 a committee was appointed by the town "to bound out the highway that leads up into the Neck by the County house ... from the Towne street to the highway at the head of the Town Lotts."13 It was named County House Way. Two years later the County Jail was built on that highway, near the present northeast corner of Meeting and Benefit streets. It was the third jail erected in the town; the first (page 16), built in 1699, was destroyed by fire six years later and the second, erected in 1705, was abandoned when the County Jail was opened. Following the erection of the building the name County House Way was changed to Gaol Lane. It became Meeting Street in 1772 (page 47).
The town bounds, since 1659, had included all of the present lands of Rhode Island north of the Warwick and Coventry lines and west of Providence, Seekonk and Blackstone rivers. As the outlying areas were becoming considerably populated the inhabitants of those lands experienced difficulty "in transacting and negotiating the prudential affairs of the town." Accordingly, an act was passed by the General Assembly in 1731 "for erecting and incorporating the out-lands of the town of Providence into three towns"14 named Scituate, Glocester and Smithfield; this reduced the area of Providence to about one-quarter of its former size (see map, page 34).
Among the prosperous merchants dwelling on the Towne street in this period was Colonel Nicholas Power, 3d, who married Mercy Tillinghast, uniting the families of two of the early settlers. Power erected a large dwelling on the northeast corner of Power's Lane (the site of the Providence Boys' Club), opposite which, on the water front, stood his warehouse. He owned also a cooper's shop, a cider mill, three stills, a cheese press, a sloop, and four negro slaves.15 His daughter Hope married Captain James Brown, descendant of Chad Brown, an original proprietor. The captain's house was on the east side of the Towne street (where the Court House stands) and across the way, on the waterfront, were the shop and distillery which he had established following a prosperous voyage to the West Indies in 1722. He and his younger brother Obadiah entered partnership as merchants, about 1733, and the business was continued by Obadiah after James's death in 1739. James and Hope Brown were parents of Nicholas, Joseph, John, and Moses Brown, who figured conspicuously in the town's affairs in the next generation (page 37).
Considerable highway activity developed in the Neck in the year 1738. One project was "the Preambulation and Revisal of the bounds of the highway [Power Street] Lieing from Providence Towne street [South Main] Eastwardly into a highway that Goes a Crass at the East End of the Town Lotts [Hope Street]."16 The width of Power's Lane, as the highway was known, was "two pole" or about 33 feet. It was bordered on the south by the land of Nicholas Power, 3d, and on the north by Colonel Joseph Whipple's property, except at the Towne street end where the Power homestead stood.
In the same year the Town Council appointed "subscribers to Revise the bounds of several highways and to Lay out sundry other highways from the Towne street down to the salt water River,"17 as follows: the revisal of a highway 51 feet wide (James Street) north of Charles Tillinghast's house; the layout of a highway 41 feet wide (Planet Street) adjoining the northerly side of Nicholas Power's garden;18 the revisal of a highway 36 feet wide (Crawford Street) between Joseph Crawford's warehouse on the south and James
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