USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > The civic and architectural development of Providence, 1636-1950 > Part 6
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7. R.I.C.R., VI, 215, 236, 237, 252, 270, 327. . 8. Ibid, 269.
9. Ibid, 286-287. IO. Dorr, p. 93. II. R.I.C.R., VI, 294.
12. Staples, p. 205. The north side of the bridge started from a point seven feet south of the present northwest corner of Westminster Street and Washington Row and extended easterly, practically in continuation of the line of Westminster Street (P.S.H., I, 22). The east abutments were approximately 30 feet west of the present North Main Street, from which point the Town Parade sloped down to the shore. See page 33.
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By direction of the Town Council in 1761 a revision was made of "that part of the street [Weybosset] between the Town Bridge and Muddy Bridge Dock [Dorrance Street] and of the gangways leading out of same," an area which had been platted originally by the proprietors in 1717 (page 24). The changes as recorded on a plat made in January, 1762, reflecting the development of that area over a period of 45 years, included a widening of the highway leading from the bridge to the present Turks Head, a "new back street" (Westminster), and a "highway 40 feet wide" (Exchange Street) extending northerly to the cove waters.13 Six houses are spotted on the plat, their owners identified as Jacob Whitman, Ezek Eddy, Dunnell, John Wilde, Kinnicut and George Jackson. The first of these is of historic significance. It was a large gambrel-roofed house erected about 1750 at the junction of the present Westminster and Weybosset streets, a spot known for many years thereafter as Whitman's Corner. There Jacob Whitman lived until his death in 1802 and cultivated
R.I.H.S.
The town of Providence in 1762 looking southwest towards Wey- bosset Bridge from Gaol Lane (Meeting Street). From a sketch in possession of the Hope Club, drawn by Henry A. Barker as a design for scenery in the production of "In Colony Times," a celebration play given as a part of the Brown Sesquicentennial, 1914.
one of the largest gardens in the state. In his later years he acquired a turk's head of heroic size and diabolical aspect, said to have been the figure-head of a wrecked ship named Sultan, which he set up in the balustrade over his piazza.14 The effigy was blown down in the great gale of 1815 (page 81) but the place name of Turks Head, superseding the former Whitman's Corner, has been perpetuated. The house was replaced by the three-story Whitman Block in 1828 (page 97) which stood until Turks Head Building (page 227) was erected in 1913.
In June of 1763 it was reported to the General Assembly that the "new street ... run- ning directly from the Great Bridge, up to the westward, wants a great deal of filling up and raising, to render it commodius."15 Accordingly, a lottery was granted "for rendering passable and commodious a streight and very fine street, for passing to the middle of the town from all western parts."16 The street was named after the city of Westminster in England, a center of liberal opinions and politics. The choice of that name reflected the political sympathies of the land owners on Weybosset side, who resented the "despotic
13. P.S.H., I, 22.
14. William M. Bailey, "Turks Head and the Whitman Estate," R.I.H.S.C., V, 216.
1 5. R.I.C.R., VI, 356.
16. Providence Gazette, Oct. 19, 1763.
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1760- 1772
rule" of Providence by the dwellers of the Neck and who even attempted to have a new town of Westminster set off which should be free from the influence of the Towne street.17
On October 20, 1762, William Goddard, who had succeeded Samuel Chase as postmaster (page 36), commenced publication of the town's first newspaper, the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, at a printing shop "opposite the court house" on the Towne street. This was the first of several addresses. The shop was moved in July, 1763, to the store of Judge Jenckes (Abbott Still House, page 33) "at the Sign of Shakespear's Head." On March 16, 1765, the Gazette announced that "on Tuesday next the Post Office and Printing Office will be removed to the house opposite Mr. Nathan Angell's, near the Sign of the Golden Eagle.18 Financial difficulties, caused by burdens imposed by the stamp act and by inability to collect dilatory subscriptions, forced the suspension of the Gazette early in 1767. Goddard spent the next 25 years in newspaper work in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and of his own initiative established the United States Post Office in 1775.19 He married Abigail Angell in 1786, and six years later they returned to Rhode Island and resided in Johnston, in the house erected by Thomas Clemence in 1680 (page 16) and purchased 60 years later by John Angell, Abigail's grandfather.
Publication of the Gazette was resumed, after a six-month interval, by Mrs. Sarah Goddard, mother of the former editor, who secured as partner John Carter of Philadelphia, former apprentice of Benjamin Franklin.2º It came into Carter's possession in 1768. In the following year he married Amey Crawford, sister of Mrs. John Updike who dwelt in the house at the present corner of North Main and Meeting streets, and set about the erection of a building, to serve both as shop and dwelling, on the land east of the Updikes'. The first floor was designed as a printing shop and book shop, and the upper stories as his residence. The Gazette was printed there commencing with the issue of December 5, 1772. The "Sign of Shakespear's Head," carved out of wood and fancifully painted, was erected upon a high pole in front of the shop.21 The building, now owned by Shakespeare's Head Association, stands at 21 Meeting Street. It is of frame construction, three stories high above a stone basement, with a hipped roof and large center chimney (illustration, page 42). John Carter was postmaster from 1772 to 1790, and during his incumbency the post office was located in Shakespeare's Head. The immediate neighborhood, which included the Colony House, the Brick Schoolhouse (page 43), and the Quaker Meeting House (where town meetings were held), as well as various taverns and shops, constituted the civic center of the period.
The first theatrical performance in Providence was given by David Douglas and a company of players in a playhouse on Gaol Lane (Meeting Street) in 1762.22 A flood of protests immediately arose as a result of "the many mischiefs which arise from public stage plays, interludes, and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses, and discourage industry and frugality, but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety and contempt of religion." Accordingly, the General Assembly passed an act in August, 1762, to prevent the carrying on of stage plays and, in order to insure its immediate enforcement, the officers of the town of Providence were
17. Dorr, p. 129.
18. See page 45. The printing office and Angell's house were on the west side of the Towne street, on opposite corners of the present Elizabeth Street. The "Golden Eagle" was north of Angell's lot.
I9. Lawrence C. Wroth, "William Goddard and his Friends," R.I.H.S.C., XVII, 34.
20. John Carter Brown Woods, "John Carter," R.I.H.S.C., XI, 101.
21. R.I.H.S.C., V, 201. 22. Staples, p. 206.
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directed "forthwith . . . to immediately proclaim the aforesaid act, by beat of drum, through the streets of the compact part of said town of Providence".23
In June, 1765, a number of farmers living in the northern part of Providence petitioned the General Assembly to erect a separate township out of the northern lands. In spite of protests made by merchants of the town against further reducing its area the petition was granted by setting off a new town, named North Providence, on the territory north of the following bounds: beginning "at the new bridge, near to the hill called Solitary Hill [near Olneyville Square]; thence, bounding on Wanasquatucket River, until it comes to the north- west corner of the town's land, at the east end of a place called Forestack Meadow [the present corner of Promenade and Holden streets]; thence, [north] easterly on a straight line to the middle of the mill bridge [Schley Square]; thence on a due east line until it
R.I.H.S.
Shakespeare's Head, 1772, 21 Meeting Street.
comes to Seaconck River [in Blackstone Park, 500 feet north of Angell Street] . . . "24" >>24 This was the fourth and last reduction of the territorial limits of Providence (see pages 29, 36). The first reannexation was effected in June, 1767, in response to a petition by merchants and tradesmen residing in a portion of the area set off in 1765, whose business connections were in Providence. The bounds, as adjusted, extended northerly from Forestack Meadow "to the northwest corner of the burying land [North Burial Ground]; and then, easterly and southerly, by said burying ground . . . until it comes to .. . Herrington's Lane [Rocham- beau Avenue]; then easterly by ... said lane until it comes to the dividing line between the lands of William Brown and Phineas Brown [now the Swan Point Cemetery-Butler Hospital line]; and then by said line easterly to Seaconck River."25
The first stage coach route, maintaining a regular schedule, was instituted by Thomas
23.
R.I.C.R., VI, 325. The Act was repealed in 1792 (page 60).
25 . Ibid, VI, 528. See maps, pages 69, 130.
24.
Ibid, 439.
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1760- 1772
Sabin in 1767. It carried passengers every Tuesday morning from Olney's Tavern (North Main and Olney streets) to Boston and made the return trip on Thursdays.26
An attempt was made in 1767 to establish a system of free schools;27 although the proposal was defeated its agitation resulted in the erection of the first brick schoolhouse in Providence. It was built on Gaol Lane (Meeting Street) where it still stands, now used as a nursery school for crippled children. Another schoolhouse, known as Whipple Hall, was erected in the same year on land near the north end of Benefit Street, conveyed by John Whipple. A committee composed of John Jenckes, John Brown, Nathanael Greene, Charles Keene, and Samuel Thurber entered into agreement with Joshua Spooner for its construc- tion December 27, 1767, by which Spooner was "to find all the materials .. . and build a schoolhouse . .. 26 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 10 foot post to be completely finished with
R.I.H.S.
"A S. W. view of the College in Providence together with the president's house & gardens," from an old engraving by S. Hill after a drawing by D. Leonard.
a little house and a good white pine fence."28 The Benefit Street School (erected 1840) now stands on its site at the corner of Benefit and Halsey streets. The Brick Schoolhouse and Whipple Hall became district schoolhouses upon the inauguration of the free school system in 1800 (page 62).
On the hilltop of the Neck, overlooking the commercial part of Providence along the Towne street, the first college edifice was erected in 1770. The college, incorporated by act of the General Assembly March 3, 1764, was established originally at Warren as Rhode Island College. Having determined to remove to Providence the corporation purchased an eight-acre tract which constituted the central part of the original home lots of Daniel Abbott. Chad Brown and John Warner (page II), and included a lane (College Street) extending westerly to Benefit Street. The building committee, consisting of Stephen Hopkins, John Jenckes and John Brown, delegated the preparation of a "complete model"
26. Field, II, 544.
28. Providence Town Papers 0883, Dec. 27, 1767.
27. Staples, p. 496.
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henri date
R.I.H.S.
Joseph Tillinghast House, c. 1767, 403 South Main Street.
CARM
-
R.I.H.S.
Russell House, 1772, 118 North Main Street
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1760- 1772
of the edifice to Joseph Brown, an amateur architect, astronomer and physicist. Associated with him were Mr. Hopkins and President Manning. The design was similar to Nassau Hall at the College of New Jersey (Princeton), although somewhat smaller and plainer. Ground was broken March 27, 1770, the foundation stone was laid May 14, and the build- ing was opened a year later. The work was executed by the firm of Nicholas Brown and Company who volunteered to take entire charge of erecting the college building and the president's house.29
The College Edifice, now University Hall (the name was changed by the corporation in 1823) is a four-story building, 150 feet by 46 feet, with a center projection on each side (illustration, page 43). The walls are brick with segmental-arched windows and doorways, and the wood cornice is broken by pediments over the center section. The edifice has a hipped roof and a deck balustrade, and a cupola rises from the center in which a bell was installed in 1792. During Revolutionary years, while college exercises were suspended, the building served as barracks for American and French troops (page 52). It was altered many times, in ensuing years, and was extensively remodeled in 1940 (page 264).
Following a generous gift to the college by Nicholas Brown, Jr., in 1804, the corporation changed its name to Brown University. In order of founding it ranks seventh in American colleges, having been preceded by Harvard (1636), William and Mary (1693), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), Columbia (1754), and the University of Pennsylvania (1755).30
As the 18th century advanced the typical house plan underwent modifications which provided increased heating comfort during the cold winter months as well as a better circulation acquired by means of more liberal hall space. The evolution is illustrated by the plans shown on page 46. In the single-chimney type of dwelling (plan A), which had prevailed since the early years of the century (page 30), the small stairway gave access only to the front rooms. A modification of that plan provided a central hall (plan B), ex- tending through the house with two rooms on each side and two center chimneys, each having back-to-back fireplaces in each pair of rooms. By a later refinement, effected after the Revolutionary War, the chimneys and their fireplaces were set in the outside walls, (plan C) an arrangement particularly adapted to brick houses.
The "B" plan is illustrated by two present-day survivors of the period: a typical frame dwelling at 403 South Main Street, erected by Captain Joseph Tillinghast about 1767 (illustration, page 44) and an elaborate brick mansion at 118 North Main Street built by Joseph and William Russell in 1772 (illustration, page 44). The gable-roofed, two-and-a- half story Tillinghast house is the only well-preserved survival of the pre-Revolutionary period on the lower part of South Main Street. It has two chimneys, centering on the roof ridge, and two pedimented entrances, one on the front and the other leading from James Street to a side stairway hall located in the space adjoining the north chimney. The Russell mansion, which was built in 1772 where the "Sign of the Golden Eagle"31 had stood (now 1 18 North Main Street), has three full stories with brick walls, each floor marked by a belt course, and a hipped roof rises from the finely decorated cornice to a small monitor. Of particular note is the Corinthian entrance, crowned by a rich entablature with curved
29. Bronson, pp. 54-56; Reuben A. Guild, Early History of Brown University (Providence, 1897), pp. 139, 15I.
30. Bronson, p. 3.
31. See page 41. This was a shop maintained by the Russells where "velvets, broadcloths, Superfine, of scarlet for mens and womens long coats; also paper, looking glasses and books" were sold, as advertised in the Gazette.
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pediment. The dwelling came into possession of Zachariah Allen about 1800 and was trans- formed, 75 years later, into the Clarendon Hotel, continuing as such for another half- century. Now utilized for business purposes, raised a full story for the installation of shops, and stripped of its fine inside finish, much of which has been removed to the Brooklyn Museum, only the outside fabric remains to recall its former charm.
A
B
C
R.I.H.S.
Typical 18th century house plans.
46
CHAPTER 5
1772 - 1784
T HE first official list of street names was adopted by the town in 17721 in which 35 names were enumerated and defined. The streets so designated constituted the built-up part of the town and the listing is of value in reconstructing the highway pattern of the period just before the Revolution.2
The original Towne street was given four names: Water Street (the present South Main), King Street (North Main from Market Square to North Court). William's Street (North Court to Mill; not to be confused with the present Williams Street), and Constitution Street (Mill to Olney). The old road to Pawtucket was named Prince Street (North Main from Olney to the North Burial Ground). "What is commonly called the Back Street" was officially named Benefit Street. Wickenden Lane, Transit Lane,3 Power's Lane, Planet Lane, and Hanover (College) Street4 ran east from Water Street. The former Gaol Lane, extending easterly from King Street, was re-named Meeting Street as far as Benefit and retained its former name farther east. Bowen Alley and Star Lane ran east from William's Street and Mill Street branched to the northwest, crossing Moshassuck river and continuing as Charles Street. Stampers Lane (now absorbed in North Main) branched north from Constitution Street. The original Dexter's Lane, later known as Olney's Lane, extending east from Constitution Street, was named Liberty Street in honor of a Liberty Tree dedi- cated July 25, 1768;5 the extension of that highway (now abandoned) westward to Moshas- suck river was named Olney Street. Moshassuck Lane (Bark Street) extended southerly from that street to the mill bridge.
The highway (page 40) leading "from the Parade on the East side of the Bridge Westward to the parting of the Road by Jacob Whitman" (Market Square and Westminster Street to Turks Head) was named Market Street. Other streets identified on Weybosset side included Westminster (Turks Head to Cathedral Square), Weybosset (Turks Head to Dorrance), Broad (Weybosset, from Dorrance to Abbott Park), Pawtuxet (Broad, from Abbott Park to Comstock Avenue, then the town line), High (Weybosset and Westminster from Abbott Park to Olneyville, Orange, Union (from Weybosset to Westminster), School (Mathewson, from Weybosset to Westminster), Snow (Pine, from Chestnut to Richmond), Dock (Page), and Ship (Clifford and Ship, from Broad to Eddy).
The problem of water supply was met by many of the Neck dwellers by the digging of wells and the construction of rain-water cisterns. The town pump, located on the Fenner estate, north of the Town Parade (the northwest corner of Market Square and North Main Street), was used as a neighborhood supply. As Weybosset side was developed it was found that the water in the wells, dug near the swampy shores, was too brackish to drink, so "it fell to the lot of the boys, some of whom were negros . .. to go with two pails and a hoop,
I. Record Book of Deeds, 20 (1), OI.
2. Not all of the town highways were included in the list of street names. It omitted the present Hope and Angell streets which were then roads to ferries, as well as the present Rochambeau Avenue, then the town boundary and known as Hearnden's or Harrington's Lane.
3. Named for the observation of the transit of Venus, in 1769, through a telescope set up on the highway.
4. Laid out as Rosemary Lane, 1720; changed to Presbyterian Lane, 1727. Named College Street, 1823.
5. Staples, p. 222.
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across the bridge for a supply"6 at the pump. Relief from that condition was provided by two companies, chartered in 1772, which constructed water supply systems by means of water logs. One company, formed by inhabitants of the region north of Cowpen Point,7 supplied its customers from a fresh water spring on the John Field farm, near the present corner of Clifford and Chestnut streets. The other company, known as Rawson's Fountain Society, constructed a "fountain" near Rawson's tanyard (Dean and Fountain streets) and laid an aqueduct from there easterly to Aborn Street.8
The Parade occupied a strategic position as the crossroads between the Neck and the expanding Weybosset side. It was 123 feet wide and included, along its northern border, the roadway leading from the newly-designated King Street to the bridge abutments (page 33). The latter were in alignment with the present easterly line of Canal Street and elevated about ten feet above low tide. The area south of the bridge abutments, used for many years as a market place (page 35), was ungraded and unimproved and was charac- terized as "deep filthy dock in which the tidewater flowed up to the west side of the Main Street."9 On the south border of the Parade was the Abbott Still House (page 33). Dr. Ephraim Bowen's mansion, erected about 1739, stood at the present northeast corner of North Main and College streets and Governor (1727-32) Joseph Jenckes's residence adjoined it on the north; these houses were replaced, in 1823, by the Franklin House and Roger Williams Bank Building, respectively (page 89). Deputy Governor (1778-80) Jabez Bowen resided next north of the Jenckes house in a dwelling, erected about 1745 by Daniel Abbott, later known as the Manufacturers Hotel (illustration, page 120). From its balcony, according to tradition, was proclaimed the accession of George III of England in 1760 and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The house was replaced in 1850 by What Cheer Block (page 120). Facing the Parade, north of the roadway to the bridge and west of the town pump, stood a row of wooden houses.
For a number of years consideration had been given to the erection of a market house on the Parade, a project which advanced in 1771 when the General Assembly acted favor- ably on a petition, signed by a number of townspeople, for a lottery to raise the necessary funds.10 The scheme of the lottery was published in the Gazette April 28, 1772, naming as directors Moses Brown, James Lovell, David Harris and Elisha Mowry, Jr.
Before construction of the building was undertaken it was necessary to do something about the poor condition of the Parade. Accordingly it was filled and graded by John Wiley, by authority of the director of the lottery, and a retaining wall was built southerly from the bridge abutment under contract between John Brown and the town.11
Plans for the market house (illustration page 120) were prepared by Joseph Brown in collaboration with Stephen Hopkins, and Zephaniah Andrews was the master mason. Three of the Brown brothers already were identified with the project; the eldest brother, Nicholas,
6. Stone, p. 25.
7. See page 24. "When the John Field farm was opened for settlement at Cowpen Point the Eddy family established a shipyard there, and so many of the same name were engaged in building vessels and houses that soon the 'Point' was called 'Eddy's neighborhood' or 'Eddy's Point.' " (Chace, p. 6.)
8. Staples, p. 621.
9. John A. Howland in Providence Journal, March 15, 1883. At an earlier period the tide rose to the east side of the highway, as indicated by the uncovering of a rock bearing an iron staple and ring when excavations for Franklin House were made in 1823 (Dorr, p. 105).
10. R.I.C.R., VII, 76. The scope of the lottery included, in addition to the market house, the paving of "the street leading to the Court House" (North and South Court streets).
II. Providence Town Papers, II, pp. 54, 75.
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1772 - 1784
now became a participant, by laying the corner stone in June 1773.12 The building was 40 by 80 feet in area and two stories high, the walls of the lower floor comprising a series of rugged arches of which those at the west end were open to provide direct access from the
A s.w. View of the BAPTIST MEETING HOUSE, Providence, R.I.
R.I.H.S.
From a print by S. Hill, showing the church in 1789
parade to the merchants' stalls within the building. The second story was divided into offices, some of which were used by the town. The stalls were built in 1776 and were disposed of at public vendue, and new hay scales were erected near the northeast corner of the
12. Providence Gazette, June 12, 1773.
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building. Commencing in 1779, and for a number of years thereafter, a portion of the building was used for a fire engine house. During the stay of the French troops in Providence, in 1781, the Market House was appropriated for their use (page 54), and after their departure it was refitted and its surroundings were improved by the planting of trees. The town clerk's office was established in the building in 1793, and when Providence was incorporated as a city in 1832 the city council held meetings there. A third story was added in 1797 by St. John's Lodge of Masons in which the first masonic hall in Rhode Island was installed.13 The building has undergone various alterations since that time (pages 134, 270).
The outstanding architectural work of the pre-Revolutionary period was the First Baptist Meeting House (illustrations, pages 49, 92). The Charitable Baptist Society, having outgrown its church erected in 1726 (page 26), acquired, in 1744, the lots of John Angell and Amaziah Waterman, extending from King (North Main) to Benefit Street, bounded on the north by a 30-foot gangway known as Angell's Lane (Thomas Street) and on the south by Waterman's Lane (Waterman Street).14 Joseph Brown, Jonathan Hammond and Comfort Wheaton were commissioned "to make a Draught of a House," a project in which Mr. Brown took the lead.15 The cost of the building was £7000, of which £5000 was sub- scribed and the balance raised by a lottery. John Brown, brother of Joseph, was in charge of construction. Ground was broken for the foundations June 3, 1774, and the first service was held in the meeting house May 28, 1775.
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