USA > Rhode Island > Kent County > Warwick > The history of Warwick, Rhode Island, from its settlement in 1642 to the present time; including accounts of the early settlement and development of its several villages; sketches of the origin and progress of the different churches of the town, &c., &c > Part 15
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Passing through the grounds to the rear of the house, we come to the old family burial place, in a quiet se- cluded spot, where repose the deceased members of the family of several generations. The lot is of a circular form and closely surrounded by a tall evergreen hedge composed of the pine, arbor vitæ and Norway spruce varieties, tastefully intermingled and completely shut- ting out the view from the outside. Most of the stones
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HISTORY OF WARWICK.
bear the simple name, time of the death and age of the deceased, without any attempt to eulogize their virtues.
The oldest dates noticed were those of 1741, 1752, 1758 and 1760. Here lie two of the Governors of Rhode Island, with their wives beside them.
The following are verbatim copies of the inscriptions on two of the stones:
In memory of the Honbl William Greene Esq' Governor of the Colony: who departed this life Jany 23d A. D. 1758 In ye 62d year of his age.
In memory of the Honorable William Greene Esqr Governor of this State for a number of years, Principally during the period of the successful Exertion for the Independence of America, who departed this life Nov. 29th 1809. In the 78th year of his age.
CROMPTON.
Previous to the year 1800, the territory, for miles around, was in possession of a comparatively few fami- lies ; Westerly, and reaching into Coventry, were the estates of the Tingleys and Mattesons; on the south was the farm of Thomas Arnold, a part of one of the original Coweset farms, and assigned to Richard Carder in 1685 ; a portion of which is now owned by the heirs of Jonathan and James Tiffany.
Thomas Arnold, of Coventry, on the 11th day of March, 1783, as per deed of that date, sold to Thomas Matteson, son of John, for one hundred and twenty-one pounds, seventeen shillings, lawful money, seventeen acres of land, bounded, " north, part on a pond' and part on land of James Greene ; south, on land of the grantee ; west, on a highway, and east on land of said James Greene." Thomas Matteson was the grand-father of Mrs. Albert H. Arnold. He was a blacksmith by trade, and became
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THE MATTESON FAMILY.
possessed of a large landed estate ; the old homestead is the house now occupied by Mr. John Phillips, of Quid- nick, who married a daughter of Elisha Matteson, a son of Thomas. Mrs. Phillips inherited it from her aunt. £ The blacksmith shop occupied the site of the dwelling-house next west of the old house now owned by Mrs. Eben Henrys. John, the brother of Elisha, re- sided in the house which formerly occupied the site of the present fine residence of Mr. Albert H. Arnold. The will of Thomas Matteson is dated March 14, 1810. After making suitable provision for his wife, in addition to her right of dower, he gave to his son, George Matteson, all the land he had bought of Job Greene and Benjamin Fenner, which was a part of the farm " formerly owned by Col. Christopher Greene," to - gether with all his blacksmith's tools and one hundred dollars in money. To his two daughters, Sarah and Marcy, the lot of land opposite the dwelling house, con- taining, by estimation, forty-seven acres ;" also, a cow and one hundred dollars in money to each of them, with two-thirds of all his " indoor movable property ;" and after mentioning legacies in money to each of his eight grand-children, he bequeathed his homestead, farm, and the remainder of his estate, both real and personal, to his two sons, Elisha and John, to be equally divided be- tween them.
John Matteson purchases of his brother Elisha, at five different times, from April 10 to August 25, 1827, 133 acres, at a total cost of $1,365, which, with the amount inherited from his father, and other purchases, gives him an ample domain. On the east end of the present farm of Mr. Albert H. Arnold, and near the river, was the dwelling-house of Moses Matteson,. brother of Thomas, which was torn down not less than sixty years ago. The site of it may be still seen. The old apple trees in the vicinity of it probably bear some relation to the old house. Near by is a spring that fur- nished water for its inhabitants. The spring is now overflowed by the river.
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HISTORY OF WARWICK.
To the north was the land of James Greene, a por- tion of which still remains in possession of his descend- ants. Easterly was farm No. 4, of the "Coweset pur- chase," which was owned in 1685, by the heirs of Ezekiel Holliman, who is spoken of as " a pious, godly man," and who, in 1636, baptized Roger Williams, though he was a layman in the church. This farm was purchased some years before the Revolutionary war, by Stephen Arnold, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and to whom reference has already been made. It extended from the Coweset road to the Highway run- ning from the village of Apponaug to Centreville, and contained about 240 acres. The house in which Judge Arnold reared a large family still stands on the north side of the road, on the brow of the hill opposite the Waterman Clapp farm.
The farm on the opposite side of the road originally belonged to John Greene, Jr., in 1685, and the house in which Mr. Clapp now lives is one of the oldest in the vicinity. It was the ninth in the Coweset purchase. The changes that led to its present ownership can be only briefly mentioned. Among the children of John Greene was a son Peter, who was born February 4, 1654; Peter married Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen Arnold, of Pawtuxet. They had seven children, the third of whom was named John, born March 5, 1686-7. This John-who is often alluded to as Capt. John Greene, of Coweset, to distinguish him from several other Johns in Warwick-married Mary, the daughter of his uncle, Job Greene, October 25, 1719. Capt. John Greene, of Coweset, had four children, one daugh- ter of whom married Silas Clapp. Capt. Greene died May 30, 1758, aged 72. In his will, dated August 5, 1757, after several bequests, he gave his daughter, Mary Clapp, wife of Silas, the homestead farm on which he dwelt, and appointed her sole executrix. He left a widow who was insane, and made special provision for her comfort during her life. Silas Clapp died March 19, 1777, aged 68, and lies buried in the walled enclosure
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CROMPTON.
upon the farm. The homestead was given to John Clapp, whose heirs still retain possession of it. Two years ago (1873), there were four brothers and sisters of this family, upwards of eighty years of age, three of whom were living in the old homestead. Wm. Clapp, of East Greenwich, aged eighty-seven, and Miss Marcy Clapp in her eighty-second year, died in 1873. The funeral of the latter was attended by Mrs. Meder, an approved preacher of the Society of Friends, who, herself, was also in her eighty-second year. Mr. Waterman Clapp is still vigorous, at the ripe age of eighty-eight, while his sister, Miss Ann Clapp, still continues her pilgrimage at the advanced age of ninety-two.
On the east, and adjoining, is the Coweset farm, No. 8, and belonging in 1685, to Richard Waterman, who was one of the twelve original purchasers of Warwick, of the Indians. Half of the farm fell to John Waterman, great-grandson of Richard, in 1720, from whom it fell to his son William. Capt. William died at an ad- vanced age, December 23, 1839. His daughter Marcy, was the second wife of the late James Greene, of Centre- ville. John Waterman, his son, inherited the farm, and was an industrious man, and worked in his fields until near the time of his death, which occurred May 26, 1857. One of his daughters married the first Governor William Sprague:
Somewhat back from the road and near the dividing line between the Clapp and the Waterman farms, is a spot known as the "Old Wigwam," a place that was among the latest in this vicinity to be occupied by the natives. Mr. Waterman Clapp informed me last year (1874) that it used to be a favorite place for him when a boy, to hunt for Indian relics which were numerous at that time.
Farm No. 3, opposite, was purchased of Robert Potter's heirs in 1607, by Israel Arnold of Pawtuxet. A portion of it is now owned by the heirs of Jonathan Remington. The next plantation east belonged also to the Remingtons. The family came originally from
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HISTORY OF WARWICK.
Wales. John, the first we have any knowledge of, and who probably was the progenitor of all of that name in Rhode Island, settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He became a citizen of Portsmouth, in Rhode Island, in 1669. Stephen, one of his sons, was one of the grand jury in 1688. John, Jr., who we think, was another of his sons, was admitted a freeman in 1678. John, in 1695, gave to his third son Thomas, his property in Haverhill, comprising a house and four acres of land on the river. Thomas settled on Prudence Island and sub- sequently located in Warwick. He bought farm No. 1, containing 240 acres, of John Warner and Philip Sweete in 1692-3 for £57. His children consisted of eight sons and two daughters. The daughters' names were Prudence and Mary, the latter bearing the name of her mother. The sons were John, Thomas, William, Daniel, Joseph, Stephen, Matthew and Jonathan. His will, according to a singular custom, was proved before his death, which, however, occurred soon after. His son William, when he sold his share of the farm in 1712, to George Whitman, Jr., of Kingston, reserved " the burying ground where his father and grandfather are " interred. It seems from this that John Remington was buried in this place: "an old tombstone may be seen there bearing the initials of his name with the date of his death." The present owners of a portion of the estate are Mr. Thomas Jones Spencer, son of Gideon, who was the originator of the famous Spencer's pills. Mr. Spencer has greatly improved his estate, having now one of the best farms in the town. Mr. Thomas Levalley also possesses a part of the estate.
Thomas Remington, Sr., devised to Thomas, Jr., William and John, all his lands, they to pay legacies to the other children. As some of the sons married they removed from Warwick and scattered the name of Remington over a large territory. Thomas married Maplet, daughter of Capt. Benjamin Gorton, December 28, 1710; their children were Maplet, born July 11, 1712; Mary, May 17, 1715; Stephen, June 26, 1720;
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THE REMINGTON FAMILY.
Thomas, August 19, 1723. The father died, September 25, 1723, aged 41. In the inventory, of 140 acres, the farm was valued at £600, and an Indian apprentice at £24. This farm was No. 2, on the plat of the Coweset farms, and was originally assigned to John Smith, but inherited by his heirs, the two children of Lieut. Eliza Collins, and from them to Samuel Barnes of Swanzey, and was afterwards sold by the latter, in 1712, to Thomas Remington, for £243. Thomas Remington sold 100 acres on the north end to his brother Daniel for £100, in October, 1715. Benjamin F. Remington now owns and lives on the farm where his ancestors ploughed the first furrow in the virgin soil. Thomas, the fourth child of Thomas and Maplet, was married to Abigail Eldred, December 14, 1744. Their children are as follows: Thomas, one of triplets, two of whom died in a few days, was born October 24, 1747. He was a judge several years, and resided in Coventry ; Maplet, born June 16, 1749, married William Rice of Crompton ; Sarah married Charles Holden of Providence ; Benjamin, born September 2, 1752; the next day, by the new calendar, the 3d of September was reckoned the 14th, consequently young Benjamin, though but two days old, was made to appear, by the hocus pocus of figures, fourteen days old. Benjamin was one of the owners of the Crompton mill. Mary, another daughter, was born, in 1754; John, November 2, 1756. He was a captain in the Revolutionary Army, and died in North Adams, Massachusetts. Jonathan was born September 9, 1758 ; he settled in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, and was a man of some political importance, and frequently represented the town of Cheshire in the Legislature, previous to 1793; James W. was born May 28, 1760; Henry, July 28, 1764 ; he was judge of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1808, and a fluent, energetic debater. Four of these brothers were in the American army during the war of the Revolution. The father died April 12 1808, in his 85th year. Mrs. R. died April 14, 1766, in her 43d year.
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HISTORY OF WARWICK.
At the establishment of the Crompton mills, Benja- min, already alluded to as one of the new company, lived upon the family estate, about a mile distant, on the Coweset road. He was a member of the town council and of the legislature ; he married Phebe, daughter of Capt. Matthew Manchester. His second wife was Lydia and the third Nancy ; they were all sisters, and died be- tween their 31st and 33d years. He married the fourth time into another family, and died himself in the sum- mer of 1837. He left 140 acres of land to his sons, Jon- athan and Thomas, the latter the father of Benjamin F.
The present dwelling house of Mr. James E. Whitford stands on the site of the former residence of Judge Othniel Gorton, who was chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island from 1788 to 1790. Just after the close of the Revolutionary war, Judge Gorton acted as chairman of a committee appointed by the General As- sembly, to enquire into the conduct of certain persons suspected of disloyalty. During the process of the ex- amination, some person affixed to the door of his house an insulting and threatening paper, designed to intimi- date him from prosecuting his enquiries. The General Assembly offered a reward of five hundred dollars for in- formation leading to the discovery of the offender.
THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE.
About half a mile east of the village, on the land of Mr. Waterman Clapp, may still be seen the debris of the old school house, built in the year 1798. The house originally stood on the opposite side of the road, on land owned by Judge Stephen Arnold .. The land was given by the Judge for school purposes, to revert to the original owner when no longer used for these purposes.
The house was built by subscription, and was a small one story building, but was regarded as a very creditable affair at the time. It was estimated to cost $150, but, like most of such estimates, it exceeded this amount
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SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL TEACHERS.
by $50. There were twenty shares, of which Mr.Clapp's father held four; sixteen other persons held one share each. The teachers were supported by a tuition tax upon the pupils, and though a private school, it was de- signed to furnish educational facilities for all the families then residing within the limits of the present village of Crompton, as well as those in the farming regions round about. The first teacher was James Pollard, an English- man, who is still remembered by Mr. Clapp, from whonr most of the items connected with the building have been obtained. Mr. Clapp was one of his pupils. Mr. Pol- lard's daughter, Mrs. Cady, mother of Mr. Ezra J. Cady, of Centreville, is still living, though at the present time old and blind. Mr. Clapp showed the writer a family record written, or rather printed with the pen, by Mr. Pollard, and if he was as well qualified to teach the other branches of knowledge as he evidently was that of penmanship, the interests of his pupils must have been very well pro- vided for. Quite a number of persons are now living in this region, who attended school there, among them Mrs. Oliver Arnold, who then lived a couple of miles south, and Mr. Albert H. Arnold, who then lived at his home, on the Apponaug road, and who had the misfortune to pitch off the bank near the school house and break his arm.
Mr. Pollard was followed as teacher by Mr. Bennett Holden, Miss Lucy Glover, Miss Pond and Oliver Johnson, Esq., now of Providence, and others. In 1826, Mr. Clapp bought up the shares, at a dollar and a quarter a share, and removed the building upon his land directly across the road, where it was still used for several years, until about the year 1830. When it was no longer needed for a school house it was altered into a tenement, and an additional story was added to its height. Mrs. Lucy Sweet, a respectable colored woman, was a tenant at one time. Like most of its teachers and pupils who im- parted or received instruction within its walls, it could not resist the increasing infirmities of time, and finally went to decay and blew down seven or eight
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years ago, leaving only the foundation walls and the shattered remains of the building to mark the spot where stood the first school-house for miles around, and where the aged fathers and mothers in this vicinity received their early instruction.
During the time in which the old school-house was in use, the village of Crompton had come into existence. The present site of the village with many contiguous acres fell at a very early period into the possession of the Mattesons. Henry Matteson devised by will, Dec. 12, 1756, this tract to his two sons, Nicholas and Isaac, the former of whom married Abigail, daughter of Jonathan Cook. They sold to William Rice, for £1200, June 4, 1779, 127 acres of land and a dwelling house, the boundaries of which were: a highway on the south, east and west; northerly, by land of James Greene and Thomas Matteson. The highway alluded to is the ancient one leading from Centreville in a southerly di- rection until it meets the Coweset road, then running south-westerly along the Pawtuxet to the village of Washington. Mr. Rice purchased on both sides of the Pawtuxet, meeting James Greene's land at Centreville, and both his and Thomas Matteson's at Matteson's pond. Some of the bounds, as laid down upon the Matteson deed, are not now in existence; for instance, a large spring in the south-west corner which has been over- flowed since the erection of the dams. Paper currency depreciated so rapidly after the sale that the Mattesons were scarcely able to exchange their £1200 for a yoke of oxen.
Wm. Rice, April 1, 1784, bought of Ephraim Tingley, of Coventry, son of Ephraim, 37 acres with a grist mill and house, for the sum of £240. The Tingley mill was very old and was probably contemporaneous with the settlement of the Coweset farms ; a part of this farm is now owned and occupied by Mr. Gideon B. Whitford. The old house in which Wm. Rice lived, that stood on the site of the one now occupied by Mr. Whitford, was torn down some years ago. The grist mill was situated
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MANUFACTURING.
just across the Warwick line in Coventry, a little south of the canal that conveys water to the mills, near the upper dam, and opposite the house of George Tiffany. The site of the present village in 1800, was a dense forest, in which, Mr. Waterman Clapp informed me, he often hunted rabbits and partridges in his boyhood. Another old resident corroborates the fact that the . ground was covered with a heavy growth of wood, in- termingled with laurel, so dense, that the sun of mid-day sought the ground in vain. A spot just in front of where the Catholic Church now stands, was noted as a haunted spot. It is said that William Clapp, when a young man, was passing from his home to the grist mill at Centreville, and when near that spot, he saw what he thought was a man, but as he looked at it, it gradually faded out of sight, and nothing would convince him that he had not seen an apparition. Dr. Sylvester Knight, it was said, observed the same phenomenon. Another spot in Centreville, on the opposite corner from the old tavern house, enjoyed the unenviable notoriety of being the Haunted Corner. Mr. Clapp said that when his father used to send him to the grist mill, he always made it a point to get by these places before dark. The old gen- tleman related with great merriment these incidents of his youthful days.
The first attempts at manufacturing in this village be- gan in 1807, on which date, a company of eight men, five of whom lived in Providence, and the others in this vicinity, purchased 20 acres of land of Wm. Rice, for $1050; Seth Wheaton, held nine shares ; Thomas Ses- sions, six ; John K. Pitman, six; Henry Smith, four ; Nathaniel Searle, two ; Jonathan Tiffany, two; Benjamin Remington, one ; the last two were citizens of Warwick. The company styled themselves "The Providence Manu- facturing Company." As the capital stock was divided into 32 shares, there is one not accounted for. It is said to have belonged to Wm. Rice, who, being apprehensive of future embarrassment, would not permit his name to go upon the town's records as one of the original band.
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The head of this firm was Col. Seth Wheaton, a native of Providence, and a good specimen of her former mer- chants. He died October 26, 1827, aged 68. His only · son, Henry Wheaton, was a noted man, and his name will be remembered long after the mills that his father raised in Crompton have crumbled into dust. Mr. Ses- sions was well known as a man of business, though he excited much opposition. Nathaniel Searle was a tal- ented lawyer. Benjamin Remington was a farmer, and lived on the Coweset road. Major Jonathan Tiffany resided at Centreville, though he subsequently removed to Crompton, where his descendants now live. He as- sisted in making the machinery for the mills at Anthony and Crompton.
The Stone mill, called formerly by some, in derision, " the stone Jug," now designated as No. 1, was built in 1807,* and the village was known for some years as the Stone factory. It is said to be the first stone cotton mill built in the State. Additional land was purchased of Wm. Rice and Thomas Matteson in 1808. In January, of this year, Mr. Wheaton sold seven shares of his stock to Sullivan Dorr, for $6,720. Roger Alexander, of Cum- berland, purchased two shares and gave the company the benefit of his intimate knowledge of cotton spinning. Alexander sold his shares to the company in 1812, for the sum of $2,900, In 1814, Mr. Dorr sold all his in- terest in the concern, consisting of ten shares, to Thomas Sessions. Wm. Marchant, of Newport, bought one- twelfth, for $8,000, in 1814, and Mr. Pitman, the same year, sold to Sessions, Smith, Searle and Tiffany, all his right in the real and personal estate of the Company, being six-thirty-second parts, for $31,8(0, and took a mortgage on the property. The company remodeled the shares among themselves, and made Sessions their agent. In May 16, 1816, the company failed, and made an as- signment to Philip Allen and Samuel Aborn: Pitman recovered judgment against the surviving assignee ( Mr.
* The cap-stone over the door bearing the date of 1806, was placed there in the year 1862 3. The true date is 1807 as above given.
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TIFFANY'S MILL AND FLAT TOP.
Aborn being dead), in an action of tresspass and eject- ment, and appointed John Whipple to act as his at- torney on the premises, August 30, 1818. Within this time Jonathan Tiffany had charge of the mills for about two years. After sundry conveyances from one member to another, from some of the associates to outsiders, from the latter back to the former, conveyances great in numbers, comprehensive in quality, perfectly legible to lawyers, but entirely hieroglyphical to the uninitiated- after all the ink was spilt and paper used up, MI. Pitman tork possession in January, 1819. The inventory spreads over eleven folio pages of the records of Warwick.
One or two other mills, in the southern part of the vil- lage, claim a passing notice. Shortly after the failure of the Providence Manufacturing Company, in 1816, Major Jonathan Tiffany and John K. Pitman his brother-in-law, built a stone mill about 50 feet by 70, on the east side of the turnpike, near the Flat Top. Two dwelling-houses stand near the site of the mill at present. The mill was two stories high, with a basement, in which a store was kept at first, but which was subsequently used for manu- facturing purposes. It was used for spinning yarn which was put out to be woven by hand-looms. They continued to run it until about 1827, when it passed into the hands of the Major's sons, Jonathan and John K. Tiffany. Gen. James G. Anthony was associated with them for several years. The new firm made wadding. John K. Tiffany died in October, 1836. The mill continued in operation until the year 1844. The supply of water was small, but the fall was over thirty feet. The mill was taken down in 1848, and a portion of the stone was used in the addition made to No. 1 mill of the Crompton Company.
The old " Flat Top," occupying the site of the present building, was erected about the same time as the preced- ing, by Capt. William Rice and his son-in-law, James E. Remington, and was used for the same purpose-the spinning of cotton yarn. It has had various occupants, but none of them seem to have found it a very desirable
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spot. John J. Wood and John Higgins, used it awhile. It came into the hands of John Allen, of Centreville, who held a heavy mortgage upon it. Mr. Allen let it for a while to his nephew, Alexander Allen, during which time it burned down, a fate that attended it twice after- wards. Job Card, Thomas Marble, Daniel Maguire. Ezra J. Cady, and others have at different times been connected with its management.
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