title: Narragansett Bay, its historic and romantic associations and picturesque setting,
text: y .*'% ■ .>o. ^./ v^. -.s o '\i X,iK.\y * <t? "^ ' ■. -^-A ^ ,, P-^^^ ■ - -• .^° •^^^- ' ^^ ^ %><^f r ', ^ v' r.^ -V %p!^ .0^ .^^ ,;^^^e \./ :^: %,^ ,- V ' .^'^ -^^ 4 O ^0 ^^ '^ => » o ^ ^f^ V" .^" <-. '° - " ^ v^ O « o t. ,^^ ... V *• ^V ,,^ %. b." ""^n cy * *^^ ■I .-iq. -v' '•^^ By EDGAR MATHEW BACON Narragansett Bay : Its Historic and Romantic Associations 8°. Uniform with "The Hudson River." With 70 Illustrations TKe Hudson River from Ocean to Source Historical — Legendary — Picturesque 8°. With over 100 Illustrations. CKronicles of TarrytoAvn and Sleepy Hollow 16°. With 23 full-page Illustrations. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Ne-w "YorK London V \ .4^ f ^ ^■ "1 1 ^k 1 ^^ Hh. ^IN V^^h ,*«^^' y^^^'.'-^ '^>m^w^ Wi ^^. )L1) \V1M).\111,L ON AijL'ID.NKI.. K Narragansett Bay Its Historic and Romantic Associations and Picturesque Setting By Edgar Mayhew Bacon Author of •* The Hudson River from Ocean to Source " Chronicles of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow," etc. Illustrated with Fifty Drawings by the Author and with Numerous Photographs G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London Zbc IRnickerbocher ipress 1904 SEP 13 1904 o GoDyrleht Entry CLASS <2. XXO. No. CePY B Copyright, 1904 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Published, September, 1904 ■Cbe IRnicljevboclJcr press, Iftcw ^ovk Preface THE appreciative reception given by the reviewers and by the pubHc to The Hudson River from Ocean to So2irce, has encouraged the author of that work to present in a similar form another vohnne emphasising the unique beauty and commemorating the great historic interest and the legendary charm of Rhode Island's noble bay. The preparation of this study of Narragansett Bay has afforded a fascinating occupation for several years. The collection of material for it has not only necessi- tated the examination of old records but has led to eventful cruises amonof the islands, visits to famous landmarks, sojourns in picturesque towns, and acquaint- ance with many delightful people whose courtesy in facilitatinof the collection of material calls for orrateful acknowledofment. Impressed by the important and singular part played by the settlers of Narragansett in the development of American ideas and ideals, and strongly attracted by the romantic tales that are inwoven with the warp of history, as well as by the incomparable setting the great bay affords for such a subject, the author offers this VI Preface result of his labour as a contribution to the story of great American Waterways, with the hope that his readers may be imbued with somewhat of his own enthusiasm. E. M. B. New York, May, 1904. I I Contents I. — Introductory. . i II. — From Providence to Cowesett . . . -15 III. — The Ambit of the Bay ...... 47 IV. — The Charm of Old Bristol ..... 78 V. — From the Top of Pocanoket ..... 109 VI. — Sea Rovers from the Bay ..... 136 VII. — The " Gaspee " Affair and Others . . 160 VIII. — Rhode Island in the Revolution .... 187 IX. — The Narragansett Country ..... 218 X. — Ghosts at Newport ...... 270 XI. — Along Shore on Aquidneck ..... 310 XII. — Old Haunts in East Greenwich and VVickford . 321 XIII. — A Budget of Legends ...... 346 Index . . . , 369 Illustrations Old Windmill on Aquidneck .... Frontispiece Rock Inscription at Hopevvorth on Mount Hope Bay. At- tributed to the Northmen ...... 3 Crystal Rock, at the foot of Mount Hope, nearly Opposite Fall River. It is Composed of White Quartz, with Inferior Crystals of Garnet Interspersed ... 7 Mount Hope. The Supposed " Hop " of the Northmen, and Later the Headquarters of King Philip Group of Sailboats on Providence River .... The Beautiful Gates of Brown University, Opening upon a Campus Shaded by Fine Elm Trees, on College Hill, Providence ........ The Canoe was Hauled Under the Stern of the White Man's Boat The Shores of Providence River .... Warwick Neck, at the Entrance to Cowesett Bay. Samuel Gorton's Leather Breeches, now in Possession o Mrs. Sam Clarke ...... Old Church at Apponaug ..... " Greene Memorial " House, at Apponaug An Extensive View of Narragansett Bay, as Seen from the Top of Mount Hope. In the Distance, Beyond the Dumplings, is the Atlantic Ocean . . .. Fish Nets and Boats. ....... II 19 23 29 31 34 37 39 43 49 53 Illustrations Fish Hawk's Nest ....... Light-house on Dutch Island ..... The Dumplings, on Conanicut Island Fort Adams, Guarding Newport Harbour Bishop's Rock, in Newport Harbour Beaver-Tail Light and Brenton's Reef Light-ship Sandy Point Light-house ...... View of Bristol Ferry from Prudence Island. Upper End of Aquidneck (Rhode Island) Colt House, Bristol ....... The Green at Bristol, Showing Part of Church and the Court-house ....... Where the Cup Defenders are Built. The Herreshoff Works at Bristol ...... Pappoosesquaw Neck ...... The Narrows, at the Mouth of the Kickamuet River A Distant View of Mount Hope, from the West Shore o Mount Hope Bay ...... Philip's Rock ........ Woodland Border of the Swamp where King Philip Fell Mount Hope Bay, Looking toward Tiverton. Taunton River, between Taunton and Dighton Fall River, with Sparrow Island in the Foreground, from Hopeworth Shore ...... At the Entrance of Mount Hope Bay. Starting Point o King Philip's Forays into Massachusetts. Commodore Abraham Whipple .... From a water-colour in the collection of the Rhode Island Histori cal Society. 55 57 59 62 63 65 69 73 1^ 85 89 95 103 107 1 1 1 117 121 125 129 135 141 I I I Illustrations XI Captain Fone's Schooner Tartar Luring the French Frigate away from the Merchantmen . . . 1 50 From Mount Hope the Saconnet River Lies Exposed to View hke a Chart i53 The Warwick Shore across Cowesett Bay . . .162 Governor Joseph Wanton  in Narragansett Bay . . . .188 The Capture   extreme left is the United States Life-Sav- ing Station, and next to it the now ruined Casino. Typical Narragansett P^irmhouse ..... 239 Old Apple Orchard on Boston Neck .... 249 Whale Rock Light-house, Between the Narragansett Shore and  Judith 265 Sea Wall at Newport, from the Cliff Walk . . .275 In Quiet Waters . . . . - • • .281 Shore Rocks beyond the Public Bathing Beach at Newport 292 The Road to the Beach, Newport 297 A Cottage on the Shore . . . . • • -3'^ The North End of Aquidneck, Coal Pier, and Breakers . 317 xii Illustrations PAGE East Greenwich Harbour ....... 322 The Birthplace of General Nathaniel Greene, since Re- modelled ........ . 327 The Governor Greene House on the North Side of Division Street, a  Professor Geo. W. Greene ....... 336 The Babbitt Farmhouse, near Wickford. The Building is said to be an Enlargement of Richard Smith's Blockhouse ........ 343 The Water Front at Old Wickford ..... 347 Piano from an Old Wickford House . . -355 Map of Narragansett Bay . .... at oid Narragansett Bay Narragansett Bay Introductory THE Skeleton in Armour meets us on the thresh- old of all investigation into early Narragansett history. He lays claim to more than one eligible site in New England and resists eviction by the very ambiguity of the evidence upon which his claims are based. The ancient sag^as of the Northmen are the docu- ments relied upon by historians for our meagre know- ledge of facts now generally accepted concerning the early voyagers to the shores of North America. No student to-day would dream of admitting the claim of Columbus to priority as the discoverer of America. Bjarni Herjulfsen, who sailed from Iceland toward Greenland in the year 986, and was driven by stress of weather into a far and wonderful country, and Leif the son of Eric, who fourteen years later was incited by Bjarni's story to follow his course, must both have seen the pleasant shores of New England, but beyond this we can be sure of nothings. The sum of our wisdom on 2 Narragansett Bay tliis head is contained in two statements which may be taken as authoritative. Professor Max Miiller, speaking of the knowledge of America possessed by the country- men of Bjarni and Leif, said : " I have met with nothing to shake my beHef that the Northmen possessed such knowledge," while from Bancroft's conclusion that "the soil of the United States has not one vestige of their presence," there is to day no noteworthy dissent. Professor Rafn years ago identified Rhode Island as the " Yineland " of the Northmen, while Anderson, Goodrich, Haven, and others have followed his lead. There was a time when the country went mad over the theories of the Swedish antiquaries and their American disciples, and swallowed relics with a good mediaeval fervour. Longfellow was only one of the thousands who caught the infection, and his poems upon the alleged Norse tower at Newport, and the greatly misunderstood armed skeleton, dug up at Fall River, showed him no more credulous than his neighbours. Actually the skel- eton " in rude armour dressed " was arrayed in nothing more convincing than a brass or copper plate or shield over his breast, a belt made of cylinders of the same metal arranged not unlike a modern cartridge-belt, and a quantity of arrow heads, all of which details of cos- tume are known to have been peculiar to Indians living within thirty miles of Fall River and not to the North- men. Moreover, the mode of burial, the skeleton hav- ing been found sitting bolt upright, indicates the Indian and not the Scandinavian. Introductory 3 Inscribed rocks have been found in several places near Mount Hope. At Hopeworth, on the west shore of Mount Hope Bay, is one, at Dighton another, and still others at Tiverton and Portsmouth. That at Digh- ton, upon the Taunton River, where the stream, though less than half a mile broad, has a tide-rise of several feet, was first mentioned in 1680, when white men had been ROCK INSCRIPTION AT HOPEWORTH ON MT. HOPE BAY. ATTRIBUTED TO THE NORTHMEN in the neighbourhood for half a century or more. Cotton Mather, about the year 1 700, gave a description of a rock at Taunton and alluded to the fact that it is partly covered at very high tide, speaking also of the lines as being "very deeply engraved, no man knows when or how." We have a hint of the rate of effacement or obliter- ation by tide erosion. In the first decade of the 19th century the lines of the Dighton Rock inscription were, by actual measurement, one inch broad and half an inch deep. In 1875 they were described as almost indistinguishable, except under very close inspection. 4 Narragansett Bay while to-day there is merely a trace of them remaining. In other words, we have the rate of destruction, rough- ly stated, one half inch in a century. To have endured since the time of Leif the Lucky, the inscription must therefore have been originally at least five inches in depth and each line not less than five inches in breadth. To have allowed space between the lines at all com- mensurate with such a width, the distance between centre and centre should be at least ten inches. In the case of the Mount Hope Bay inscription, where the rock is much softer and the destruction consequently much more rapid, the whole surface of the bowlder would not have sufficed for a fraction of the lines that compose the inscription. Nor can we conceive that a warrior or sailor with such implements as may have been found in Leif's vessel, could have cut any one of the hieroglyphs upon the colossal scale implied. Runes composed of lines nearly half a foot in width and depth, were, I believe, quite beyond the skill of any stonecutter of that day and race. I have several times examined the Mount Hope Bay rock within the past five years and I find the change in that time very marked — there is hardly anything left of it. Formerly it was above tide water, but has been carried down within the past half-century to its present bed and is now washed daily by the waves. The best answer that we can return to the claims of Leif and his Northmen to the settlement of Mount Hope is the Scotch verdict of "not proven," though Introductory 5 by the same testimony the claim is not disproven. The description of the saga is not minute in all partic- ulars, but it is graphic and certainly suggests Mount Hope Bay as well as it does any spot upon the New England coast — perhaps a little better. There is much stronger evidence to support the theory that Verrazani, called sometimes a French navi- gator, but more justly a Florentine corsair, sailing in 1524 under a commission from Francis I, discovered Narragansett Bay and landed where Newport now stands. Of course there has been dissent and discus- sion, and Verrazani and his map have been a bone of contention to many wise geographers, but nevertheless it does appear that the water that he called the Bay of Refuge, and which afterwards came to be called the Bay of St. John the Baptist, is the same to which we give the more musical Indian name Narragansett, and that the island that he named Louisa, after the king's mother, was that which now bears the name of its later discoverer, the Dutch navigator Adrian Block. Block attached a number of names that stuck, but not all of his titles were adhesive. He named the main body of water, the great bay itself, after the prince of Nassau. Block, with the patient painstaking of a good sailor, made exhaustive soundings of the bay and all its arms and tributaries and prepared a chart that could leave no chance for controversy as to the waters he claimed to have explored. A very brief glance at the geology of the Narra- 6 Narragansett Bay gansett region may not be amiss in this place. We find that the tract of land lying between Providence and Greenwich Bay " bounded westerly by a line run- ning about half a mile east of Olneyville, to the N. W. extremity of Greenwich Bay, and easterly to an irreg- ular line from half a mile to two miles west of Provi- dence Bay, etc.," belongs to the Tertiary period. All that part of the State west of Greenwich and Kings- town is composed of primary rock, which also occurs in the lower end of Conanicut Island and through the eastern part of Newport. The western end of New- port is of metamorphic rock with many bowlders piled along the shores. All of the remainder of Aquidneck, Conanicut, Prudence, and the main shore of Narragan- sett Bay, except the western half of Bristol (which is primary rock), is transition grau-wacke. In various localities iron and other minerals appear, and numerous fields of peat are found in some parts of the State. The north end of Rhode Island (/. e., Aquid- neck) contains coal, but of a quality that has not proved profitable when put upon the market. Block Island is of Diluvian formation. A line drawn northward from Wickford on the west side of the bay through Olneyville and from Lymans north-west to the Massachusetts border, marks a sharp line of division be- tween the primary rock of the western half of the state and the transition gr. wacke and Tertiary formations of the land bordering or surrounded by the bay. West of the upper part of such a line is a strip four or five miles W as > 3 ^ o s S I Introductory 9 in width and about eighteen miles in length, of horn- blende, with numerous ledges of limestone. Tiverton and Little Compton, east of the bay, are composed of primary rock, and correspond with the east half of Bristol Neck, while the upper end of Rhode Island, thrust between them, is of transition gr. wacke. Mount Hope is composed of granite upon its western side and white quartz on the eastern. Near the eastern base of Mount Hope, forming part of the gateway of the bay, there is a striking promontory of white quartz interspersed with inferior crystals of garnet. This headland, appropriately named "crystal rock," rises almost abruptly and without verdure of any kind to a height of forty or fifty feet and is covered on the top with a grove of cedars and junipers. Narragansett Bay is so irregular in its outline that it is difficult to make a word picture that will convey any clear idea of its contour. Providence lies at the ex- treme northern end, at the head of a long estuary that is known as the Providence River. Upon the western shore of the bay on an irregular line, the general di- rection of which from Providence is a little west of south, there are among others the historic landmarks of Pawtuxet, Warwick, East Greenwich, Wickford, Kingston, Narragansett, and Point Judith. Beyond Point Judith southward is Haiti, and eastward the coast of Europe. The other shore runs south-easterly from Providence through several towns to Bristol, where it curves sharply lo Narragansett Bay east and northward and, forming the beautiful and irreg- ular sheet of water known as Mount Hope Bay, makes a southerly line from Fall River through Tiverton and Little Compton, to the extreme point of Saconnet, which forms the south-eastern extremity of the Saconnet River. Between the two shores thus roughly described there are three large islands that divide the bay into separate channels. The greatest of these islands is the most easterly one and is known as Aquidneck or Rhode Island. Its upper extremity extends into Mount Hope Bay and its southern capes are washed by the Atlantic Ocean. The arm of the bay that flows between Aquid- neck and the eastern shore is called the Saconnet or Seaconnet River, though properly it is not a river, but a strait, and so it used to be called upon the old maps. Portsmouth is at one end of Aquidneck Island, and Newport at the other. The second island in size, Conanicut, has not more than one-fifth of Aquidneck's area. It splits the bay between Newport and the Kingstown shore into two long, irregular channels. The third of the large islands is Prudence, the upper end of which is almost midway between Bristol and Warwick, and the lower end midway between Aquidneck and the north end of Conanicut. Besides these larger islands there are almost innu- merable smaller ones, some of which have names that suggest the trials of navigators in the days before the use of steam. There is a story told of a Bristol child, ■^ t V*,' Introductory 1 3 who when asked in Sunday School to repeat a verse from the Bible, shut her eyes and chanted " Prudence, Patience, Hope, and Despair, And little Hog Island right over there." Before the advent of the white men and for many years afterwards the shores and islands of Narragansett Bay were covered with luxuriant forests, except in a few places where the Indians cleared the ground for some purpose. The islands, now in many cases prac- tically denuded of trees, owe their devastation to the British encampments during the War for Independence. If imagination can add to the present beauty of this great labyrinth of waters the charm of that abundant verdure described by early navigators and historians, the picture will be one of unexampled loveliness. Scattered throughout the bay a few capes, islands, and estuaries bear the names of early settlers whose descendants in some cases form an important fraction of the present population. W6 have Dyer's Island, Brenton's Reef, Coggeshall's Cove, etc., to perpetuate the memories of men who were once leaders in council and in war. Some of the place names are Indian and many of them are mere navigator's names, handed down from generation to generation since the visit of Adrian Block. The island which bears the Dutch navigator's own name is in the Atlantic Ocean, ten miles to the south-east of Point Judith, but it belongs to Newport County and may properly be included in the present work. 14 Narragansett Bay The modern history of Narragansett Bay could almost be told in the biographies of a few prominent men. Rhode Island presents an anomalous record, of a pioneer democracy with powerful leaders whose as- cendency amounted almost to chieftainship. Such leaders were Williams, at Providence and after him Chad Brown and his descendants; the Potters (Hope- still Potter and his son Simeon) at Bristol ; Coggeshall, Coddington, Clarke, Brenton, and their companions at Newport ; Wanton at Tiverton ; Samuel Gorton at Warwick ; the Greenes at East Greenwich ; Benedict Arnold at Pawtucket ; the Hazards and others in Kings County, and so on to the end of the chapter. These were the men who with their companions made the little State, and by their progeny helped to people it, while by marriage their descendants have not only established a general relationship with each other but have absorbed also the best of the outside element that soucrht homes amongr them durino; the loner colonial period. Chapter II From Providence to Cowesett ALL the world knows that when Roger Wilhams was driven out of Massachusetts and called a troublesome fellow by the Puritan elders, who could not brook any suggestion that seemed to impugn their infallibility, he came with his few forlorn friends to the place that is now Providence. The Indians wel- comed him in words that tradition has preserved : " Wha Cheer, Natop," which has been variously translated, but seems to have been at least a friendly and compliment- ary fashion of " passing the time o' day." Within a few years of its settlement Providence had an unsavory reputation for lawlessness, if the reports of its Puritan enemies may be credited, and even if we discount those prejudiced accounts, there is still reason to believe that the principles of liberty preached by Williams had attracted a number of ungovernable spirits, whose excesses were for several years beyond the leader's control. That this initial attempt to found a city at the head waters of Narragansett Bay was grandly successful, in spite of the dangers and difficulties that at first beset it, was due almost entirely to the wonderful personality^ 15 i6 Narragansett Bay of that leader, who in face of opposition and lawlessness finally shaped its destinies. Williams' suffering must have been great, as he was ^3^-^iSP^ THK UPPER ARM OF NARRAGANSETT BAY, CALLED PROVIDENCE RIVER. IN THE DISTANCE IS THE CITY OF PROVIDENCE obliged to take to the wilderness in the depth of a New England winter, at a time when he was in poor health. He found a refugfe in the wiofwams of the Indians, to whom he aspired to be a teacher, and he had no means of subsistence but their coarse and scanty fare; yet he not only lived but became physically strong, bearing for years the brunt of a great enterprise, the fatigues of strenuous missions and long journeys, and the harassing cares of a community often ungrateful and nearly always unwise. He lived to a grreat asfe and saw the handful From Providence to Cowesett 17 that he planted in the wilderness grow to a mighty harvest. It is a fact that Williams not only retained trade re- lations with the colony from which he had been exiled, but was in close correspondence and upon terms of personal friendship with several of the leading men of the Massachusetts colony. Winthrop, the elder, was his associate in the purchase of Prudence Island and in other ventures, and these two remarkable men remained throughout their lives on a footing of intimacy. Sir Henry Vane was another of Williams's close friends; yet the latter could not set foot upon the soil of that colony where their names were honoured, nor would their associates recoo^nise his rioht even to the grround he had reclaimed from the untenanted forest. The Bay settlers of Boston and Salem were glad enough to avail themselves of the exiled leader's kind offices and influence to avert the horrors of Indian war; but they offered no recognition of his invaluable services, and, actually refusing to permit him to embark for England from a Massachusetts port, forced him to seek that privilege from the Dutch at New York. Williams's influence with the Indians was practically unbounded. No chief could have exerted a greater control over those restless, untrained spirits than did this dearly loved member of a race that was both hated and dreaded. When after several successful efforts to restrain their animosity, excited by the injustice and unreasonable severity of the whites, he at last found 1 8 Narragansett Bay them implacable, they even then respected his person and expressed their affection for him. Providence had for years been spared the arrow and the firebrand be- cause of his presence there, but finally, when Williams was an old man, the city was threatened with destruction. Bravely as of old the leader went out, alone and unarmed, to meet the invaders, but for once his argu- ments and his pleas were unavailing. He was told that because he was an honest man not a hair of his head would be harmed, but that the city should be burned. It was a startling commentary upon the number of honest men the savages had discovered in Providence. One of the intimates of Roger Williams, was the Rev. Chad Brown, the ancestor of that John Brown who stood first among the old merchants of Providence at the breaking out of the war for Independence, and whose nephew gave his name to Brown University. As I have indicated in the account of Bristol in another chapter, the energetic inciter of the Gaspee adventure became a progenitor of several lines of prominent Rhode Islanders and is looked upon as one of the re- markable men of his generation. It was a distinction to be at the forefront of the business activity of Providence in the days when India wharf was somethinof more than a name. Then the ships from the Orient brought their freight to a good market and the old stone warehouses that have weathered the storms of more than a century and a half, held their fat sides in content as the bales and From Providence to Cowesett 19 boxes and barrels were stowed in their recesses. What an unctuous sound have the street names in an old Providence directory. Gold and Silver, Bond and Money streets mark the once opulent business end of GROUP OF SAILBOATS ON PROVIDENCE RIVER town, but are now decayed and become dingy harbourers of small affairs. Rum, molasses, and slaves ; slaves, molasses, and rum — how the old merchants juggled with these staple articles of a profitable trade, sending Jamaica rum to 20 Narragansett Bay Africa for negroes, and sending African negroes to Jamaica for rum ; finding a rich profit in both ends of the trade. Had Jamaica been obhged to seek and im- port her own negroes she could no more have done it than Africa could supply herself with rum. The canny New Englander must slip between. Let no self-right- eous Gothamite hold up virtuous hands in horror at the moral obliquity that indulged in such ventures. New York had her own slave traders and her own privateers- men and her own traders in " rum and other necessaries of life," and even Connecticut, "the land of steady habits," was not above an occasional African venture on her own hook. Providence lies at the very head of the bay, and that arm, which is called Providence River, terminates abruptly, to all appearances, at a bridge that the people of the city fondly proclaim to be the broadest in the world. Under busy streets the waters of the Moshau- sick seek the bay. It was not the Moshausick but the Seekonk River that Roger Williams descended in his canoe, comingr down throuofh Pawtucket. His landing- place was almost upon the outskirts of the present city. If it is true that the cattle of the settlers were the original surveyors of Boston streets, one regrets that they were not employed in a similar capacity in Provi- dence. Imagination fails to picture the demented beast that first tracked the clewless layrinth between Roger Williams Park on the south and the tangled web of streets beyond the new State House. That State From Providence to Cowesett 21 House, beautiful, dignified, almost imposing (it would be absolutely so were it not for its neighbourhood of car sheds and other abominations), is of white marble and is surmounted by a dome of pleasing proportions. It marks an important political change in Rhode Island, when instead of two capitals and capitols, the State resolved to content itself with one, and abandoned the historic old building at Newport to its ghosts. To write a history or guide book of Providence, is no part of the plan of this book, but, at the risk of repeat- ing a well-worn truth, I must point once more to its meaning and mission. In this little city, twentieth in point of population among the cities of the United States, the principle of absolute liberty of conscience and the complete divorcement of Church and State was not only announced as a theory but was actually, for the first time in the history of the world, adopted as a practical policy. Consider the importance of this mar- vellous initiative. It was breaking adrift from the tra- ditions of all nations and all times, and making a new departure in government — a departure in which Rhode Island was in time followed by Massachusetts and the other American colonies. When William Coddington and his Antinomian companions passed through Providence they were warmly welcomed and no doubt were impressed by the newly promulgated rules by which Williams and his company had bound themselves, but upon establish- ing the settlements upon Aquidneck the Cotldington 2 2 Narragansett Bay company failed to establish so complete a conception of liberty. They extended to all Christians the boon of free conscience, and in that they were in advance of the rest of the world — but Providence proclaimed freedom of conscience to all men of all creeds, whether they were Christians, Mahommedans, Jews, or Confucians. The history of Rhode Island, or of any part of it, can never be written or read justly without a comprehension of that underlying- leaven that, hid in so mean and unpromising a measure, has leavened the world's thought and influenced, more than any other factor, the course of human progress. There are in Providence, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Brown University, some stately man- sions of the later colonial time, houses that suggest o-enerous livinof and a more careful attention than the earlier settlers could afford to all the finer proprieties of life. The University was incorporated in 1769 and at first took rank with the older institutions of learning in the country, but soon declined and for a number of years was of little account. Afterwards, under the direction of the Rev. Francis Wayland, Jun., it commenced again to rise. Seventy-five years ago the following description of the University was published: " Under its present able and judicious president it has attained a handsome elevation and promises to become one of the best seats of learning in the Union. The library has lately been much increased by donations from England; and the philosophical apparatus, which is extensive, is constantly < z Z Q o r ^ -J a; C From Providence to Cowesett 25 improving. The college edifices, of which there are two, are located on a lofty eminence, with streets leading thereto, richly decorated with fine mansions and elegant gardens. About a mile still further east or north-east, stands a large building called the Quaker college. It was built by Friends and is occupied as a boarding- school of that persuasion, and is in excellent order." The Quaker school is still "in excellent order "and is a flourishing institution, but who would ever recognise the " two edifices " of Brown University in the large and still g^rowinor cluster of buildings that fronts its beautiful campus. Brown is now, as it was then, a Baptist stronghold; while the Friends still hold absolute control of their venerable school. These institutions are re- minders of an earlier time, when the Baptist influence was greatest in Providence and that of the Quakers second. The principal residential portion of the city has always been upon " the Hill," as it is called. Upon the ground first occupied by Roger Williams a succession of Rhode Island governors lived for a century and a half. The west side of the Moshausick was built upon at a later day and is more commercial in character, but the really old centre of business activity lies toward India Point, along the water front. There the earliest settlers had apportioned their plats of ground, sufficient for gardens and dwellings or stores, each with a frontage upon the " towne street " and rear access to tide water. When people began to consider the problem of con- tact with the outer world, for which purpose the fragile 26 Narragansett Bay canoes of the Indians were obviously inadequate, they began to build sloops and schooners, at which art they soon became adept, so that a Providence shipyard could turn out more and better work in a given time than could be produced anywhere else in America, or perhaps in the world. There were fashioned the swift old mer- chantmen of colonial times, the Indiamen and slave ships; there the redoubtable privateers, that had no equal on the face of the waters, grew with almost the rapidity of Jonah's gourd. There, in Revolutionary days the infant navy of the United States came into being, and sailed thence to harass the less agile ships of Great Britain. Sloops and schooners — of which I have spoken — there were in plenty, and many of these traded down the bay, employed in the local com.merce between Providence, Newport, and the Narragansett country. Reference has been made to the great Providence fire during the Indian troubles, near the end of Williams's life. At that time fifty houses in the northern part of the town were destroyed ; it is said that only one of the very oldest houses survived. Warwick at this time also suffered great loss, cattle being stolen and crops dam- aged so that the settlers found themselves absolutely destitute. Many of them fled for safety to hardly less exposed settlements, some to Aquidneck, where the in- habitants of Newport and Portsmouth received them with the greatest hospitality. The "house of the four chimneys" on Brenton's Neck was an asylum for many From Providence to Cowesett 27 of the destitute refugees, who had finally shared in the retribution so long Invited by Massachusetts. Among the early legends of Providence there are several connected with the direful conflasfration. Upon the river bank, at Kettle Point, not far from the little city, there lived a man named Lewis, who did something of a freight business about the bay. Lewis had for a neighbour an hidian called Ouanto, and between these two there had grown up a mutual respect and liking. It may be that the red-skin in his wigwam and the white man in his cabin did not dis- cover in each other much difference either in habits or aims of life. They probably both lived on very inti- mate terms with nature, and wrested a living from the wilderness by the exercise of similar courage and capacity. At that time when the relations between aborigi- nes and settlers were at a tension, and the men of the forest and the men of the settlement glowered at each other across the stockades, Lewis got ready his sloop to go to Nev/port. He made light of the fears of his countrymen — this storm, he was sure, would pass by as others had done, and Williams's palaver with the sachems would be successful in averting danger, as it always had been. As Lewis was about starting, his friend Ouanto came to him and asked a favour. There were his two young children ; would his white brother take them on his boat to Aquidneck, where their grandmother lived, and give 28 Narragansett Bay them into her keeping so that they might remain in safety till peace was assured. The errand was under- taken and successfully accomplished. Ouanto's child- ren were handed over to the old squaw and Lewis was returning to Providence when he heard the dreadful news of the Indian attack. Filled with consternation for his own family, the master of the sloop made what speed he could to Kettle Point and was rejoiced to hnd his wife and children still unharmed, though in imminent peril. Hurrying them on board his boat, he set sail immediately for Newport, the glare of the burning village of Providence behind him furnishing a sufficient incentive to haste. The first few miles of the journey were accomplished without interruption, and Lewis began to hope that he might escape. His wife, worn out with her anxiety, was asleep in the little cabin, with her children besides her. Just as the sloop was gliding like a ghost past Warwick Neck, a canoe shot out of the shadow and a hooked line was thrown into the rigging. "Where are Ouanto's children?" came the voice of an Indian from the canoe. Under the influence of fear Lewis lied. "They are here, safe in my sloop." The canoe was hauled close to the stern of the white man's boat. " Hand Ouanto's children over to us," came the command. Not daring to acknowledge his falsehood, and terri- fied lest the savages should board his craft and put From Providence to Cowesett 29 them all to the tomahawk, Lewis yielded to the reit- erated command and going into the cabin took up his unconscious children. Mrs. Lewis, sleeping heavily, had not heard the dialogfue between her husband and the men in the canoe : she half roused when he took the THE CANOE WAS HAULED UNDER THE STERN OF THE WHllE MAN S BOAT children from her, but he quieted her with a word, and delivered the youngsters to the Indians. As the canoe parted company with the sloop Lewis called out : " I have made a mistake and have given you my own children. Ouanto's are here with me." At that moment a puff of wind fortunately filled his sails and he escaped, cherishing, as an offset to his fear, the hope that Quanto's children might be hostages for the safety 30 Narragansett Bay of his own. What Lewis's wife said when he confessed his cowardice or craftiness we have no way of knowing, but imagination pictures a scene that must have been beyond description, nor do we beHeve that his Hfe for the next few days was an enviable one. In the end the affair turned out much better than might have been expected, for the white man's Httle ones were held in captivity only till the safety of the Indian's brood had been assured. It seems that Ouanto had been killed in the fight at Providence, and the Indians in the canoe were under the leadership of a brother warrior, who had attempted, in the manner described, to save the offspring of his friend. Opposite Kettle Point, and a short distance east of Roger Williams Park (now a place of public resort) the Continentals in 1775-6, built a fort upon the high bluff that crowns Field Point. The earth-works can still be seen from the railroad, and, in the days of short-range guns, with those upon the eastern shore, formed an effectual protection to the city. Just below these points, which are to the harbour what the neck is to a bottle, lies a little island, the site for a beacon that bears the suofcrestive name of Starvesfoat Island. The mind of man probably never conceived a more sugges- tive synonym for barrenness. The shores of Providence River are dotted with villages and private estates, and among them they harbour a goodly number of local traditions, bits of his- tory or of romance. From Pawtucket down the whole \ -'^ L1^- V THE SHORES OF PROVIDENCE RIVER 31 From Providence to Cowesett ss stretch of Warwick shore there is not a bay or a Httle cape that has not been the scene of some exciting ad- venture in colonial days, either when the Indians were upon the war-path, or during the still more unsettled time when British revenue boats were poking into every nook and corner for contraband goods. Warren, one of the most delightful as well as import- ant of the older towns, lies between Barrineton and Bristol, upon a river of its own name. With Bristol it shared the troublesome visits of British troops in the Revolution, and furnished its quota of men for the Con- tinental army. The greatest event that has ever distinguished any part of the Providence River, was the burning of the Gaspee, on Nanquit Point, nearly opposite Barrington. This occurrence was of such singular interest that I have given to it, and the incidents that preceded it, a separate chapter. From Warwick we take another excursion into the earliest history of the colony. When that much mis- understood man, Samuel Gorton, headed the third party of those who had found Massachusetts too warm for them, he came first to Providence, as Coddington and his companions had done ; but he and Roger Williams could not agree then, nor ever fully. Gorton absolutely denied the right of any man, or body of men, to govern unless they were commissioned by king or parliament, and as Williams held no such commission his visitor did much to embarrass him. At last Gorton, with eleven 3 34 Narragansett Bay companions, bought Shawomet from the Indians, and at once commenced to build a blockhouse there. As Massachusetts had cast covetous eyes upon that very strip of shore, it followed that Gorton was besieged in his strong house, and having been captured was taken in irons to Boston, to be tried for heresy. In this s^ssats:. WARWICK NECK, AT THE ENTKAN'CE TO COWESETT BAY case the sentiment of the people was so strongly ex- pressed that the elders did not dare to proceed to extreme lengths against Gorton and his friends, but banished them from Massachusetts, whence they returned to Rhode Island. 