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NEWPORT, R, L 
 
 J800-J850. 
 
/\-7iS5i^ 
 
NEWPORT, I800-I850. 
 
 A paper read before the Unity Club, Newportj R. I., by Henry E. 
 Turner, M. D., March 23, 1897. 
 
 {Rep-iHted from the Newport Daily News of March 24th and zjth, i8gy.) 
 
 Pursuant, to the very polite and flatter- 
 ing invitation of your committee, it be- 
 comes my province to address you on the 
 period ill the history of our ancitot and 
 interesting city, commencing with the 
 close of the eighteenth century, and an- 
 ticipating by four years, the advent of the 
 nineteenth. 
 
 Reasoning from analogy, we are justi- 
 fied in believing that the progress in the 
 arts in the succeeding centennial cycle 
 will be evefl greater than that which has 
 distinguished the era in which most of our 
 lives have, so far, been passed, and many 
 of the- less mature in this audience may 
 liv* tb witness revolutionary processes in 
 modes of lifij and habits of thought more 
 st\ipendous than those which have been 
 evolved during the experience of the gene- 
 ration of men to which I personally be- 
 long. 
 
 If, dwelling on those wonderful develop- 
 ments' of resources which, by the blessing 
 of God, have been i^edUced to practical ap- 
 plication during the period of my individ- 
 ual existence, I atn induced to make too 
 frequent allusion to the first person singu- 
 lar, I- desire to ask pardon in advance, and 
 to disclaim any pretence to active partici- 
 pation in the remarkable concatenation of 
 events, which it will be my privilege to dis- 
 cuss, and to avoid all appearance ot ego- 
 tism; as far as possible, in Speaking of 
 what naay have passed under my per- 
 sonal observation. 
 
 Having been born in Warwick, within a 
 half mile of the Kent county court house, 
 in the borough ot East Greenwich, and 
 having passed the first twelve years of my- 
 life In that most delightful locality, and' 
 having become a resident of this equally 
 charming island in April, 1828, my famil- 
 iarity with' Newport does not commence 
 until that time: although, having relatives 
 here, I can recollect distinctly several 
 visits here, of two or three days each, one 
 of which was as early as 1820 when I was 
 four years old; so that, Newport had, even 
 so early as that, a strong hold on my 
 imagination and affections. 
 
 T take leave to dwell on this time of my 
 childhood, as a resident of Bast Greenwich 
 
 and its vicinity, though it may seem some- 
 what apart from the field assigned me, 
 hoping to be excused for such apparent 
 divarication, on the plea that It affords a 
 "Point d'Appul," from which a' field glass 
 can be directed, with good effect, on the 
 great changes, subsequently effected, in 
 the panorama, both physical and moral, 
 then presented to my youthful vision. 
 
 We lived at that time on the hill, west 
 from the village, high enough to overlook 
 the habitations, and the whole slope of the 
 land towards the bay, from Providence to 
 Point Judith, just four and a half miles 
 west from Warwick Neck point, bringing 
 before me twice each day in my march to 
 school a complete view of the bay from 
 Providence to Newport without obstruc- 
 tions of any kind, the forest having been 
 rerfaoved from that region and the planting 
 of ornamental trees not having become 
 general, a few cherry trees, perhaps a 
 dozen, being the only trees in the streets 
 which are now shaded by the larger class 
 of ornamental trees of more than a half 
 century's growth. 
 
 Na-vlsB-tlon by Sailing Packet. 
 
 The first point to which I wish to direct 
 your attention is that the coastwise or 
 local navigation, so to speak, of the 
 bay, Was exclusively carried on by sloops, 
 usvially called packets, of which there 
 were several in each town on the bay, as 
 Providence, Newport, Warren, Wickford, 
 Bristol, etc., in which were carried' all the 
 freight and' passengers, to and' from places 
 on the bay, and to New Yorkl Bong Island, 
 the Connecticut ports and Nantucket. All 
 this may seem unimportant, but this is 
 the point to which I wish to call your 
 special attention. 
 
 At this time no freight was carried by 
 the agency of steam either by land or wa- 
 ter. One steamer, the Fulton, alone car- 
 ried passengers between New York and 
 Providence with no capacity for freight, 
 and she would beaf no comparison, either 
 in size, style or speed, with the ordinary 
 river boats of this day, with which the bay 
 now swarms. 
 
 Bear in mind, please, that steam was 
 
Newport, 1800-1850 
 
 not applied to the propulsion of goods or 
 passengers by land until a much later 
 time, the first essay at the use of 
 steam on railroads being several years sub- 
 sequent; also, please bear in mind that the 
 only fuel for cooking or heating purposes 
 used in Rhode Island was wood. The only 
 coal I had ever seen was a little bitu- 
 minous coal, used in the blacksmiths 
 forges and then called sea coal, because it 
 came over sea from England or Nova 
 Scotia. The first fire of anthracite coal I 
 ever saw was in the front parlor of the jail 
 on Marlborough street, Newport, as late as 
 1830. How I came to be there I cannot ex- 
 plain, I think not as a malefactor. This 
 was when Robert B. Cranston was sheriff, 
 of whom I may speak later. 
 
 It would be difficult to convey an idea 
 of the enormous bulk of that commodity, 
 wood, and the consequent enormous 
 amount of capital which the trade in 
 cordwood involved. The wharves in New- 
 port were loaded down, at all times, with 
 vast quantities of that very necessary ar- 
 ticle, of every day consumption, on which 
 the freightage could not but be immense 
 every year. Supposing all the wood con- 
 sumed in Newport, alone, in the two 
 hundred years, in which that was the 
 only fuel used, to be piled up together, 
 the stujiendous magnitude of the mass 
 would transcend the compass of the hu- 
 man imagination, indeed, the amount of 
 expense for the transportation of that ar- 
 ticle of trade would, in that lapse of 
 time, almost exceed human comprehen- 
 sion. Like the wharves in Newport, those 
 in Greenwich and Wickford were, in my 
 early recollection, loaded to repletion with 
 the products of the forests, now passing 
 away. Besides the wood brought from 
 Greenwich and Wickford and other points 
 on the bay, a still larger proportion of the 
 wood consumed in Newport was brought 
 from Long Island and Connecticut ports, 
 and all by the same class of vessels. 
 
 Tlie Vessels of the Early Century. 
 
 Another and larger class of vessels, rare- 
 ly represented at this date, then frequent- 
 ly presented to my youthful vision, were 
 those employed in foreign trade or tomore 
 distant coastwise points, and which were 
 then quite numerous, the larger number 
 being owned in Providence or Newport, a 
 few however in each of the other seaports 
 on Narragansett bay, and built in those 
 various places, in each of which a flour- 
 ishing shipbuilding interest had existed 
 during the eighteenth century, sustained 
 by the labor and enterprise of their own 
 citizens and provided with material af- 
 forded by the forests, the growth of their 
 owti sol). 
 
 The sloops of which I have spoken were 
 generally of from 25 to 75 tons measure- 
 ment, the class of vessels next larger were 
 two masted schooners, fore and aft rigged, 
 of from 50 to 150 tons, seldom larger. Of 
 those exceeding that size, all were square 
 rigged, and up to two hundred tons; 
 were brigs or brigantines, then popularly 
 known as hermaphrodite brigs. All above 
 two hundred tons were ships and a very 
 tew of these reached five hundred tons. 
 The Leviathans of the present day and 
 the tremendous motive power which they 
 involve, were then totally undreamed of, 
 and had there been any suggestion of 
 what we daily and familiarly witness in 
 this regard, the propagator of any such 
 idea would have been regarded as a luna- 
 tic and would be liable to be relegated to 
 the treatment accorded such unfortunates. 
 
 A large Bast Indian trade was then 
 prosecuted in Providence, by several well 
 known firms, as Brown & Ives, Edward 
 Carrington and others, and a large and 
 profitable West India trade contributed to 
 the welfare and thrift surrounding the 
 other seaports of the state. All this is 
 now a thing of the past; the great sea- 
 ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore, Norfolk, etc., have absorbed 
 the business of exportation and importa- 
 tion and have drowned out the commercial 
 prestige of the smaller ports. 
 
 HabitM of the Inhabitants. 
 
 In my earliest recollections, the habits 
 of the rural inhabitants of Rhode Island 
 were not materially changed from those 
 of their predecessors in the eighteenth 
 century, and in point of fact were more in 
 harmony with those of several preceding 
 generations of the English yeomanry, 
 than with those which now prevail among 
 us. The modern inventions, power looms 
 and mules, then only recently introduced 
 into America, had not at that time fairly 
 energized and made palpable their extreme 
 potency by the complete revolution, which 
 they very shortly effected in the meth- 
 ods employed, in the production of textile 
 fabrics. 
 
 Steam power was then little more than 
 a nursling. It had not in the least degree 
 afforded any aid in the province of me- 
 chanical power, so that the process of re- 
 moving the manufacture of the very es- 
 sential article of clothing from the farm 
 to the workshop, or in other words, to 
 the populous town, was then only in the 
 stages of incipiency. I recollect perfectly 
 well what was going on under my obser- 
 vation, but of course my callow mind was 
 incapable of the inductive processes which, 
 in maturer years, presented themselves to 
 me, viz: the fact that the children of work- 
 
Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 ing people at school with me were con- 
 stantly being removed with their families 
 from Greenwich to the factory villages 
 then being established on the numerous 
 water power sites in the neighboring val- 
 ley of the Pawtuxet, for the purpose of 
 securing employment for those children, 
 in the mills being built with phenomenal 
 rapidity. 
 
 Notwithstanding these indications of 
 change, many of the old habits were 
 slow of extinction; the prescriptions, pre- 
 cepts and traditions of many generations 
 are not to be suddenly wiped out; accord- 
 ingly, many of the time-honored habits of 
 their ancestors were yet, for a long time, 
 tenaciously adhered to by the older sort, 
 among the rural denizens of the county of 
 Kent, and, by parity, also, presumably, by 
 those of the county of Newport. 
 Tlie Siiinulng' Wlieel ajid Hana 
 Loom. 
 
 No farm house was without a wooden 
 spinning wheel and reel, on which, the 
 wool, the product of the farm, was spun 
 into yarn, either by the females of the 
 family or by the hired help, and, in very 
 many cases, the hand loom held its own in 
 the same or an adjoining room for the use 
 of the same parties, and away in the attic 
 or lean-to might have been seen the linen 
 wheel, which, not so many years before, 
 certainly up to the beginning of this cen- 
 tury, had been the instrumentality by 
 which the family had been furnished with 
 its linen provisions of every variety, the 
 fruit of the labor of the females of the 
 household, dressed and spun and woven 
 from the flax, the product of their own 
 soil; and almost all the notable housewives 
 of the period were proud to show the 
 magnificent stores of napery, and of wool- 
 en sheets and woolen counterpanes, the 
 work of their own hands. Without such 
 a store of her own handiwork, no young 
 woman was considered qualified properly 
 to enter the married state, and among the 
 most genteel and pretentious families, in 
 Kent county, the young ladies were emu- 
 lous of distinction in the use of the dis- 
 taff, and indulged in the exhibition of their 
 skill and industry in public competition 
 for prizes for superiority in that exer- 
 cise. 
 
 There is a record, also, extant, of a 
 surprise party, as it would now be de- 
 nominated, in which the ladies of Elder 
 Bliss's congregation, i. e. the Seventh Day 
 Baptists, in Newport, passed the day at 
 his residence spinning fiax for the benefit 
 of his family. Not a vestige of any of 
 the avocations I have very imperfectly de- 
 scribed can now be found in Rhode Island, 
 
 except a few dilapidated wheels, preserved 
 as time honored memorials. 
 
 The Facilities for TraTCl. 
 
 It may be easily understood that In the 
 state of things, which I have attempted 
 faintly to describe, the facilities for trav- 
 eling from place to place, either for pleas- 
 ure or business, were comparatively small. 
 By land the only means for such indul- 
 gences were afforded by private convey- 
 ances or by mail stages carrying passen- 
 gers and United States mails, by which 
 method a distance of fifty miles a day 
 might be accomplished through a phenom- 
 enal conjunction of favorable circum- 
 stances, as fine roads, fine weather, fine 
 horses and superior accommodations, for 
 wayfarers, and especially for horses, in the 
 hostelries, which were provided on most 
 well traveled roads, and it is also to be 
 considered that large expenditure was 
 involved in these modes of locomotion, as, 
 for example, the stage route from Bos- 
 ton to New York, at fifty miles per day, 
 would imply four days' journey, with 
 three meals each day and four nights' 
 lodgings, which would make near ten dol- 
 lars for expenses, besides the stage ex- 
 pense, at about eight cents per mile, mak- 
 ing in all, for two hundred miles, twenty- 
 six dollars, instead of which now the whole 
 expense, putting out of the question the 
 saving of time, would be only about five 
 dollars, so that you can make five trips be- 
 tween those two points at a cost no greater 
 than one could be made then, either in 
 money or time. 
 
 It you should select the water route, 
 before the steamer was put on the line, 
 which was in say 1820, you have first the 
 stage route from Boston to Providence; 
 forty miles, then you embark on the old 
 fashioned sloop or packet, and having made 
 your will beforehand, and committed your 
 soul to God, and your family to the mercy 
 of Divine Providence, and putting on your 
 boots, if you happen to be possessed of 
 that desirable article of apparel, you com- 
 mitted your body to the risks and vi- 
 cissitudes of an encounter with the annoy- 
 ances and perils of a voyage on the raging 
 Narragansett and of Point Judith, of the 
 Race and of Hell Gate, with the chance, 
 if the elements are propitious, that is if 
 the weather is reasonably good and all the 
 combinations of wind and tide are favor- 
 able, that you may reach your destination. 
 New York, in two or three revolutions of 
 the earth on its axis; at any rate, with a 
 reasonable probability that you will be at 
 your goal at the expiratiom of a week. No 
 discussion is necessary to bring to your 
 minds the comparison of the modes of pro- 
 
.4- 
 
 ^^'wpQr;^, i^qQ-1850. 
 
 .gressiou, then iu use, and to which I have 
 adverted, as existing, within my own ex- 
 perience, and those we now enjoy. 
 
 As an illustration o£ iwhat I have en- 
 deavored to bring before you, whose recol- 
 lections reach not very far back, I have 
 seen my father, twice, mount his horpe in 
 East Greenwich for a journey to Columbia, 
 Mawry County, Tennessee, a distance of 
 fifteen hundred miles, once in 1821, and the 
 second time about 1825, from the last of 
 which journeys he returned on horseback, 
 on an animal purchased in Florence, Ala- 
 bama. By no possibility could those two 
 journeys have been accomplished, except 
 by the consumption of a larger number of 
 weeks than the number of days which 
 would now be required for the same jour- 
 neys. 
 
 A Loiigr , Voyasre. 
 
 As a further illustration, I will give you 
 a history, in brief, of a voyage of my own, 
 perfectly fresh in my memory, made when 
 I was four years old. I left East Green- 
 wich with my mother- and an uncle to see 
 their grandfather in Newport^ twenty-miles 
 distant, across the bay, (about an hour's 
 trip for the bay steamers, in present use) 
 in one of the packets before mentioned, 
 commanded by .a Captain Baker of Wick- 
 ford. We left Greenwich on a fine summer 
 morning at 9 o'clock, and .after twelve 
 hours on the bay we had the good fortune 
 to get back home at 9 o'clock in the, even- 
 ing. After a comfortable night in our own 
 beds we, again embarked on the second day 
 at 9 o'clock in the morning and arrived, at 
 our destination at 9 o'clock at night,, hav- 
 ing occupied thirty-six hours in the pros- 
 ecution of a voyage of twenty ,miles. 
 
 The period on which I have so far dwelt 
 is that in which the preponderating influ- 
 ence of steam, which has since so com- 
 pletely and for so long dominated all the 
 processes of ciyillzed life, was in its spec- 
 ulative, or more properly in its tentative 
 era, and only practical in a very partial 
 and limited degree. In the navigation of 
 western rivers and the Hudson and Long 
 Island sound, it had proved, without ques- 
 tion, its economic supremacy, but its ap- 
 plicability to deep sea navigation had not 
 been submitted to any , serious tests, and 
 its potentiality as a productive power in 
 all mechanical processes was, as yet, in 
 abeyance. 
 
 At the time when my personal reminis- 
 cences and reflections must principally 
 depend on a Newport residence as a stand- 
 point, no suggestion had yet made the 
 faintest appeal to the imagination of the 
 public of the possible application of elec- 
 tricity to practical purposes, and not until 
 about 1850, twenty years later, was the 
 first electric telegraph made to conduct 
 
 messages over any long distances, and 
 even then, and for a long time after, the 
 idea of the adaptability of electricity as 
 a .locomotive agent and as a predominative 
 factor in the generation of mechanical 
 force was confined to the bosoms of a few 
 dreamers and savans. 
 
 Tlie Advaixce of Science. 
 
 Not until after the lapse of many years 
 and,, until a very late period of my mature 
 life, and even now, the possibilities of, the 
 discovery of potentialities, in what was Jiot 
 very , Ipng ago, a mystical and obscure 
 ^Wence entirely without influence in the 
 affairs of economic life, , (except, as ad- 
 ministered by divine intelligence), was any 
 material advance made in the utilization 
 of tills marvellous principle. Now, on the 
 contrary,, its potency is being .developed in 
 a ratio that ,fllls all minds with astonish- 
 ment and seems to indicate that there is 
 no limitation to the capacity of the human 
 intellect for scientific progress or to the 
 .beneficence of the Divine intelligence, 
 through , which all things have existence 
 ^nd wftich has provided material for .the 
 exercise of all the attributes and capaci- 
 ties with which the human intellect is in- 
 vested. 
 
 How shall we sufiiciently admire and 
 prize the human : intellect and how ade- 
 qua,tely appreciate and love and worship 
 'that 'infinitely transcendant intelligence, 
 which guides and governs all. The sub- 
 lime attributes of hurnanity are so admir- 
 ably- set forth, by Tristam Burges, that I 
 cannot forbear quoting from one of his 
 raphsodical essays. 
 
 "Guided by reason, man has traveled 
 through the abstruse regions of the phil- 
 osophic world. He has originated rules, 
 by which he can direct the ship through 
 the pathless ocean and measure the com- 
 et's flight over the fields of unlimited 
 space. He has established society and 
 government. He can aggregate the pro- 
 fusions of every climate, and of every sea- 
 son. He can meliorate the severity and 
 remedy the imperfections of nature her- 
 self. All these things he can perform, by 
 the assistance, of reason." 
 
 "By imagination man seems to verge 
 towards creative powers. Aided by this he 
 can perform all the wonders of sculpture 
 and painting. He can almost make the 
 marble speak. He can almost make f the 
 brook murmur down the painted land- 
 scape. Often on the pinions of imagina- 
 tion he soars aloft, where the eye has never 
 traveled, where other stars glitter on the 
 mantle of night and a more effulgent sun 
 lights up the blushes of the morning. 
 
 "Flying from world to world, he gazes 
 on all the glories , of creation, or lighting 
 , on the distant margin of the univeiise darts 
 
Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 the eye of |£mcy over the mighty void, 
 where power creative never yet has ener- 
 gized, where existence still sleeps, in the 
 wide abyss of possibility. 
 
 "By ii^aginatif>n man can travel back to 
 ^he source of time, coiiverse with the suc- 
 fiessive generations (>f men and kindle into 
 emulation while he sucveys the monumen- 
 tal trophies of ancient art and glory. He 
 can sail down the stream of time until he 
 loses .'sight of stars and sun,' by wandering 
 into thope retired parts of eternity, 'when 
 the . heavens and earth shall be no more.' 
 ■To the unequivocal characteristics of 
 greatness in man, let us adduce the tes- 
 timqny of nature herself. Surrounding 
 creation subserves the wants and pro- 
 claims the dignity of man. For him, day 
 and night visit the world. For him the 
 seasons walk their splendid round. For 
 him the, ear^th teems with riches and the 
 heavens smile, with beneficence. All cre- 
 ation is 'aociirately adjusted to his capacity 
 Hor bliss. ' He tastes the dainties of fes- 
 fivityi breathes the perfumes of the morn- 
 ing, revpls in the charms of melody, and 
 regales his. eye with all the painted beau- 
 .ties of vision. Whatever can please, 
 w:hatever can charm, whatever can ex- 
 papd his soul with ecstasy of bliss, allures 
 and .solicits his attention. All things 
 t>eautUul, all things grand, all things sub- 
 lime appear in native loveliness and prof- 
 fer ,m^ the richest pleasures of fruition." 
 
 Although .tlie peripd of commercial im- 
 portance and prominence of Newport had 
 culminated at the time of the British oc- 
 cupation, in the early part of the Revolu- 
 tipiiary war, and never recovered its, for- 
 mer glory, and a,lthpugh, from that time 
 there was a decadance in the amount of its 
 capital and the success of its enterprises, 
 yet up to my first recollection and for 
 many, years after the habits of the com- 
 m.unity were influenced very materially 
 by the atmosphere of maritime enterprise 
 which had pervaded her population dur- 
 ing the lapse of a century and a half of 
 colonial lite, in which, her commercial ven- 
 tures were distinguished by the success 
 and energy with which they were prose- 
 cuted, when her sails whitened every sea 
 and the credit of her merchants was held 
 In high repute on every European ex- 
 change. Although, as I have intimated, 
 her pretensions and her resources and her 
 successes were in a declining condition 
 and her operations graded on a very re- 
 duced scale, still the principal features of 
 Newport life were associated with mari- 
 time adventure, and her old men were 
 largely superannuated sea captains; if 
 past the time of life tor sea service, en- 
 gaged in some avocation associated with 
 
 the commercial marine, or if in the prime 
 of life, in command of sea-going vessels. 
 The younger classes were subordinate of- 
 ficers in the same service or in the naval 
 service of the United States, if possessed of 
 family influence or especial promise. 
 
 liOolciiis to a Seafaring . Life. 
 
 The boys at school with me, almost with- 
 out exception, looked forward to a seafar- 
 ing life as the natural way to success in 
 life, and to the sea as the theatre for the 
 development of their talents and energies, 
 thoSe whose ambition was prominent early 
 becoming oflieers, but many becoming and 
 remaining ordinary seamen, or, as the 
 phrase wsis, foremast men. It is very 
 observable that most of the crews of those 
 days in Newport were Newport men, often 
 serving the same employers during their 
 whole lives, and so of other vessels be- 
 longing to other parts of the bay, which 
 were manned by their own townsmen. 
 Whereas now all crews are shipped in the 
 large cities and are largely foreigners, 
 being furnished by the class of men called 
 shipping masters. This class of men, the 
 common sailors, at that date had habits 
 and a style of dress peculiar to themselves, 
 and a patois, also, pretty well interlarded 
 with more or less profane expressions, 
 generally more. They have now lost, in 
 great measure, their distinctiveness; their 
 picturesque and not unattractive charac- 
 teristics are made prominent in the songs 
 of Dobdin, especially, and are now, aXaa, 
 among the things that were. 
 
 Prom what I have said it will appear 
 that Newport, although its metropolitaja 
 pretension and maritime supremacy had 
 suffered great and obvious declension, had 
 not so far emerged from its former hab- 
 its of lite and methods of subsistence as 
 to have divested itself of the external 
 signs of its former customs and pursuits in 
 the earlier years of the present century as 
 it since has. 
 
 The aura of commercial magnificence 
 and that pertaining to its long existing 
 predominance, as the centre of political 
 life and energy in the colony and state, 
 theretofore unchallenged, had only par- 
 tially been dissipated. Providence, whose 
 phenomenal advance in importance and 
 population and wealth had developed as 
 the natural consequence of her position, 
 making her, in effect, "facile princeps," the 
 "Entrepot" for the vast manufacturing 
 interests which have latterly grown up in 
 logical sequence in the superb valleys ,of 
 the Pawtuxet, the Wonasquetucket and 
 the Seekonk, was at the beginning of the 
 Revolutionary struggle comparatively of 
 minor consequence, she being then ■ only 
 
Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 third in population among the towns in 
 Rhode Island, Newport being first and 
 South Kingstown second. 
 
 Neivporl in the State Goveruiuent. 
 
 In the earlier period of the existence oj 
 the colony Roger Williams was the chief 
 officer under the title of president; he also 
 held that title under the Parliamentary 
 charter of 1643, from 1654 to 1657. Except- 
 ing at which time, the colony was provided 
 with an executive chief only by residents 
 of Newport, until May 1727, when Joseph 
 Jencks was elected governor, and until 
 1732, only, with the proviso that he should 
 become a resident of Newport, and at the 
 time of his inauguration the General As- 
 sembly voted to appropriate the sum of 
 £100 for the expense of his honor, the 
 governor's removal to Newport from Prov- 
 idence, so essential was it deemed that the 
 governor's residence should be in Newport; 
 and it is a matter of well authenticated 
 tradition that John Greene, Jr., who was 
 deputy governor from 1690 to 1700 and was 
 entitled by every consideration to have 
 been governor, never was elected tu that 
 position because he would nof change his 
 residence from Warwick to Newport. His 
 grandson, William Greene, and his great 
 grandson, William Greene, Jr., were gov- 
 ernors, successively of the colony and the 
 state after 1743, and still both remaining 
 residents of Warwick. Singularly enough, 
 from the establishment of the Royal 
 charter, of King Charles II. in 1663 until 
 1797 at the expiration of Henry Ward's 
 Incumbency of thirty-seven years, the 
 position of secretary of the colony and 
 state had never been held but by residents 
 of Newport county; and the office of gen- 
 eral treasurer had never been held, with 
 the exception of two years by Randal 
 Holden of Warwick, 1652 to 1654, by any 
 but a resident of Newport, until the de- 
 cease of Hon. Samuel A. Parker, which oc- 
 curred on February 4, 1872. It is worthy 
 of note that this position was filled, infer- 
 entially in a very satisfactory manner, 
 by Hon. Thomas P. Pitman of Newport, 
 from 1817 to 1832, fifteen years, all of 
 which emphasizes the theory or, if you 
 please, the condition of the former metro- 
 politan claims of Newport, in her political 
 relations. 
 
 In my first knowledge of Newport we 
 find presented all the appearance of an im- 
 portant seaport town which, although par- 
 tially decadent, shows a large number of 
 monuments of her former mercantile and 
 maritime character, no other form of in- 
 dustry having entirely superseded her tra- 
 ditional vocations. Her workshops, her 
 mechanics, her laborers and artisans were 
 
 the successors in their kind of her palm- 
 iest days. 
 
 The RoiiCTrallcs. 
 
 There were at that time in full activity 
 seven ropewalks; viz.: Tew's, on Old 
 Beach road; Brinley's and Tilley's, on 
 Catherine street; two on Touro street, near 
 the Jewsl Cemetery, belonging to the heirs 
 of Deacon William Tilley; one on Farewell 
 street, Caswell and Buliod's, and one on 
 Warner street, owned and wrought by Ab- 
 raham Tilley. All these were engaged in 
 the manufacture of heavy cordage for the 
 supply of rigging and ground tackle for 
 sea-going vessels, and depended for their 
 market on the shipping, still employed in 
 foreign and coastwise trade by the mer- 
 chants of Newport. Two stores on Thames 
 street, near Stevens's wharf, nowBowen's, 
 did a large and active trade in every va- 
 riety of rigging and cordage, chiefly the 
 product of these ropewalks, which prod- 
 ucts enjoyed a high reputation in the 
 mercantile world. 
 
 Besides the ropewalks, on which numer- 
 ous families depended for subsistence, 
 there were a large number of shops, gen- 
 erally situated oh the wharves, for the use 
 of the artisans connected with the ship- 
 ping interest, as block-and-pump-makers, 
 blacksmiths, sail-makers, coopers, etc., of 
 which scarcely any now remain, the whole 
 constituting the most conspicuous feature 
 of the industrial life of that day. 
 The Old Distlllei-les. 
 
 At this time, also, there remained, as a 
 monument of an episode in our history 
 not the most acceptable according to mod- 
 ern ideas, four distilleries for the manu- 
 facture of New England rum in active op- 
 eration, besides the remains of numerous 
 former distilleries in the shape of decay- 
 ing cisterns showing at low tide all along 
 the shore, especially on the borders of the 
 cove — reminiscences of what is so often 
 referred to as the trigeminal trade, in 
 which the molasses, imported from the 
 West Indies, was converted into rum in 
 our distilleries, exported to Africa in our 
 own bottoms, and there exchanged tor 
 negro slaves, generally prisoners of war, 
 who were brought back to the West Indies 
 and there exchanged for other cargoes of 
 molasses and for such balances of moi- 
 doresand pistoles as made the trade abund- 
 antly profitable to our ships' officers, com- 
 panies and owners. These native Africans, 
 having in view the alternative between 
 being eaten in Africa and being trans- 
 ported to America to be sold as slaves, 
 were in many cases it not in all, rather in- 
 clined to the latter horn of the dilemma, 
 and perhaps, our severe judgment as to 
 
Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 the criminality of these transactions might 
 in some degree be modified in their inten- 
 sity by these features of their unfortunate 
 position. In view of the whole matter. 
 Rev. Gardiner Thurston may be more le- 
 niently judged in regard to his hebdom- 
 adal prayer. In which he never failed of 
 an ascription of thanlfsgiving to the Deity 
 for his beneficence, in bringing the be- 
 nighted heathen to this land of gospel 
 light for instruction. I^et me not be un- 
 derstood as saying a word in justiflcation 
 of a wrong, which is In violation of my 
 convictions of right from my birth up. 
 
 The transactions, heretofore described, 
 were repeated, ad infinitum, with the re- 
 turn cargoes, until the disturbances pre- 
 ceding and accompanying the Revolution 
 decimated the population of Newport and 
 left the harbor and the town a scene of 
 desolation and waste, and threw a shadow 
 of unthrift upon the locality from which 
 three quarters of a century succeeding 
 had hardly afforded signs of recuperation. 
 No NevF Uonses. 
 
 My first impressions of Newport were of 
 a place ' in a comparatively decaying con- 
 dition, 'ihe buildings, as a whole, were 
 not neglected in point of reasonable re- 
 pairs, but only a few of the public edifices 
 were liept well painted so as to present 
 any indications of the degree of smartness 
 they now afford. Scarcely any of the 
 dwellings had the appearance of having 
 had their birth within the preceding fifty 
 years, and, in point of fact, very few had. 
 I have been told by some of the older men 
 of earlier days that a new house of more 
 than the most ordinary pretensions would 
 be an object of curious interest, for ten or 
 twelve years, and would be the objective 
 point of attraction for the usual Sunday 
 evening stroll, which at other times usu- 
 ally terminated at the cemetery. 
 
 A story used to be told of an Irishman, 
 who landed here in my childhood, when a 
 Hibernian was a rarity, and he was ex- 
 pected to stand godfather to all jokes, 
 good or bad, who said "By St. Patrick, I 
 believe they build all old houses in New- 
 port." Notwithstanding all this Newport 
 was even then an exceptionally alluring 
 and delightful place in my inexperienced 
 imagination. 
 
 The Deeatleiice ot Business. 
 
 At the conclusion of the Revolution 
 many of the leading merchants of New- 
 port who had retired on its occupation by 
 the British had re-established themselves 
 in other places and had failed to return, 
 particularly the Hebrew community, which 
 was quite large and whose leading men 
 had been for many years among the most 
 esteemed and worthy and successful of the 
 
 population of the town, were almost en- 
 tirely lost, themselves and their capital 
 and their enterprise, and their energies 
 and activity turned to account in other 
 communities. This was the case of the 
 Touro family, of whom the two brothers, 
 Abraham and Judah, have shown by their 
 munificence, their appreciation of their 
 father's home and the place of their nativ- 
 ity, in their generous contributions to the 
 useful and ornamental features of our city. 
 
 The firm of Brown & Ives of Providence, 
 which has been for more than a century 
 the synonym for strength, wealth and in- 
 tegrity, prominent in all good works and 
 praiseworthy enterprises, had as its origi- 
 nal members John Brown, George Benson 
 and John Rogers, the two latter of whom 
 were refugees from Newport in conse- 
 quence of the British ocupation, and, al- 
 though the original names are materially 
 changed in process of time, the descend- 
 ants of those men are still prominent citi- 
 zens of Providence, among them being 
 Hon. Horatio Rogers of the Rhode Island 
 supreme court and the family of the late 
 Hon. Samuel Greene Arnold, late lieuten- 
 ant governor and United States Senator 
 from Rhode Island. 
 
 There was not at the time of which I 
 am speaking a very large number of ves- 
 sels engaged in very distant voyages, nor 
 were they of very heavy tonnage. Among 
 them, I recollect seeing at the Long wharf, 
 the ship Elbe, fully loaded with Swedish 
 iron from the Baltic sea, owned by Cap- 
 tain Stephen T. Northam, and commanded 
 by Captain John R. Stanhope, the father of 
 Mrs. Samuel Engs, one of the most enter- 
 prising of the ship captains of Newport. 
 She was a reasonably large ship, her em- 
 ployment being generally in the European 
 trade, either to Mediterranean or Baltic 
 ports. Another, an exceptionally small 
 ship of not more than two hundred tons, 
 named the Boy, was in the same line of 
 trade She was owned by Lieutenant 
 Governor Charles Collins and commanded 
 by Captain Nathaniel Greene of Bast 
 Greenwich. Another fairly sized ship, the 
 George Champlin, was owned by Hon. 
 Christopher G. Champlin and commanded 
 by Captain Benedict Dayton. She also was 
 in the European trade, but was later con- 
 verted into an Arctic whaler, of which 
 class of vessels quite a large number were 
 not very long after owned here. 
 
 Besrinnlnf!: of tlie Slilpbnildlng In- 
 dnstry. 
 
 About 1830, I think, somewhat earlier, 
 there came to reside in this town, Mr. 
 William Hazard Crandall, from Westerly, 
 where he had acquired a reputation as a 
 smart and skilful shipbuilder, and with 
 
8 
 
 Netbfort, iSoo-tS^Xi. 
 
 him a large number of men of the same 
 trade, who became established with their 
 families as residents here. Coincident 
 with this accession to our population a 
 fresh impulse seems to have been given to 
 the shipbuilding interest here, and almost 
 identically with these circumstances a new 
 direction was given to the commercial 
 spirit of the community. 
 
 New Bedford and Nantucket had become 
 noted and wealthy in the prosecution of 
 the sperm whale fishery in the Arctic 
 seas, while the old time traditional mer- 
 cantile pursuits of Newport, which had so 
 long been our^ dependence, no longer af- 
 forded any brilliant successes nor prom- 
 ised much in the future, and a determina- 
 tion now manifested itself, on the part of 
 the business community of Newport to 
 eniulate the adventurous spirit and the en- 
 terprise and persistence of our neighbors, 
 which had brought them such brilliant re- 
 sults, under the very reasonable and 
 logical impression that the natural advan- 
 tages of those places were in no respect 
 superior to our own in Newport. 
 
 As a result In a few years a number of 
 ships being built here and others pur- 
 chased from other places, a very respect- 
 able whaling fleet was owned here and 
 that interest became a leading feature in 
 Newport biisiriess life. If my impression 
 is correct, this fleet at one time comprised 
 as many as fifteen shipp. Two ships had 
 previously been employed in the same 
 service with marked success, the Alliance 
 and the Frederick Augustus, but after the 
 business had been in existence about 
 tweity years engrossing most of the means 
 and energies of the larger part of the 
 Newport merchants, it was found not so 
 productive as had been expected and 
 gradually was abandoned, and at the ex- 
 piration of about twenty years had pretty 
 much ceased to be. 
 
 About the same time, as the whaling of 
 Newport collapsed from various causes, 
 prominent among which, probably, the 
 chief was, the discovery of the much 
 cheaper and more desirable lUuminants 
 afforded by the petroleum products. The 
 sperm whale industry, probably, from like 
 causes, rapidly fell off in New Bedford 
 and Nantucket and is now in "the sere 
 and yellow lea.f," and comparatively of 
 little significance. 
 
 No lal'ge commercial ventures were en- 
 tered into after the collapse o£ the whal- 
 ing enterprise, and about that time New- 
 port began to look forward in the direction 
 of what seems to be the "decree of Pate," 
 viz: the consecration on the part of the 
 community to the duty of furnishing a 
 pleasure resort for people of liberal means 
 
 of the larger' cities of the cohtlhent; for 
 the summer season. 
 
 Snuimer Visitors. 
 
 As early as 1827 there was resident In 
 this town and occupying the old mansiol 
 house of Francis Brinley, Esq., deceasefl,' 
 on Catherine street, which afterward* be- 
 came known and famous as the Bellevue 
 House, a family which consisted of a Mr. 
 and Mistress Windsor; English people, 
 who soon became very well known in the 
 community. I recollect, in April, 1827, 
 when I passed a month in Newport on a 
 visit, seeing constantly most of the larger 
 class of girls or young ladies, passing 
 along the streets carrying what were 
 called lace frames, which indicated that 
 they were pupils of Mrs. Windsor, learn- 
 ing from her the mysteries of lace work, 
 which at that time appeared to absorb al- 
 most all the attention of those young per- 
 sons, who, I being about eleven years of 
 age, may be supposed to have attracted a 
 considerable share of my attention. This 
 lace working affair seemed ephemeral in 
 its length of hold on the fashion, for I 
 do not remember to have seen or heard 
 any more of it in my subsequent visits 
 and residence here. 
 
 A NeTv Kra. 
 
 But another avocation was evolved, 
 through the influence of the Windsors, of 
 more weighty consequence to the people of 
 Newport, destined to survive their exodus, 
 tor many generations. Their period of 
 residence was almost as ephemeral as the 
 lace working industry, although they are 
 entitled to the credit of originating the 
 movement which has resulted in making 
 Newport, what we claim she is and is to 
 be, the Queen of American Watering 
 places. 
 
 It had been the practice with a portion of 
 the best class of planters from some of the 
 Southern states, but especially from 
 South Carolina, to brine their families 
 north and to place them in the occuoa- 
 tion of hired houses or at board in pri- 
 vate families at or near Newport during 
 the summer, returning home on the ap- 
 proach of winter. This practice had pre- 
 vailed for many years, the same families 
 being' expected here from year to year, as 
 a rule, for a period dating back even to 
 Revolutionary times. These were always 
 referred to as our Southern visitors or 
 boarders, the number of such visitors, not 
 increasing very much from year to j;';ar, 
 until the time to which I refer, neimely, 
 the fourth decade of the present century, 
 1830 to 1840. The innovation introduced 
 by Mr. and Mrs. Windsor was the estab- 
 lishment of a stylish boarding house in the 
 
Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 Brinley house, which soon became a popu- 
 lar and fashionable resort, not only for our 
 Southern friends, who for a long time con- 
 stituted the bulk of its patrons, but for 
 such persons of means and leisure in our 
 northern cities as were tempted to pass 
 longer or shorter periods of time in New- 
 port for the enjoyment of its beautiful 
 scenery and its charming climate, and tor 
 its superior bathing privileges, which soon 
 began to grow on the fashionable taste. 
 Although for a time the Southern visitors 
 were preponderant in the summer colony 
 in process of time the other elements in- 
 creased in a more rapid ratio, until, before 
 the slavery diSaculties preceding the war 
 of the Rebellion had induced animosities, 
 naturally, as their result, the southern 
 planter portion of our visitors had be- 
 come a factor of minor importance. 
 
 The career of the Windsors, as 1 have 
 hinted, was a short one, but during their 
 stay, the Windsor House, as it was then 
 called, was pretty well patronized, and un- 
 der the charge of Mr. William T. Potter, 
 who succeeded them, became a very fash- 
 ionable summer hostelry, and financially 
 successful in Mr. Potter's hands, and also 
 in those of Mr. William W. Hazard, who 
 was Mr. Potter's successor. On Mr. Pot- 
 ter's accession to the control the name was 
 changed to Bellevue House, under which 
 it was familiar to many o£ you. The 
 agency of the Windsors in its inception is 
 almost forgotten, except possibly by a few 
 of the oldest inhabitants. The establish- 
 ment of the Windsor House was, however, 
 the first step in the inauguration of the 
 movement which is often referred to as 
 the era of large hotels, which, after a lim- 
 ited period of existence and popularity 
 and somewhat precarious financial success, 
 gave way to the present, which is general- 
 ly spoken of as the era of cottage life. 
 
 Tlie Hotel ReiTlme. 
 
 The hotels which grew up under the 
 "hotel regime," as we may say, were suc- 
 cessively the Whitfield House on Touro 
 street, owned and occupied as landlord by 
 Charles Whitfield, burned in the superla- 
 tively cold winter of 1856. The Atlantic, 
 built by Mr. William T. Potter, the former 
 landlord of the Bellevue, and kept by him 
 and afterward by his son, Abraham A. 
 Potter, and subsequently by Joseph B. 
 Weaver, and by William Newton, was 
 then occupied by the United States Naval 
 Academy, in the time when it was re- 
 u, ved to Newport, during the war, and 
 finally it was in the control of Mr. Will- 
 iam W. Hazard, who had formerly kept 
 the Bellevue sind Fillmore Houses. After 
 its vacation by Mr. Hazard, it was re- 
 moved or destroyed. Its location was on 
 
 the corner of Bellevue avenue and Pel- 
 ham street, now the residence of Mr. 
 Stitt. After Mr. Hazard's retirement from 
 the Bellevue House, in his earlier career, 
 he built a large house directly east of it, 
 which he kept for some time, named the 
 Fillmore House, which was afterwards cut 
 up and converted into a number of dwell- 
 ings in the same neighborhood. After Mr. 
 Hazard's retirement from the Bellevue 
 House it was kept for awhile by Mr. Fran- 
 cis Baring Peckham^Senr., then of Newport, 
 afterward of Providence, and finally, for a 
 short time, by Mr. John G. Weaver, famil- 
 iar to you all as the proprietor of the 
 Ocean House in later times. 
 
 The only hotel now remaining entitled 
 to be classed with those I have mentioned, 
 is the Ocean House, which was originally 
 built in 1843, and of which the late John 
 G. Weaver, who had previously been as- 
 sociated in the management of the Belle- 
 vue House, became proprietor. This house 
 was destroyed by fire in August, 1846, of 
 which lamentable casualty I was an eye- 
 witness. In this conflagration Samuel 
 Fowler Gardner, Esq., one of the most 
 conspicuous and highly esteemed of the 
 gentlemen and business men of Newport, 
 was destroyed. After this calamity the 
 house was rebuilt on a larger scale, and 
 Mr. Weaver immediately resumed the oc- 
 cupation of it, as you know, and remained 
 in it until his decease, since which the 
 house has been successively in the control 
 of John G. Weaver, Jr., Warren Leland 
 and Warren Leland, Jr. The Aquidneck 
 House, Perry House and United States, 
 being more peculiarly adapted to the ac- 
 commodation of transient visitors, are 
 properly excluded from this class. 
 
 Newport Loses its Homogrenelty. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the accession 
 of Mr Crandall with his shipbuilding en- 
 terprise, and his association In that vo- 
 cation, and the simultaneous falling off in 
 the prosecution of foreign commerce, and 
 its replacement in a certain degree by the 
 whaling business, other changes occurred, 
 especially interesting ajid important in 
 the study of the history of Newport in 
 this century, the most salient of which 
 changes, and the one which engraves Itself 
 most sharply on the memory of those 
 whose imagination reverts to the early 
 days of it, is this; 
 
 Whereas, in 1800 and somewhat later 
 the population of Newport was homogene- 
 ous; that is to say, a very large proportion 
 of the inhabitants were descended from 
 the original settlers of Rhode Island, and 
 practically all were, with few exceptions, 
 Yankees, or In other words of English de- 
 
10 
 
 Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 scent, and had, from generation to gener- 
 ation, inberited the homesteads and in 
 very majiy cases the callings of their pro- 
 genitors, Newport since the Revolution 
 had offered no great inducements to im- 
 migration; on the contrary her energetic 
 and enterprising youth were constantly 
 tempted by the greater activity of other 
 places to seek more inviting fields for the 
 exercise of their talents and capacities, 
 and we accordingly find branches from 
 old Newport families scattered through- 
 out the continent. 
 
 Until after 1820 very few Irishmen had 
 appeared in Newport, their accession in 
 any considerable force dating from the 
 co(mmencement of work at Fort Adams. 
 Shortly after that time the first colony of 
 that natioaallty, in my recollection, oc- 
 cupied a village of temporary dwellings of 
 a very primitive character among the 
 rocky hills west of Brenton's cove, on the 
 government's lands, a few living in town 
 and going to the fort every week-day 
 moaning in rowboats. Now the propor- 
 tion of the population of Newport, which 
 is partially or wholly of Irish lineage, 
 cannot fall very much short of one third. 
 
 Bnildins Mills. 
 
 About the same time that so large an 
 amount of capital was diverted from its 
 old and time-honored channels by the 
 more flattering prospects presented by the 
 whale fishery, or supposed to be, the new 
 industry, then just beginning to foreshow 
 the wonderful prosperity which has since 
 materialized in the northern parts of the 
 state, combined with the circumstance 
 that the then recent application of steam 
 had apparently obviated the necessity of 
 water power as a factor in the production 
 of cotton or other textile fabrics, induced 
 the merchants of Newport to make large 
 investments in the experiment of building 
 mills for that purpose, which were of 
 course dependent on steam for motive pow- 
 er. The first movement in this direction, 
 if my recollection is accurate, was the build- 
 ing of a small wooden mill by Sullivan 
 Randolph, Esq, on the north side of Pop- 
 lar street, directly east of where the rail- 
 road now runs, and which was many years 
 ago burned by a fire, kindled by sparks 
 from a locomotive. This mill, after being 
 run for a time by Mr. Randolph, was 
 rented by Mr. Samuel Rodman of South 
 Kingstown for the spinning of yarns for 
 use in the weaving department of the 
 woolen mills on the wharf now Brown & 
 Howard's coal wharf. The building on this 
 wharf, originally Ruggles' distillery, was 
 converted into a factory by Samuel Harris, 
 at the commencement of this movement. 
 It afterwards became the property of 
 
 Thomas R. Hazard, who ran it for some 
 years, latterly through the agency of Jon- 
 athan Hazard. Still later, it was rented 
 by Samuel Rodman, and eventually, by 
 James Curtis, and was finally burned. It 
 occupied the vacant space on the north side 
 below the tenement houses, which, as well 
 as the block of stores and houses fronting 
 on Thames street, were part of the estate, 
 and I think were built by Mr. Hazard. 
 
 The next mill built was the stone build- 
 ing on the wharf at the foot of Howard 
 street, called tor a long time the Newport 
 mill. This at a later time passed out of 
 the hands of its original Newport owners 
 and became the property of the Richmond 
 Manufacturing Company of Providence, 
 and was known as the Richmond mill. It 
 is now occupied by the plant of the Electric 
 Illuminating Company. 
 
 The Coading-toii Mill. 
 
 Next after this in point of time, I think, 
 was the erection of the Ooddington mill, 
 which was a brick building larger than 
 any of the others, and occupied the space 
 between the Coddington wharf, below 
 Dearborn street, and what is now known 
 as Harrington street, on the south of 
 which are two rows of tenements, called 
 Coddington blocks, which were the prop- 
 erty of the owners of the mill, and were in- 
 tended for the mill hands. This factory 
 was also destroyed by fire. 
 
 The next and last factory building to 
 be erected was the Perry mill, long ago 
 abandoned for the purposes for which it 
 was designed, but, I think, one of the lat- 
 est in the prosecution of cotton manu- 
 facturing, under the control of Messrs. 
 Benjamin Finch, Samuel Bailey and Sum- 
 ner M. Stewart. This is the fine building 
 of Rocky Farm stone, nearly opposite the 
 foot of Fair street, and now owned by Hon. 
 William P. Sheffield. 
 
 This business of cotton manufacturing, 
 though it survived that of the whale fish- 
 ery, was not in the aggregate a much 
 greater success, but it had a very marked 
 influence in changing the character of the 
 population from the remarkable homo- 
 geneity to which I have alluded to the 
 equally noticeable cosmopolitanism by 
 which it is now distinguished. 
 
 The Iiiflnence of Outsiders. 
 
 The accretion of denizens due to the es- 
 tablishment of the cotton manufacture here 
 was in a large measure owing to the ne- 
 cessity of bringing people from other man- 
 ufacturing places who had some degree of 
 skill in the necessary processes, and be- 
 cause of the disinclination to the adoption 
 of new and untried habits and customs, to 
 which the people of Newport were pecu- 
 
Newport, 1800-185,0. 
 
 II 
 
 lia.rly averse, as all insular folk are re- 
 puted to be, and because of their especial 
 tenacity in adhering to all the traditional 
 prejudices by which they were character- 
 ized. 
 
 As most of these accessions were of Eu- 
 ropean birth and training, and as most 
 of the mills had been located on Thames 
 street south of Franklin street, the 
 residence of this class was naturally 
 fixed in proximity to their work, the 
 result of which was, as a matter of course, 
 to change the character of that part of the 
 town, which had previously some title to 
 be considered the "Court End" or Saint 
 Cloud, and to identify it with the class of 
 artisans associated with the new manufac- 
 turing interest. 
 
 Newport's liiuiited Area. 
 
 At that time the south part of Thames 
 street bore somewhat the same relation to 
 the rest of the town that Bellevue ave- 
 nue and Kay street, Catherine street, etc., 
 do now. The most stylish and genteel resi- 
 dences, and the most fashionable, or to 
 speak more properly, perhaps, the more 
 pretentious families were there; that is to 
 say, between the custom house and Pope 
 street, which was the limit of population, 
 south. No crossing streets then existed 
 from Pope street to Brenton, now Morton 
 avenue. Spring street then extended only 
 to the entrance to Morton Park, Coggeshall 
 avenue being closed by a succession of 
 gates, and Bellevue avenue terminating 
 where the Ocean House now stands, Bath 
 road not being laid open, or Catharine 
 street, beyond Greenough place, or Kay 
 street. There was, until the improvements 
 then just being projected, no access to the 
 beach except by the Old Beach road, and 
 by sufferance, by a private way, across 
 what was familiarly known as the Gibbs 
 farm, and closed by gates at each end, 
 which gangway extended diagonally from 
 the entrance to Mr. Marquand's estate to 
 the west entrance to the beach. Some 
 conception, but a very faint one, may be 
 formed of the "status" at that time, when 
 it is stated as approximately true that pre- 
 viously the whole area occupied by what 
 was usually referred to as the compact 
 part of Newport did not much exceed half 
 of one square mile, whereas now it may be 
 computed as approaching, if not exceeding, 
 six square miles in area. If it be difBcult 
 to believe this estimate correct, remember 
 that east of Bellevue avenue there were no 
 streets, or any residences but farm-houses. 
 South of Pope street the same state of 
 things existed, and also north of Lake's 
 corner, otherwise Equality Park, and all 
 east of Broadway, all which tracts, now 
 
 including a very material part of the popu- 
 lation, are covered with residences, none 
 of which have existed in those localities 
 for more than sixty years. To repeat, the 
 old limits of the town proper were, from 
 north to south, one mile, and from east 
 to west, that is, from the harbor line to 
 Bellevue avenue, not more than a half- 
 mile. 
 
 Governineiit Officials In tlie Early- 
 Century. 
 
 The United States government building, 
 in which the custom house and postoffice 
 now have their "habitat," was erected 
 somewhere about 1830, under the direction 
 of Hon. Christopher EUery, who was then 
 collector of the port, in succession to his 
 uncle and cousin, Hon. William Ellery, 
 Senior and Junior. 
 
 Hon. William Ellery, Senior, signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence, the first 
 collector under the United States constitu- 
 tion, was appointed to that post by the 
 first President, General Washington, in 
 1789, and was retained in office until his 
 decease, in 1820, thirty years, twenty of 
 which transpired within the century now 
 approaching its conclusion. On his death 
 he was succeeded by his son, William 
 Ellery, Junior, and he, many years be- 
 fore his death, by his cousin, Hon. Chris- 
 topher Ellery, Junior, who had been a 
 member of the Congress of the United 
 States, so that the incumbency of that 
 office, on the retirement of Mr. Christopher 
 Ellery, many years preceding his death, 
 had been in the Ellery family for forty 
 years successively, and during the Presi- 
 dential terms of Washington, Adams, Jeff- 
 erson, Madison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams and 
 part of General Jackson's, showing the 
 high estimation in which that family 
 had been held for a very long time, the 
 appointment of the first Collector Ellery 
 having been conferred by General Wash- 
 ington in consideration of his claims as 
 an early and earnest advocate of inde- 
 pendence, and of his high standing as a 
 member of that august body which boldly 
 and. bravely placed itself in the van of 
 human advancement. • 
 
 Mr. Ellery was the grandfather of that 
 distinguished divine and philosopher whom 
 we all delight to honor. Rev. William 
 Bllery Channing, D. D., and father of 
 George Wanton Bllery, Esq., whom most 
 of us remember sis a life-long and most 
 efficient officer on the custom house staff. 
 
 In my first knowledge, in 1827, the office 
 of the custom house was in the building on 
 the corner of Thames street and Cot- 
 ton's court, now Charles Hammett's book 
 store, and was removed to the newbullding 
 
12 
 
 Newport, 1800-1850. 
 
 at the corner of Franklin street Imme- 
 diately after its completion. The post- 
 offlce, now in the same building, was not 
 removed thither until many years after; 
 in point of fact, the postofflce was, until 
 its final consignment to its present and 
 palpably logical position, entirely a peri- 
 patetic institution, as had also been the 
 custom house, until its last "hegira." 
 The postofflce, until near the commence- 
 ment of my observation, had been for many 
 years presided over, far into this century, 
 by Mr. Benjamin Mumford, the grand- 
 father of our late highly esteemed fellow- 
 townsman, George C. Mason, Esq., who 
 died in office. Under Mr. Mumford it was 
 located in the building on . Thames street, 
 third below Bannister's wharf, west side, 
 now the bakery of Simeon Davis, Esq. 
 My first recollection of it was in an office 
 just above Bowen's wharf, 0(Q the west 
 side of Thames street, the postmaster then 
 being Hon. Robert B. Cranston, after- 
 wards Representative in Congress, and 
 whom I have heretofore spoken of as at 
 one or more times high sheriff of the 
 county, in all of which capacities his ex- 
 ecutive power was very conspicuous. At 
 a later time it was in the building in 
 which are the New England Commercial 
 Bank and Mr. Crandall's music store, Mr. 
 Robert Robinson Carr being postmaster. 
 Subsequently, on the election of the first 
 President Haxrison, in 1841, Hon. Asher 
 Robbinjs was appointed postmaster, and the 
 office removed to the Swinburne block, 
 now the Daily News office. 
 
 Still later Mr. Buchanan being President 
 Hon. Joseph Joslin became postmaster, 
 and the office was removed to the Swin- 
 burne block, now the Daily News Printing 
 
 Office, above Church street. He was suc- 
 ceeded by Timothy Coggeshall, Esq 
 Eventually it found a temporary resting 
 place, before its final removal, in the 
 Newton building on Pelham street, for- 
 merly the residence of David Melville, 
 Esq., and later Benjamin Bateman's mar- 
 ket, third door above Thames street, at 
 which time and place it was presided over 
 by the late Hon. James Atkinson, whilom 
 mayor of Newport. 
 
 Subsequently to its final removal the in- 
 cumbents have been successively Messrs. 
 Thomas Coggeshall, Lewis C. Brown, H. 
 H. Fay and Dalton B. Young, who is the 
 present postmaster. 
 
 A Concluding Tliongbt. 
 
 Having thus discursively and not chrono- 
 logically or in any wise systematically, 
 treated of such subjects as suggested 
 themselves to my mind as capable of 
 amusing or interesting such an audience 
 as I have the honor and pleasure to ad- 
 dress, I take leave to offer my apologies 
 for the defects of which I am conscious, in 
 this, especially, that on the one side, the 
 abundance of material tempted me to mul- 
 tiplication of topics, which must of ne- 
 cessity have been vouchsafed very super- 
 ficial elaboration, and, on the other hand, 
 the apprehension of dwelling too much on 
 such subjects as might not appeal to the 
 tastes and sympathies of my listeners, as 
 to those with which peculiarities of educa- 
 tion and habits have inspired myself. 
 
 Between "Scylla and Charybdis," there- 
 fore, I trust I have not trespassed too 
 much on your forbearance, and beg leave 
 to thank you most cordially for the pa- 
 tience and kindness with which you have 
 listened to me.