Happy Rhody Independence Day!

Two full months before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia declared independence from Great Britain, the General Assembly of Rhode Island passed and printed an act renouncing our allegiance to the King of England.

Printed in Providence by John Carter, the town’s 3rd printer who operated from1767-1814, the Rhode Island Historical Society holds one of the two known copies of this broadside (the other is atPrincetonUniversity). But to make ours unique, a contemporary, un-named hand wrote the word “State” over each occurrence of “Colony” in the “General Officers” and “Town Officers” paragraphs of the newly revised oaths. The original manuscript of the act is held by the Rhode Island State Archives.

“An Act Repealing an Act Intituled [sic], ‘An Act for the More Effectual Securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations;’ and Altering the Form of Commissions, of All Writs and Processes in the Courts, and of the Oaths Prescribed by Law.”  [G1157 Broadsides 1776 No.6; Alden 661]

On July 18th the Rhode Island General Assembly officially voted to abandon the word “colony”, but this early scribe demonstrates the zealous excitement of the day, and heralds the political winds of change that would blow down the Bay and set the rest of the British colonies inNorth Americaon fire.

Last year our copy of the Act of Renunciation was  on full display for public viewing at the John Brown House Museum in conjunction with a lauded display of a rare “Dunlap copy” of the Declaration of Independence  printed on the eve of July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia by John Dunlap. There are 25 known copies of the Dunlap imprint still in existence. These were distributed to each colony in order to be reprinted by the local printers. The RIHS hold two distinct imprints of the R.I. version — both printed at Newport by Solomon Southwick.

This year, we will open an exhibition on Thursday, June 28 at the John Brown House  Museum that will feature relics and artifacts from the Revolutionary War including a replica of the warrant for any information leading to the capture of any of the Gaspee participants–One hundred pounds, which in good Rhode Island tradition was never claimed.

-P. Bean, Printed Collection Librarian

The Root of the Matter

On March 22, 1860, a group of enterprising amateur historians set about excavating the grave of Roger Williams.  I realized this today when I looked at the accession card for the item they found, and subsequently presented to the Society. This is, of course, the famous Root. (1898.3.1)

Williams’ grave has fascinated Rhode Islanders since the 18^thcentury, when Ezra Stiles wrote of the debate over the exact location of the grave.

“At Provid Oct 6 I visited the Place of Roger Williams Land House Spring & Grave

There is some uncertainty as to the last altho the grave may be ascertained within ten Rods

Ten or a doz y ago the T of Prov voted to erect a Monum1 upon his Grave and appointed a Committee Gov Hopkins D Gov Sessions M Moses Brown & present L Gov Bowen who examind the two places Traditions & Evidences I now conversed with Gov Bowen &Mr Brown

All Tradition agrees that he was buried on his own Home Lot & near his own Dwell house whose Cellar I saw

Gov Hopkins was of opinion it was the Grave at the North corner of the House within two paces the others rather doubtful…”

Stiles’ diary can be found on Google books.

The doubt continued, despite Stiles’ sketch, and in 1860, Henry T. Arnold was among the men who witnessed the “exhumation.” In 1919 he wrote to the Society’s Curator, Howard M. Chapin, and described what he saw.

“I went up the lane, now called South Court Street, between the Mansion House and the Roger Williams Place and saw the grave open, looked down and saw the apple tree root in the grave undisturbed. There was the apple-tree between the grave and the house; there was the root which had taken the shape of the body of Mr. Williams. It was near the fence on the lane, and not far off was the old well. That root is now in the rooms of the Rhode Island Historical Society. I count it fortunate that I saw it in situ as it lay with the head toward Benefit Street and after many years have again looked upon the historic root which has been so carefully preserved.” (RIHS Collections, XII, p. 128)

The root is indeed in the “rooms of the Rhode Island Historical Society,” for it is on display at the John Brown House Museum. It’s a popular item, and no matter how unlikely it is that an apple tree “ate” Roger Williams, school children love to think of it that way, and it is a story worth of cable TV.

152 years after Henry Arnold observed the apple tree root, it can still be seen off Benefit Street. It’s just several blocks south of where it was found.

~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

What’s in a Pocket?

Lucy Lockett lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it
Not a penny was there in it
Only ribbon round it

The best “pocket” history I know of on the web is on the V&A Museum’s site but pockets have been a topic on some 18^th century roundtables lately, and I thought it would be nice to share a Rhode Island pocket (accession number 1985.1.9, found in collection).

Probably made between 1750 and 1775, this pocket was a child’s, judging by the size. It is 12 inches long, and 9 inches at the widest part, embroidered with silk on plain weave linen, with what may be some wool threads as well in the darker yellow-cream color. The embroidery is clearly crude and the pattern wiggly and hand-drawn by an unsophisticated hand, but the pattern is typical of the 18^th century, with pointed leaf-tips that show the influence of Indian textile designs.

The back is pieced plain-weave linen coarser than the front, which is lined with the same plain-weave as the front. The slit is bound with a red-print calico much worn on the front, but with just enough detail remaining on the reverse to provide a tantalizing hint of the original fabric.

Pockets that hung on loops from petticoat ties, or were tied around the waist over petticoats and under gowns, were the 18^th century woman’s version of pockets in some skirts and dresses and the purses or bags many women carry today. They could hold a wide assortment of items from sewing tools to snuff boxes, pocket books of money or pocket-sized prayer books.

Pockets could be plain or fancy (see this fantastic assemblage in Britain):  but they all served the same purpose of carrying items to free hands.

The first pocket I made was based on the example in the RIHS collections, though not embroidered. I threaded my petticoat ties through the loop, and wore the pocket under a gown. After wearing it to a few events, I cut off the loop and sewed the top to linen tape and tied it around my waist. The loop was simply too annoying: the pocket twisted under my gown, and I was left hiking up my gown trying to get into the pocket to find a bandage for  a friend’s cut finger. I’m never very poised, and I’m no fine lady in the 18^th century, but the laughter of the soldiers in my own Regiment (though the bandage was for one of them!) was enough to fix my resolve upon solving my pocket woes.

I’ve included a PDF tracing of the  Pocket. Print it out without scaling, and then enlarge it 129% from letter to ledger size on a copy machine, and the embroidery will be full-scale for this pocket. The maker’s initials are included in cross stitch; we don’t know her name, but I think of her as Sarah Fairfax; the RIHS Registrar calls her Mrs. Ferrars. By the time of Jane Austen’s novels, women’s dresses were too slim in profile and too fine and light in fabric for pockets to be worn; reticules were carried instead.
~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

One for the Little Boy

1959.6.1, Boy's frock ca. 1762

At an event commemorating the 235th anniversary of the Fall of Fort Lee in New Jersey, I watched the re-enactors’ children playing, dressed in period style, and was reminded of children’s struggles with clothing in multiple centuries. The Rhode Island Historical Society is fortunate to own children’s clothing from the 18^th and 19^thcenturies, including this boy’s jacket (1959.6.1) worn by William Batter of Scituate, Rhode Island around 1762.

Wiliam Battey (1759-1842) was the son of John and Priscilla Battey, Quakers who owned a large farm in South Scituate. William grew up to own and manage a tavern on the main road that connected New York, Providence, and Boston; in 1797, he expanded the tavern and added a sign advertising “Entertainment by William Battey.” Lafayette was supposed to have stopped, and spent the night, at Battey’s tavern, and indeed a Battey child was named Lafayette in honor of the general.

1948.1.1, Thomas Cranston

The cut of the coat or frock, with narrow sleeves and proportionally deep cuffs, follows men’s styles of the time, as seen in the Society’s ca.1755 portrait of Thomas Cranston by Joseph Blackburn (1948.1.1).

Still, the jacket is made of washable linen, and the length and fullness of the skirt suggests that this is more likely a linen frock worn before Battey was breeched, rather than a miniature frock coat. Breeching, or moving a boy from skirted garments to breeches and coats, typically took place between the ages of three and seven, and this frock have been saved to commemorate that event.

Back view, 1959.6.1

By the middle of the 18^th century, children’s clothes had grown less restrictive and more conducive to movement, play, and washing, than earlier garments had been. We can imagine a very young boy running around a farmhouse in Scituate in this frock, skirts flying; the stylish back is cut to take advantage of the stripes in forming a chevron, and the overall effect is graphically striking. Other frocks from this time are striped, and examples exist at Williamsburg of very similar, though made of  finer fabric, garments.

By the end of the century, many young boys were wearing small breeches or trousers and coats, or short jackets with button-on trousers, rather than frocks. We are lucky indeed to have this garment to help us understand the daily life of the past.

~KNH

Rhode Island Begins

Roger Williams's Compass-Sundial

In the beginning, there were Wampanoag and Narragansett people, among others. There were villages and crops, the ocean and the Bay. The Native Americans who lived in what is now Rhode Island had long-standing “customes, manners, and worships,” as Roger Williams called them in his 1643 “A Key into the Language of America.”

This is the point of departure for the joint exhibit, Customes, Manners and Worships: Rhode Island Begins  organized by the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown University, currently on display in the museum at Manning Hall on Brown’s campus. Among the objects displayed are the compass and sundial shown here, owned by Roger Williams, but not (so far as we know) used by him to find his way to what is now Providence. The background is a waistcoat owned by Daniel Updike, who took up residence at Cocumcossuc in South County, on the site of what had been Roger Williams’s South County outpost. Updike’s waistcoat, though not displayed at the Haffenreffer, dates to about 1740; a very similar example is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Like the waistcoat, Mr. Updike’s wife Anstis Updike’s portrait (seen below) represents the later end of the show’s scope.

Anstis Updike, by Nehemiah Partridge

The Haffenreffer’s collections include finely-wrought examples of Native American artifacts, including a stone bear effigy pipe and a large wooden bowl. Seen together, the Native American and English artifacts give visitors a better sense of the equality of sophistication of the cultures who met in New England, and the ways in which they changed each other in the decades before King Philip’s War.

Admission to the Haffenreffer Museum is free. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 to 4. The Museum is closed Mondays and Brown University holidays. Please call 401-863-2065 for more information.  Customes, Manners, and Worships closes Sunday, April 15, 2012. ~KNH

Unknown Soldiers

French Officer 1895.9.1

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, and we hope you will join us at the Museum of Work & Culture at 11:00 am for a ceremony honoring Rhode Island’s veterans. In addition to remarks by RIHS Executive Director, C. Morgan Grefe, Ph.D., the 2^nd R.I. Regiment will honor Marshall Sloat, a late member of the re-enacted Regiment, and the organizer and curator of the military exhibition at the Museum of Work & Culture. Dr. Grefe will make an exciting announcement about the Society’s plans for programming in 2012.

Found, when looking for something else: A French Officer, watercolor on paper given to the RIHS in 1895. Some of the best behind-the-scenes finds are those you’re not expecting, and this officer was one of those exciting moments of discovery. The label on the back says only “Watercolor portrait/Subject unknown/Supposed to be one of the/ French officers engaged/in the American Revolution,” but we know this was given to the RIHS in 1895, by John A. Howland, a long-time and active member of the Society.

Label, back of frame 1895.9.1

French troops arrived in Newport on July 11, 1780 and were quartered there, and in Providence, for nearly a year before they left to begin the long march to join Washington and his troops at Dobb’s Ferry, NY. It is possible that this portrait is of an officer  stationed in Rhode Island, though the details of his coat suggest a date earlier than 1780. Could this be Claude Blanchard, Rochambeau’s supply officer, who found Rhode Island’s farmer’s so slow to make a business deal, and so very fond of hard currency?

Perhaps he was a member of the Regiment of Saintonge, whose second-in-command, the twenty-four-year-old Armand Charles Augustin, kept a diary of his time in Newport that is now in the National Archives in Paris.  Augustin recorded his relief at sighting and on strolling on Conanicut Island.  The French officers in Newport enjoyed dances and teas with the ladies of the town, the troops dug earthworks (redoubts), examples of which can still be found in Tiverton and Jamestown.

It was long ago, and seems far away, but in the proud face of this man who gazes at us across time, we’re closer to the past and to the moment when he came to Rhode Island and helped create the world we live in today.

You can find out more about the French in Newport, and in Rhode Island, in Rhode Island History, Volume 11 No. 3, pp.73-81, among other articles. ~KNH

Happy Rhody Independence Day!

! Happy Independence Day Rhode Island!

Two full months before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia declared independence from Great Britain, the General Assembly of Rhode Island passed and printed an act renouncing our allegiance to the King of England.

G1157 Broadsides 1776 No.6; Alden 661

“An Act Repealing an Act Intituled [sic], ‘An Act for the More Effectual Securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations;’ and Altering the Form of Commissions, of All Writs and Processes in the Courts, and of the Oaths Prescribed by Law.”

(Providence: John Carter, 1776)

Printed in Providence by John Carter, the town’s 3rd printer who operated from1767-1814, the Rhode Island Historical Society holds one of the two known copies of this broadside (the other is at Princeton University).  But to make ours unique, a contemporary, un-named hand wrote the word “State” over each occurrence of “Colony” in the “General Officers” and “Town Officers” paragraphs of the newly revised oaths. The original manuscript of the act is held by the Rhode Island State Archives.

Detail

On July 18th the Rhode Island General Assembly officially voted to abandon the word “colony”, but this early scribe show us the zealous excitement of the day, and heralds the political winds of change that would blow down the Bay and set the rest of the British Colonies in North America on fire.

This year our copy of the Act of Renunciation will be on full display for public viewing at the John Brown House Museum  on May 5 in conjunction with the display of a rare “Dunlap Broadside” of the Declaration of Independence  printed on the night of July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia by John Dunlap. Of the estimated 200 copies printed, there are 24 known copies of the Dunlap imprint still in existence. These were also distributed to each colony in order to be reprinted by the local printers. The RIHS holds two distinct imprints of the R.I. version — both printed at Newport by Solomon Southwick.

Also on display will be some fascinating relics from the Battle of Rhode Island, the medical case of the Burning of the Gaspee participant who bandaged the British captains’ leg and the warrant for any information leading to the capture of any of the Gaspee participants–One hundred pounds which in good Rhode Island tradition was never claimed.

-P. Bean, RIHS Printed Collection Librarian

Trails of Memory

We had such a great turnout and so much interest in last Wednesday’s program that we wanted to post some additional information here for anyone who wasn’t able to attend or who would like further information. The title of the lecture was Trails of Memory in “The Narragansett Country”: Native and Settler Place-Traditions in Rhode Island after King Philip’s War (1675-78), and the author—NERFC fellow Christine M. DeLucia—was kind enough to provide a summary of her talk with some images of the Great Swamp area and suggestions for further reading:

Trails of Memory in “The Narragansett Country”: Native and Settler Place-Traditions in Rhode Island after King Philip’s War (1675-78)

King Philip’s War (1675-78) devastated Algonquian Indian peoples and English settlements in New England.  In its aftermath, “the Narragansett Country,” as the lands west of Narragansett Bay were then known, became contested ground as Rhode Island colonists and surviving Native peoples grappled for control of territory and stories.  This talk examined how Rhode Islanders and Narragansett tribal members have remembered and marked—or forgotten and erased—the area’s violent colonial past.  It stressed that these memories have responded to very local circumstances rather than to more abstract notions of “American” or “Indian” identities.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, surviving Narragansetts confronted dire conditions of servitude and slavery, diaspora, diminished territories, and restrictions on where they could walk, live, and participate in traditional subsistence and cultural practices.  Rhode Island colonists expanded their settlements into the newly “vacated” lands west of the Bay, and began to spin romantic legends and hauntings about certain places connected to the events of 1675-76.  They often visited and mentioned these places, particularly the grounds of King Philip’s seat at Mount Hope (Bristol) and the Great Swamp Fight/Massacre (South Kingstown).

During the Colonial Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, antiquarians sought to re-mark the land in ways that narrated settler victory and sacrifice, and the permanent defeat and even disappearance of the Narragansetts.  Providence-born Zachariah Allen (1795-1882) was one of the most active proponents of these colonial place-claims.  Besides being a prominent textile entrepreneur and President of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Allen wrote extensively on King Philip’s War, escorted local historical enthusiasts out to the conflict’s important “spots,” and enthusiastically supported the installation of monuments on these grounds.  In the same period nativist Yankee Rhode Islanders tended to disparage living Narragansetts, critiquing them as “mixed-bloods” and denying their claims to lands in South County.  Political pressures culminated when the State passed the Detribalization Act (1880) and dismantled reservation lands.

Despite these constraints, Narragansett peoples continued to articulate their own senses of geography and history, which can be read today in publications like the tribal magazine The Narragansett Dawn of the 1930s.  The tribe and allies continued to gather annually at the Great Swamp site, making it a place of protest, remembrance, and regeneration throughout the twentieth century.  Today memory remains contested in this area.  An ethically important project is unfolding at Nipsachuck (North Smithfield), where multiple tribes, local historians, and state offices are collaborating to re-interpret and preserve a battlefield from King Philip’s War.  The Narragansetts, formally recognized as a tribe since 1983, are active contributors to this work.  The regional “memoryscape” will evolve so long as its many inhabitants feel strongly, and even sharply disagree, about the meanings and ongoing effects of seventeenth-century violence.

Reading Suggestions:

 

• Allen, Zachariah.  “The Rhode Island System of Treatment of the Indians, and of Establishing Civil and Religious Liberty” (1876).
• Brown, John, III, and Paul Robinson.  “‘The 368 Years’ War’: The Conditions of Discourse in Narragansett Country.”  In Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Native Peoples and Archaeology in the Northeastern United States, ed. Jordan E. Kerber (2006), 59-75.
• Herndon, Ruth Wallis and Ella Wilcox Sekatau (The Narragansett Tribe).  “The Right to a Name: Narragansett People and Rhode Island Officials in the Revolutionary Era,” Ethnohistory 44:3 (Summer 1997), 433-62.
• Mandell, Daniel.  Tribe, Race, History: Native Americans in Southern New England, 1780–1880 (2007).
• O’Brien, Jean. Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England (2010).
• Rubertone, Patricia.  Grave Undertakings: An Archaeology of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians (2001); and “Memorializing the Narragansett: Place-Making and Memory-Keeping in the Aftermath of Detribalization.” In Archaeologies of Placemaking: Monuments, Memories and Engagement in Native North America (2008).
• Simmons, William. Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore, 1620-1984 (1986).
• The Narragansett Dawn tribal magazine (1930s).  RIHS E99.N16  D39.

 

 

–Be sure to check out our Events Calendar for more information about RIHS events.

 

New Online Resource

We’re pleased to announce the availability of a new online resource: The Atlas of the Rhode Island Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century. The Atlas integrates a timeline and a map in an attempt to pinpoint as many participants in the book trade (from printers and booksellers to book binders and rag collectors) as possible in space and time. Dragging the timeline left or right (or scrolling a mouse wheel or double clicking at a point in time) adjusts the map view to show only members of the trade in operation at that point in time. The Atlas also features a searchable or browseable database and a number of viewing options, including the option to view the atlas overlaid with eighteenth-century maps of Newport and Providence.

Geographic visualization of all kinds of information abounds on the internet*, but what kind of questions does this resource answer? First, it’s a great way to get a sense of the spread and development of the book trade in the state over the course of the century. Here’s a rough dramatization of the process in twenty seconds of video:

But more particular elements in the story of the book trade become visible through a geographical lens as well. Take the case of Paul Mumford and Mary Maylem, two merchants and booksellers who, according to the Newport Mercury, were married in 1769. In itself not remarkable, but viewing a map of their locations indicates that they were neighbors, operating just across the street from each other. Romance perhaps aided by location. Or a glance at the static map view indicates how many of the book trade’s members operated in locations used previously by someone else in the trade.

Just considering previous posts from this blog, the Atlas offers a number of insights. In our most recent post, it identified the fact that Old Bet’s exhibition was actually taking place in the location used by the printer of the broadside. We can use the Atlas to chart the progress of  Thomas Truman’s exciting late-night experimentations with glowing water. We mentioned the sign of the bunch of grapes when it marked the location of Gladding’s department store, but you can also use the Atlas to find two earlier uses of the sign. And the broadside advertising the visit of a robot to Providence in 1796 gives “Mr. Todd’s bookstore” as one of the locations for ticket sales. Where was Todd’s bookstore at that time? That’s a perfect question for the Atlas.

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* For instance, find out what people think the boundaries of Providence neighborhoods are, based on their Flickr tags at http://boundaries.tomtaylor.co.uk/#2477058 .

 

Independence Day

It’s that time again, time to celebrate Rhode Island’s declaration of their independence from Great Britain. Last year we posted images of the broadside announcement of the breakup.

More information about RI Independence Day is available at the History Channel’s website, among other places.