Bristol, Rhode Island: A Town Biography [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674498990, 9780674186552

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BRISTOL, RHODE ISLAND A TOWN BIOGRAPHY

LONDON : H U M P H R E Y M I L F O R D OXFORD UNIVERSITY

PRESS

MOUNT HOPE BAY I N 1820 From the title-page of James Wallis Eastburn's "Yamoyden."

F air child Aerial Surveys,

M O U N T H O P E BAY I N 1930

Inc.

BRISTOL RHODE · ISLAND zyf Ψουοη ^Biography BY

M. A. D E W O L F E

HOWE

God gives all men all earth to love, But since man's heart is small, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Beloved over all. Rudyard Kipling

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS : AT THE HARVARD U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS, 1930

COPYRIGHT, I 9 3 O BY T H E P R E S I D E N T A N D F E L L O W S O F H A R V A R D C O L L E G E

P R I N T E D AT T H E H A R V A R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S C A M B R I D G E , MASSACHUSETTS, U . S . A .

ILLUSTRATIONS M O U N T H O P E B A Y IN 1 8 2 0 AND IN 1 9 3 0

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Frontispiece

H O W E - C H U R C H I L L - D I M A N H O U S E ON H O P E S T R E E T BYFIELD-HERRESHOFF THREE

SONS

OF

HOUSE

MARK

ON

POPPASQUASH.

ANTHONY

6 18

D'WOLF:

C H A R L E S , W I L L I A M , AND JAMES

56

T H E M O U N T : S E A T OF THE H O N . J A M E S D E W O L F

60

THE

76

"REVENGE"

FACSIMILE

OF B R I S T O L

TITLE-PAGE

OF

"THE

WAY

OF

THE

WORLD" (1813) LINDEN

PLACE:

84 THE

D E WOLF-COLT

HOUSE

ON

HOPE STREET

88

DEWOLF-MIDDLETON

HOUSE

"NORWEST JOHN"

DEWOLF

Two

OF

EXEMPLARS

ON P O P P A S Q U A S H

BRISTOL

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92 114

PIETY:

BISHOP

G R I S W O L D AND THE R E V . JOHN B R I S T E D

.

.

138

CHARLES FREDERICK HERRESHOFF ( 1 8 0 9 - 1 8 8 8 )

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148

T H E HERRESHOFF F A M I L Y (ABOUT 1 8 9 3 )

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154

BRISTOL, R H O D E ISLAND A TOWN BIOGRAPHY

BRISTOL· RHODE· ISLAND

W

H E N you enter a sleeping town in the middle of the night and see about you on the deserted streets nothing but closed doors and darkened windows, you realize that you are looking merely at the shell of the place, not at the place itself. When you enter the same town at noon, its streets alive with motor-cars and dodging pedestrians, you realize—if it be a town of any antiquity— that even at its most crowded hour it is only partially peopled. The invisible shapes of former inhabitants become all but visible to one possessing some knowledge of what the place has been in earlier years or centuries. Among the groups of living persons you are not surprised to see faces from the past. If (3)

your memory goes back into the nineteenth century, you may start at the vision of a figure identified virtually with the whole of that century, born, let us say, in its first decade and living into its last; one, moreover, to whom the traditions of the town through the century and more of its history before his day were a lore which he delighted both to accumulate and to share. Through him the town worthies of his own, of the eighteenth, and of a portion of the seventeenth centuries may have continued to people the place of which he became one of the oldest native sons and lovers. When the face of such an one presents itself in the setting of the horseless, air-minded, radio-riddled world in which he would have stood stricken and aghast, the signal flashed from his eyes is not to forget, but to remember. Something of that sort confronts me whenever I visit the town in which my father was born and received the quadrilateral name transmitted to me, born in the same town I 2 7 , 129, 133» 138 Salem witchcraft madness, 17 Sands, Robert C., 131η Scrope, Adrian, 25 Scrope, William, 25 " S e a Port, Tales of an Old," Munro, 39, 96 Seaport, Bristol as a, 32 Senate, U . S., James DeWoIf's service in, 102-104 Sewall, Samuel, " D i a r y o f , " 18; judicial visit to Bristol, R . I., 18 Shannon, English brig, 100 Siberian trip of " N o r w e s t " John, 109-114 Slave trade, 45, 62-88; details of, 64-69; participants in, 64-65; method of conducting, 68, 69, 77,78; prohibited, 74; number of

Bristol ships engaged in, 76; efforts to abolish, 78-85 Smith, Benj amin Bosworth, Bishop of Kentucky, 22, 23 Smith, Mrs. Henry, 122 Smith, Reginald Bosworth, 22 Smith, Richard, 21, 25η Smith, William, 76 Smith family of Bristol, 25, 25η Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 29 South Carolina, slave trade to, 75, 76 Squitchett of a lobster, 28, 29 Stiles, Ezra, " D i a r y of," 28 Stone, John S., 119 Surinam, Dutch Guiana, 40 Talbee, Stephen, 156 " T a l e s of an Old Sea Port,"Munro, 39, 96 " T h o u g h t s on the Anglican and Anglo-American Churches," Bristed, 139 Throop, William, 23-25, 26η " T h r o o p eye," 24 Trade, with China, 88, 109; with Cuba, 68, 86; with South America, 32. See a/so Slave trade " T u r f and twig," ceremony, 11 T y n g , Stephen Higginson, 132 Usher, Reverend John, 42 Usher, Reverend John, Jr., 43 Usher, Samuel, 43η, 44η

( 172 )

Vassall family, i o Vassall, William, 1 5 1 Vaughan, Daniel, 40 " V o y a g e to the North Pacific and a Journey through Siberia," D e Wolf, 109 Wadham College, Oxford, 28 Walker, Elizabeth, 79 Walley, J o h n , 19, 20 War of 1 8 1 2 , 120; cruises of the privateer Yankee in, 9 1 - 1 0 1 Wardwell, Joseph, 84 Warren, R . I., 69, 80 Warren, Russell, 89 " W a y of the World, or A Short

Sketch of the Modern Customs of M a n k i n d , " Wardwell, 83, 84 Weathersfield, Conn., 55 Weeden, William B . , 45, 67 Weetamoe F a r m , 6n Whitefield, George, preaches in the Courthouse, 31 Wight, " P a r s o n " Henry, 92, 129η Wilson, Captain Oliver, 9 1 , 96 " Yamoyden: a T a l e of the Wars of King Philip," Eastburn and Sands, 1 3 1 η Yankee, privateer, Captain of, 7; cruises in the War of 1 8 1 2 , 9 1 101