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Rhode Island ii CIass_ Book- COi'YRIGilT DEPOSIT BY THE SAME AUTHOR John Brown among the Quakers, and Other Sketches. Revised Edition, i6mo, gilt top, $1.50. Concerning one of the sketches : "A vahiable contri- bution to Western history." — Yka'HCIS Parkman. Appenzell : Pure Democracy and Pastoral Life in Inner Rhoden : A Swiss Study. i2mo, $1.50. '' Fttll of interest and instruction."—London Times. RHODE ISLAND ITS MAKING AND ITS MEANING A Survey of the Annals of the Commonwealth from its Settlement to the Death of Roger Williams 1636-1683 BY IRVING BERDINE RICHMAN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES BRYCE, M.P., D.C.L. AUTHOR OF "the AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH*' VOLUME II G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON Cbe Iknickerbocker pvee6 1902 THe LiCRAi^Y OF' CON'^RESS, T./0 ClJPIe* RtCKlveO NOV, \2 t9tJ2 <J!or»T5l(JMT SNTnV pi J Cv>:'Xr. No COPY B. Copyright, 1902 BY IRVING BERDINE RICHMAN Vbe ftnicfierbocher press, t^ew l^ocb CONTENTS " " IX. The Coddington Coup d'Etat • • 3 X. Relation of State to Town in Early Rhode Island 43 the idea of individualism in politics, as corollary to that of freedom of con- science in religion, grasped by rhode island but not by roger williams. XI. Soul Liberty in Practice — the Baptists and the Quakers . -57 freedom of conscience in rhode island granted formal recognition by the eng- lish government, but political individ- ualism at the same time made subject by rhode island to certain wholesome re- strictions. XII. John Clarke and the Charter of 1663 . 105 THE ARM OF RHODE ISLAND PARALYZED BY POLITICAL INDIVIDUALISM IN TIME OF PERIL FROM THE INDIANS. XIII. King Philip's War 149 THE EXISTENCE OF RHODE ISLAND, WITH ALL THAT EXISTENCE IMPLIED, MENACED BY WILLIAM HARRIS, AS ALSO BY MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT, IN A TTEMPTS TO GAIN CON- TROL OF RHODE ISLAND TERRITORY. XIV. William Harris and the Pawtuxet Pur- chase : A XVII. Century Piece of Liti- gation ........ 197 iv Contents PAGB CHAPTER Maps : TERRITORY INVOLVED IN THE PAWTUXET LAND CONTROVERSY . • • '97 BOUNDARY LINES OF RHODE ISLAND . .224 XV. The Struggle for Territorial Integrity. AND THE I. PLANTING OF NARRAG ANSETT, • PLYMOUTH LINE . • • 224 LINE, II. THE RHODE ISLAND-CONNECTICUT 1665-1675 244 LINE, III. THE RHODE ISLAND-CONNECTICUT 1675-1683 256 L'iTAT, C'ETAIT LUr. XVI. Some Appreciation of Roger Williams . 273 Index 287 I Political Individualism Granted Large Rec- ognition in the First Rhode Island Consti- tution, but Sought to be Checked in its Advance by William Coddington \Coiiiintted\ VOL. II. — CHAPTER IX " THE CODDINGTON " COUP d'eTAT 1650, — the year in which the organization of IN Providence Plantations may be said to have been completed,— the condition of Providence itself was not materially different from what it had been a decade before. There had been some in- crease in population, but not much ; the total in- habitants were probably less than two hundred. Some new houses, log or rudely framed, had been erected on the town street, and the town mill had become a distinct public institution. The trades, however, were hardly represented at all, as may be gathered from Roger Williams's statement, in a letter written in 1649 ^^ John Winthrop, Jr., that the town had no smith. Nor can it with truth be said that the occupation of the people was in the ordinary sense agriculture. It was rather that of the herdsman or drover ; for, while cattle were scarce, and there were as yet few oxen and still fewer horses, of swine and goats there was a great abundance. Upon these, eked out by game and fish and Indian corn, the people subsisted ; and over these, as common depredators, the people wrangled. — 4 Early Rh^i^ IshinJ With Aquidneck, or Rhode Island, in 1050, and particularly Xew-port, the situation v^-as markedly more favorable. To becin with, the Island itself was (as it still is> a spot more salubrious, fertile, and fruitful than most parts of the Mainland. Sa\-s Edward Winslow, writing in 1646, "and for that little island of Rhode Island they [the Antinomians] were forced to shelter in, take notice 'tis 30 miles about, ver\' fruitfull and plentifully abounding with all manner of food the Countn,- affordeth, and hath two Townes besides many great Fannes well stocked in the same." ' Two of these famis. indeed—the one owned by Coddinofton and the one owned bv William Bren- ton—were, even in 1650, magnificent estates. The former (comprising some seven hundred and fifty acres) was in tvvo tracts. The first extended north- westward from Newport as far as Coddington Cove, and northeastward as far as Miantonomj* Hill.' It was diversified by upland and vale, mea- dow and wood possessed on the west of a wide ; bay frontage ; and stocked generously with horses, cattle, and sheep,— the latter the finest of English ewes and rams (black and white), and in a special sense the pride of their owner.^ Upon taking the estate into possession, Coddington built a house on ' Hypocrisy' Unmasked, pp. 79. 80. The commissioners of Charles II., " writing in 1665, state : In this Province is the best English grasse and most sheepe, the ground verj' frnitfuU ; , . com yields eighty for one, and in some places they have had corne twenty-sixe yeares together without manuring." R. I. Col. Rec, vol. ii., p. 12S. * Rider's Hist. Trtut Ko. ^ p. 51. ^ Mass. Hist. Coll., 4th ser., vol. \i., p. 319, vii., p. 279. ; The Coddi7igto7i ''Coup d'j^tai" 5 this tract at the cove. The second tract lay to the south of the town, and was more diversified and picturesque even than the first. Here were hills crowned by spruce, cedar, and hemlock trees, inter- spersed with oak and maple ; here were luxuriant valleys enshrining bright-eyed pools and ponds and here, too, were masses of rock, fantastic in out- line and hoary-headed, that ere long by sheer force of their presence dictated the bestowal of the appellation " Rocky Farm." The Brenton estate comprised some four hun- dred acres to the east of the first Coddington tract. Later on, Brenton purchased land near the present Fort Adams, where he built, with materials brought from Boston, a large brick house capped by four chimneys, and laid out the grounds in orchards and gardens. He named the place Hammersmith, in honor of Hammersmith, Middlesex, England, the home of his youth.' If the contrast between Providence and Aquid- neck be not already sufficiently indicated, it may be added that upon both the Coddington and Bren- ton farms, as upon other less opulent Aquidneck estates, good English wheat, oats, rye, barley, and peas were harvested, to say nothing of good hemp and flax, and good English apples ; while, as for cheese, butter, honey, venison, fowl and fish, wild strawberries and blackberries, hickory nuts and chestnuts,— all were to be obtained in ample measure.^ ' Elizabeth C. Brenton's History of Brenton s N'eck, pp. 4-7. ^^J, O, Austin's Journal of William Jcfferay, p. 29. — 6 Early Rhode Island But it is not only the environs of Newport at this period that merit our attention ; Newport has claims of its own. The settlement had been ordered to be pitched " by the seaside southward," or, more ac- curately, westward, and as quickly as possible the tangled swamp which hindered access to the beach had been cleared by help of the Indians.^ At the spot where "long wharf" reaches into the harbor there was a cove, and about the head of this, upon upward sloping ground and amid stately trees, the first street (Thames Street) had been run, and the first house-lots laid off ; very likely under the super- vision of William Brenton, for he was a skilled sur- veyor, and had brought with him from England a commission, stamped with the likeness and signa- ture of King Charles I., authorizing him to take a certain proportion to the mile of all the lands which he might surv^ey in the New England colonies. As residents of Newport in 1650 (when all told the population may have been about three hun- dred'), we find the Eastons, the Bulls, the Dyers, ' According to a tradition (recorded by Elizabeth Brenton) Nicholas Easton, William Brenton, and Thomas Hazard made a bargain with the Indians to clear the swamp for a coat with brass buttons. It was the but- tons, however, rather than the coat that the Indians coveted, for on receiv- ing the garment they cut off the buttons and strung them for a necklace. * Something as to the relative population of Providence and Newport in 1650 may be gathered from the act passed in that year, that Providence should keep in its magazine " one barrell of powder, five hundred pounds of " " leade, six pikes and six muskets ; and Newport, three barrells of powder, one thousand weight of leade, twelve pikes, and twentie foure muskets." In the number of in 165 1, freemen Newport was sixty-five or seventy ; in 1655, the number of freemen in Providence was forty-two, and in Newport, ninety-six. R. I. Col. Rec, vol. i., pp. 223, 299; Staples' " Annals of Prov.," R. I. Hist. Coll, vol. v., p. 82. The Coddington '' Coup d' Etaf' 7 the Hazards, the Clarkes, the Goulds, the Shear- mans, the Cranstons, the Jefferays, and the Cogge- shalls; and not only so, but William Coddington had built there a town house,^ and William Brenton had at least begun to improve his town allotment, ex- tending from the waterside to the present Spring Street, and bounded on the north by New Lane, now Mary Street.
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