GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM 19TH-CENTURY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (CONCLUDED) “So long as the past and present are outside one another, knowledge of the past is not of much use in the problems of the present. But suppose the past lives on in the present: suppose, though encapsulated in it, and at first sight hidden beneath the present’s contradictory and more prominent features, it is still alive and active; then the historian may very well be related to the non-historian as the trained woodsman is to the ignorant traveller.” — R.G. Collingwood, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939, page 100 “I go the way that Providence dictates with all the assurance of a sleepwalker.” —Adolf Hitler, 1936, München PROVIDENCE AT THE BEGINNING HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM 1850 From this year into 1856, the Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge would be the Unitarian minister in Providence, Rhode Island. George Thomas Downing’s business in Newport, Rhode Island expanded to include an establishment on Mathewson Street in Providence. The success of this Providence venture would provide the operating capital for construction of the luxurious Sea Girt House fronting on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. This 5-story building had large stores on its 1st floor and accommodations over them. Amenities included restaurant meals, game suppers in private parlors, and accommodations not only for gentlemen boarders but also for entire families. The complex included the Downing family residence. The family operated a confectionery and catering business, supplying the Newport “cottages” — their services included the providing of music. (Evidently they were too successful, for eventually they would be burned out.) John Russell Bartlett returned to Providence, Rhode Island. From this year into 1853 he would serve as a United States Commissioner for the survey of the boundary between the United States and Mexico, although owing to lack of funding this project would never be completed. THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANAC FOR 1850. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence: Hugh H. Brown. THE PROVIDENCE ALMANAC FOR 1850. By John F. Moore. Henry Thoreau had in his personal library the 1846, 1849, 1850, and 1851 issues of AMERICAN ALMANAC AND REPOSITORY OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE (Boston: Grey & Bowen). ALMANAC FOR 1846 ALMANAC FOR 1849 ALMANAC FOR 1850 ALMANAC FOR 1851 1230 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 1231 HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM The Providence Reform School for wayward children was organized at the former Tockwotton1 Hotel of India Point. This facility would become the core of the Rhode Island reform school for juvenile offenders.2 READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT Largely in response to the presence of large numbers of Roman Catholics in the state, the tax exemption on property used for religious and educational purposes was at this point further limited, to three acres of land, so far as such land was used exclusively for such purposes. This new stipulation immediately became a political issue and was repealed, with all such land “not leased or rented” being again free from taxation. (In 1852 even this restriction would be removed and all property, whether real or personal, that was used in connection with religion and education, or the income of which was devoted to religion or education, would be made totally exempt from taxation. In 1870 the political winds would again blow in the opposite direction and exemption of the personal property of religious and charitable societies would be again restricted, with any such property having a value greater than $20,000 became taxable. In 1872 this anti-Catholic prejudice would resurface, and the tax exemption would be restricted again to only “buildings for free public schools or for religious worship” and one acre of the ground upon which they stood, and this only if both the land and the buildings were used for no purpose other than free public schooling plus religious worship. Rented property and invested funds of 1. Tockwotton is a native American name. The area was originally a plateau and bluff or headland 50 feet in height, facing the Narragansett Bay. 2. “STATE REFORM SCHOOL, THE, Tockwotton Street, corner East, as the name implies, is a school of reformation, where minors sentenced by the courts, together with those intrusted to it by parents or guardians, are instructed in virtue and morality, the common branches of learning, and some useful kind of labor. There are two buildings: the main building of brick, painted white, with a fine portico on two sides in the Doric style, and containing the dormitories, chapel, library, dining-room, etc.; and a brick structure in the rear, used as a workshop. The buildings (with the exception of the workshop) were formerly the Tockwotton Hotel. The property was purchased by the city in 1850, and held by it until July 1, 1880, when it was transferred to the State. The inmates average 190 (170 boys and 20 girls), and the system of management is known as the “congregate.” Visitors admitted from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. Governor-st. H. C. In the winter of 1882, the Reform School will be removed to a site near the other State institutions in Cranston, where two cottages for the boys, one for the girls, a workshop, and a superintendent’s house, all of stone have been erected at an expense of about $110,000. Here the “open” or family system will probably be adopted.” 1232 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM such institutions, and the school property of the Catholic church and other semi-private educations institutions, became taxable. In 1894 the schools of the Catholic church became again free from taxation, and added to that were the buildings of charitable institutions and one acre of the ground on which they stood.) READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT The USA was designated as an independent province of the Redemptorists. That Catholic order’s first US provincial would be a well-known Dutch preacher, Father Bernard Hafkenscheid. The first labor of this group would be that of staffing parishes and giving missions for immigrants speaking the German language, but the provincial soon ordered that the order reach out also to American Catholics who spoke English. Among the first individuals to be implementing this plan would be Father Isaac Hecker, Father Clarence Walworth (who had accompanied Hecker into the Redemptorists), and another priest who had been born in America, Augustine F. Hewit.3 3.Hewit, the son of a Congregationalist minister, had been an Episcopalian deacon and had journeyed to Catholicism in 1846. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 1233 HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM The Board of Aldermen of Providence, Rhode Island voted to limit Dexter Asylum inmates to 180. Perry Davis’s son Edmund Davis joined him in the patent medicine business located at 43 Pond Street. ETHANOL OPIATES 1234 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 1235 HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM April: The 128 pages of the 1st edition of NARRATIVE OF Sojourner Truth, A NORTHERN SLAVE, EMANCIPATED FROM BODILY SERVITUDE BY THE STATE OF NEW YORK, IN 1828. WITH A PORTRAIT were printed, on credit terms in Boston by the free-thinking printer from Providence, Rhode Island, George Brown Yerrinton who usually printed up the pamphlets of William Lloyd Garrison. Truth would be able to make a profit by offering it for 25 cents. The illustration is not of this original edition bound in soft covers only:4 READ THE FULL TEXT 4. THE NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (1850) dictated by Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883); edited by Olive Gilbert. Frances Titus would edit several subsequent editions of this NARRATIVE, in 1875 (shown), in 1878, and finally in 1884 when he would be able to tack on a Memorial Chapter. In addition to adding a “Book of Life” section in which he drew upon Truth’s scrapbook for autographs, letters, and articles about her travels and speeches, Titus would each time make significant alterations. 1236 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX PROVIDENCE RHODE ISLAND GO TO MASTER HISTORY OF QUAKERISM October 7, Monday: Jenny Lind sang in Howard’s Hall in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. The most expensive of the 2,000 seats went to one William Ross, at a price of $650. Jenny autographed his ticket stub. There were another hundred people permitted to stand inside the building. The doors of the hall were purposely left open, and seats on nearby window ledges were being hawked at 25 cents each. The published author Henry Thoreau was written to by a George Bailey in Portland, who had read A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS and was wondering about that WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS which had been mentioned in the advertisement at the end. Portland, Me., Oct. 7th., 1850. Dear Sir: A few days since, by a lucky accident I met with a copy of a work of yours — “A week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.” — I read it with much interest, — and if I tell you plainly that I am delighted with the book, it is because I cannot help telling you so; — therefore you should pardon whatever is amiss in the expression. — I should like to ask you many questions touching your allusions to persons; such, for instance, as What were the names of the “aged shepherd” and “youthful pastor”, p.