Mr. CRAYON's second Sketch-also in the possession of Miss PUFFIN. Worn out by the fatigues of the day, they retire to their Berths.-Appearance of the Cabin at 2 o'clock, A. M. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. No. LI-AUGUST, 1854.-VOL. IX. NEWPORT-HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL. When you arrive in the Bay State, and have TRAVELER recovered from the frightful confusion and dismay who arrives of that event, you are conscious of passing along from Niaga- a prodigious dock, and if it be already light, you ra and its review a range of ill-conditioned barns, or stores, pleasant or fish-houses, or other antediluvian remains, "Cataract which look upon the water. Then, clattering House," or over a pavement, you see a quaint, long, straight from Sarato- street-a magnified village street-its native quiet ga and its ill-blended with foreign and flashing bustle. You clean and see that, in the nature of things, so many and so agreeable fine carriages and people do not belong to the "United little wooden town, which ravels out, along the States," harbor, into mouldering old docks, upon which does not take boys sit, hanging their feet over the water and his ease in a fishing; and around which are clustered groups Newport of saucy sail-boats, duck-like riding together upon inn. But the the calm, and ready to bend their great white discomfort is only the tax he pays for the pleasure sails to the wind, and fly, flashing and dipping, of being where the world is; it is the price of across the bay and harbor. The old, weatherhis share of "the thing." beaten wooden houses-the dignified aspect of some statelier mansion, very respectable but sadly decayed-the spacious square, ascending gently to the old-fashioned State House-the comely Jewish Synagogue-the simple wooden spire of Trinity Church, whose architecture tells of another century, and which is still hallowed But the Newport of August-the Newport seen by the summer-idler who looks at it in ill-humor, from his small upper chamber in the hotel, is not the Newport of history and of romance, and of the long and faithful love of those who are native or resident upon its shores. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. VOL. IX.-No. 51.-T a quiet smile of scorn. Newport will not be new. We all hurry to the Fort, if it is Fort-day, on afternoons upon which the interior of Fort Adams is turned into a Hyde Park. Horsemen and chariots throng thither, driving placidly in each other's dust, and making a brilliant and pleasant promenade. The friends who dined together an hour or two before, have now the satisfaction of bowing to each other from carriages or from the saddle. The lovely ladies who had bowling costumes this morning, have driving costumes this afternoon, and they will have dancing costumes to-night. They smile and bow. The ribbons flutter, the gloves glisten. The air is soft, the band plays pleasantly; over all shines the summer sun. But Newport lies beyond, imperturbable, and has other belles and beauties to remember. by that indefinable air of venerable antiquity-the | which it preserves despite the fury of the brief reach of docks, fallen into disuse, and the groups summer episode of excitement around it, is like of smart yachts among the few vessels that carry on the little legitimate trade of the old town, and which preserve in the harbor the contrast offered to the eye of the stranger in the town, between the priggish cit and the grave old tradesman-these objects, and the air of quiet decay that invests them, remind the stranger that he looks upon the seat of past prosperity, and his imagination and curiosity are teased by the intimation of a vanished splendor. The present town rises gently from the water to the great hotels, which are built along the highest part of the island, between the harbor and the sea. It is a collection of houses without beauty, and divided by two or three parallel streets with cross streets. Like Salem, in Massachusetts, and Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, Newport has seen its best days. In the Red Rover," Cooper says: 66 No one who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American commercial town would recognize, in the repose which now reigns in the ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked among the most important ports along the whole line of our extended coast...... Enjoying the four great requisites of a safe and commodious haven-a placid basin, an outer harbor, and a convenient roadstead, with a clear offing-Newport appeared to the eye of our European ancestors designed to shelter fleets and to nurse a race of hardy and expert seamen." The bustle of the month of August, when Newport is crowded with all that is gayest and most fashionable from every quarter of the country, is apart from the life of the town. The saturnalia of Fashion reel along the hill, but the silent old town dozes upon the water, and dreams of its great days departed. Its indomitable repose, How little do Messrs. Jot and Tittle, who have brought their respective and respectable families to Newport, suspect, as they discuss groceries upon the beach, or go into the town to buy a morning paper from "the city," that, in the year 1770, just before the Revolution, the foreign and domestic trade of Newport was greater than that of New York. Or, as young Thomas Tittle comes prancing home in the sunset with Jane Jot, upon their spirited horses, how little do they recall the stately figures of that last-century society in Newport, which charmed the most accomplished gentlemen of Versailles and Marly, who forgot, in the virgin-simplicity, and sweetness, and dignity, of the Rhode Island belles, the fascinations of the most polished and profligate of Continental beauties. Let the remembrance teach the Jot and Tittle families reverence for the good old town. It is wooden and homely; a town of the old school. But its streets are historically famous, and from its docks sailed ships to India and the Southern seas than I have known it every where north of Rome. -ships that circumnavigated the globe. It may amuse and interest Mr. Jot, who has just given two thousand dollars an acre for land, including the rocks upon the shore, within a mile or two of Newport, to know that in November, 1638, Aquidneck, Aquitneck, Aquethneck, or Aquidnet-"Isle of Peace"-the Indian name of the island of Rhode Island, was bought of the Indians, through Miantonomu and Canonicus, chiefs of the Nantygansicks or Narragansetts, for twenty-three broadcloth coats and thirteen hoes, "as also two torkepes"-probably door-keys! Miantonomu had his seat upon the hill now called Tammany,* just to the north of Newport. Roger Williams says, in one of his manuscripts," Aquitneck was obtained by love -that love and favor which that honored gentleman, Sir Henry Vane, and myself had with the great sachem, Myantonomy." But the colonists declared in 1666, that what Williams said might be true, but the gift was an " Indian gift," and "had been dearer than any lands in New England." The proximate cause of the settlement of Rhode Island, at that time, was the persecution of Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends in Massachusetts. Governor Winthrop, in his Journal, after detailing her errors, adds: At this time, the good providence of God so disposed, divers of the congregation (being the chief men of the party, her husband being one) were gone to Narragansett to seek out a new place for plantation." The first settlement was made in March 1638, upon the upper part of the island, which is only about fifteen miles long, at Pocasset, near Portsmouth. You will often drive into Portsmouth, and through it, without knowing that you have seen more than a few farm-houses among the fields. In fact, most visitors forget that the whole island is not Newport. But the settlement where that town now stands was not made until the next spring, 1639, between what is now called Tanner and Marlborough streets. So soon as 1640 land was appropriated for a school, and the Rev. Robert Lenthel called to keep it. The early settlers were always anxious to supplant the Indian names, a natural feeling in those who regarded the savages as their worst enemies, and to whom the familiar names of the old country were sweet with tender associations. In 1644, therefore, the island lost its Indian title of Aquidneck, and became Rhode Island. The bland sea-air that breathes over it might well suggest that name; for the climate of Rhode Island is truly Mediterranean. It blends the glow and softness of Italy with the rich humidity of England. Neal, in his History of New England, writing in 1715-20, says: "It is deservedly esteemed the Paradise of New England, for the fruitfulness of the soil and the temperateness of the climate, that, though it be not above sixtyfive miles south of Boston, is a coat warmer in winter." Bishop Berkeley writes to Thomas Prior, April 24th, 1729: "The climate is like that of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter * Evidently a corruption of the Indian name, Miantonomu. The spring is late, but to make amends they assure me the autumns are the finest and longest in the world, and the summers are much pleasanter than those of Italy by all accounts, forasmuch as the grass continues green, which it doth not there. The island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising grounds, hath plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful prospects of fine promontories and adjacent lands. Vines sprout up of them selves to an enormous size, and seem as natural to this soil as to any I ever saw." In his Historical Discourse, 1739, John Callender adds to Neal's account: "We have all summer a south or a southwesterly sea-breeze." And Crevecœur, before the Revolution, exclaims: "It is the healthiest country I know. Why might not this charming island be called the Montpellier of America?" The most satisfactory explanation of this climate, so delicious in itself, and so different from that of other points upon the same coast, is given by Maury, who attributes it to the course of the Gulf stream, which, by a sudden curve, almost washes the shores of the island, and accounts for the masses of sea-weed that are thrown up so profusely upon the coast. It is the prevailing south and southwest wind, mentioned by Callender, which drives the trend of the Gulf stream toward Newport. It is so constant that the trees upon the island lean visibly toward the northeast. It blows from the sea in thick fogs, the most delightful of natural cosmetics, which give the island the half-languid, voluptuous climate of a mild scirocco. It is always pleasant to penetrate the secret of Fashion; and a summer at Newport shows that its annual throng of visitors are not obeying a mere whim, but that, originally, travelers were drawn to it by the rare charm of its climate. Among the first Governors of the Colony, and one of the original settlers, was William Coddington, who is reported to have built the first brick house in Boston. The cove in front of the present alms-house still bears the name of this officer; and a story is sometimes told, and not by some gossip from the House of Seven Gables, that within a few years the last descendant of the Governor, reduced to abject poverty, sought, the shelter of public charity, and was received with no other possession in the world than a portrait of his ancestor painted at full-length and in his official robes. If Life and History were not so much more wonderful than romance, it would be easily credible that the story was stolen from a manuscript of Hawthorne's. Being originally settled by refugees from religious intolerance, the island of Rhode Island immediately became the resort of all who differed from the established religious rule in the Colonies. Roger Williams had led the way, a year or two before Hutchinson and Clarke came to Newport, and had settled thirty miles above, at the head of Narragansett Bay, in Providence. In 1656 we find Quakers in Newport, and many of the chief men, including Coddington, adopting their views. | This Quaker inoculation affected the whole society of the island, and remains vigorous until the present moment. Butts' Hill, in Portsmouth, now part of Quaker Hill, near the north point of the island, was the scene of the only battle fought upon Rhode Island during the Revolution, and the old Quaker Meeting-house still stands there; too plain, however, to be a characteristic monument of the splendor and luxury of ante-revolutionary Quaker life upon the island. In 1672 George Fox preached upon Rhode Island, and afterward, John Woolman. Quakerism was established in Newport in 1700, and the Friends' yearly meeting is still held there. The Quaker costume is constantly encountered. The prim and serious dignity of the Quaker manner still certifies to the stranger the identity of the Rhode Island he sees with the Rhode Island of history and tradition. About this time, also, came the first Jews to Newport They were of Dutch extraction, and from Curaçoa. There is a deed, dated in February, 1677, granting them land for a burialground upon the site of the present Jewish cemetery. The arrival, a century afterward, of many wealthy families of the race from Spain and Portugal, gave them dignity and importance. Nor is there any where in the country a finer memorial of the prosperity and position of this singular people than the Newport Synagogue, which was dedicated with solemn festivity in 1763. This was in the palmy days of Newport, when there were not less than sixty Jewish families in the town, whose residences ranged along the north side of the Mall. Dr. Waterhouse, speaking of their efforts for public education, calls them "the strictly moral Jews;" and in the Synagogue, which, until 1850, had been closed for sixty years, a congregation of three hundred of the children of Israel celebrated the service of their faith. The names of Lopez, Riviera, Pollock, Levi, Hart, Seixas, and Touro, announce the foreign origin of these families, and recall characters and careers still honored by local tradition. Moses Lopez is said to have been the last resident Jew in Newport. He died a few years since in New York, and is buried in the Newport cemetery. Abraham Riviera, a leading merchant of the town, was called "the honest man ;" and a story told of him justifies the name, and well illustrates the sumptuous spirit of old Newport society. Riviera was engaged in great commercial enterprises, and many losses at sea compelled him to assign his property. The English merchants with whom he traded favored him in every way, during the pressure of ill-fortune, and he was enabled to re-commence business. At the end of a few years he gave a dinner to his creditors, each one of whom found under his plate a check covering the amount of his debt, with in terest. The Hebrew name of Touro is familiar to every frequenter of Newport. The street upon which the Synagogue and the Cemetery stand is so called. Abraham Touro, who died in Boston in He is also among the benefactors of the Redwood Library, and has left a conditional bequest of ten thousand dollars toward the purchase of the ground upon which stands the old mill, to be laid out as a public garden. The three causes of the ante-revolutionary prosperity of Newport were-first, the salubrity of its climate, which attracted strangers from every part of the country, and from the West India colonies; secondly, the singular advantages of its harbor, which offered a perfectly safe anchorage within a very little distance of the open sea; and, thirdly, the spirit of entire religious toleration, which gives to the settlement of the whole state, first at Providence and then at Newport, an historical eminence no less enviable than singular. Quakers and Jews were among the earliest settlers, and the most distinguished and successful of its citizens. If the laws of Rhode Island, as is sometimes asserted, excepted Roman Catholics from the enjoyment of freedom of conscience, "the exception was not," says Bancroft, "the act of the people of Rhode Island." There were no Roman Catholics in the Colony ;" and when the French ships arrived, during the Revolution, "the inconsistent exception was immediately erased by the Legislature." Often, from its first session, the General Assembly took care to promulgate the doctrine of absolute toleration. "We leave every man to walk as God persuades his heart." Mary Dyre, one of the early Quaker martyrs in Massachusetts, was the wife of one of the original settlers of Newport; and it was upon a visit to Massachusetts from Rhode Island that she was arrested and executed. One such event would be sure to strengthen a thousandfold the fealty of every Rhode Islander to the principle upon which his state was based. 66 |