The tomb is somewhat dilapidated, and the ground overgrown with

brambles. In the southern portion of the cemetery, separated from the

others by a stone fence, is the family vault of General Jabez

Huntington, ** formerly one of the leading men of Norwich, and

peculiarly honored in contributing five hardy sons to the Continental

army. Jedediah was a brigadier general; Andrew was a commissary; Joshua

and Ebenezer were colonels. Zachariah, the youngest, was still living

with his son, Thomas M. Huntington, Esq., a few rods north of the

residence of General Jedediah Huntington, pictured on page 32. We called

to see him, but indisposition prevented his receiving visitors. He was

then nearly eighty-six years of age. He was drafted in the militia in

1780, but saw little of active military service. ***

General Jabez Huntington's tomb, like that of the governor, is

constructed of brick, having an inscribed marble tablet in front; ****,

unlike the other, it was not covered with brambles, nor was there a

blade of grass upon the old graves that surround it. The ground had been

burned over to clear it of bushes and briers, and the ancient tomb-

stones were shamefully blackened by fire. A few yards from Huntington's

tomb is the more humble grave of Diah Manning, who was a drummer in the

Continental army. He was the jailer at Norwich during the French

Revolution. When Boyer, afterward President of Hayti, was brought to

Norwich, among other French prisoners, in 1797, he was treated with

great kindness by Manning. The prisoner did not forget it, and when

President of St. Domingo, he sent presents to Manning's family.

Leaving the ancient cemetery, we returned to the city, and called upon

the almost centenarian Captain Erastus Perkins, residing on Shetucket

Street. He is yet living (1850), in the ninety-ninth year of his age. We

found him quite strong in body and mind. Many scenes of his early years

are still vivid pictures in his memory, and he was able to reproduce

them with much interest. He said he distinctly remembered the

circumstance of quite a large body of men going from Norwich to New

Haven, in 1765, to assist in compelling In-

* The following is a copy of the inscription: "Samuel Huntington, Esq.,

Governor of Connecticut, having served his fellow-citizens in various

important offices, died the 5th day of January, A.D. 1796, in the 65th

year of his age." "His consort, Mrs. Martha Huntington, died June 4th,

A.D. 1794, in the 57th year of her age." A portrait and biographical

sketch of Governor Huntington will be found among those of the signers

of the Declaration of Independence, in another part of this work.

** Jabez Huntington was born in Norwich, in 1719. He graduated at Yale

College in 1741, and soon afterward entered into mercantile business. At

one time himself and sons owned and fitted ont at the port of Norwich

twenty vessels for the West India trade. In 1750 he was elected a member

of the Connecticut Assembly, was speaker for several years, and also a

member of the Council. He lost nearly half his property by the capture

of his vessels when the Revolution broke out. He was an ardent patriot,

a very active member of the Council of Safety, and held the office of

major general in the militia. He died at Norwich in 1786.

*** General Zachariah Huntington is no more. He died in June, 1850, at

the age of eighty-eight. Thus one after another of those whom I visited

has since gone to rest in the grave.

**** The following is a copy of the inscription: "The family tomb of the

Honorable Jabez Huntington, Esq., who died October 5, 1786, aged 67

years."

Captain Perkins.--Old Men of Norwich.--Greenville.--Tory Hill.--Letter

of General Williams

608gersoll, the stamp distributor, to resign his office. Captain Perkins

went to Roxbury in 1775, and was a sutler in Colonel Huntington's

regiment at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill. He was in New York

about two years ago, and pointed out the spot

1848 in Wall Street where he stood and saw Washington take the oath as

President of the United States, sixty-one years before. For many years

Captain Perkins was surveyor of the port of Norwich, and throughout a

long life has preserved the esteem of its citizens He is now the honored

head of five generations. * A few friends of his youth are still living

in Norwich, but most of that generation have long since departed. I was

informed by Dr. W. P. Eaton that, the day before I visited Norwich,

Captain Perkins and three other men were in his store, whose united ages

were three hundred and fifty-seven years--an average of eighty-nine!

Toward evening we strolled up the Shetucket to Greenville, visited the

extensive paper and cotton mills there, and returning, crossed, at

Chelsea, to the Preston side of the river, and ascended by a winding

road to the lofty summit of Tory Hill, so called from the circumstance

that it was the confiscated property of a Tory of the Revolution. A

magnificent prospect opens to the view from that bald, rocky pinnacle.

Southward was visible the dark line of Long Island Sound; on the west,

half hidden by groves, rolled the Thames; northward and eastward lay a

vast amphitheater of cultivated hills, and the valleys of the Yantic,

Quinebaug, and the Shetucket, and at our feet was Norwich city, in

crescent form, clasping a high, rocky promontory, like the rich setting

of a huge emerald, for in the midst rose the towering Wawekus, yet green

with the lingering foliage of summer. A more picturesque scene than this

grand observatory affords need not be sought for by the student and

lover of nature. There we lingered until the sun went down behind the

hills that skirt the great Mohegan Plain, and in the dim twilight we

made our way back to the city. Between eight and nine o'clock in the

evening I bade my kind friend Mr. Williams ** adieu, and left Nor-

* It is a rather singular faet that Captain Perkins and his wife were

both born on Sunday. Their first child was born on Sunday. They had one

born on every day of the week--the first on Sunday morning, and the last

on Saturday evening; and the head of each of the five generations of

which he is the eldest was born on Sunday.

** Mr. Edwin Williams, and his elder brother, Mr. Joseph Williams, of

Norwieh, are sons of General Joseph Williams, who, though a young man,

was an active patriot during the Revolutionary war. He was a merchant,

and, in connection with his partner, William Coit, whose daughter he

married, was engaged in fitting out armed vessels from Norwich and New

London. In one of these he made a voyage to the West Indies. The vessel

was pursued by a British armed ship, and an action ensued in whieh the

American vessel was the winner. General Williams spent much of the

latter portion of his life in organizing and disciplining the militia of

New London county; and until his death he was extensively engaged as a

shipping and importing merchant. He died in October, 1800, aged forty-

seven years. Mrs. Russell Hubbard, of Norwieh, daughter of General

Williams, permitted me to have a copy of a letter of his, written in

1776, from near New York, to his business partner, Mr. Coit. Young

Williams had accompanied the Connecticut Continental troops to New York,

taking with him a supply of articles adapted to the use of the army. He

was then only twenty-three years of age. The letter is interesting, as

exhibiting a feature in the business life of the day, and the perfect

coolness with which trade was earned on in the midst of the most

imminent peril. The letter is written on the blank leaf of an account

book.

** "New York, seven miles from the city, September 8,1776. Dear Sir,

"Ever since I wrote you by Mr. Walden we have been in confusion. The

enemy opened two batteries opposite to our fort at Hell Gate last

Saturday evening, and began cannonading and bombarding early on Sunday

morning. They fired several shot into the house where we kept our store.

We thought it prudent to move a little back, whieh we have done, but

have not got clear of their shot; they are flying about us continually.

We have about £140 in value on hand, besides money that I have purchased

since I came here with what was on hand before. "The enemy are now

landing on the island between Hell Gate and the main, and 'tis supposed

they mean to make a push for Kingsbridge, and cut us off from the main;

but I believe they ean not do it, as we are prepared for them at

Kingsbridge; but I make no doubt we shall soon have an engagement.

"Colonel Sergeant, Dr. Hamans, and I, have sent what money we have to

West Chester by Dr. Hamans's boy. I have sent about £150. It will not do

to move our stores till the regiment is obliged to go, as they can not

do without some necessaries here.

New London.--Its Settlement Fortifications.--The Harbor.--Revolutionary

Movements.

609wich, in the cars, for Allyn's Point, seven miles below, whence I

embarked for New London, eight miles further down the Thames, arriving

there at ten.

New London is pleasantly situated upon a rocky slope on the right bank

of the Thames, three miles from Long Island Sound, and one hundred and

thirty-four miles eastward of New York city. From the high ground in the

rear of the city, whereon many fine residences are built, a very

extensive view of the Sound and the surrounding country is obtained Its

earliest Indian name was Nameaug; but the first English settlers, John

Winthrop and others, called it Pequot, from the people who had inhabited

the country on the banks of the Pequot or Thames River. By an act of the

Assembly of Connecticut, in March, 1658, it was named New London, to

perpetuate in America the title of the capital of England. The river was

also named Thames, by the same authority and for a similar reason. The

harbor is one of the best in the United States. It is commanded by forts

Griswold and Trumbull, situated, the former upon its east bank, at

Groton, and the latter upon the west. The fortifications are upon the

sites of those of the same name which were erected there in the time of

the Revolution.

New London and Norwich were intimately associated in all political

matters when the controversy with Great Britain arose. The latter,

included within New London county, was regarded as the chief place;

while the former, being the port of entry, became the point of most

importance when British fleets and armies came to subdue the Americans.

From an early period the harbor of New London was a favorite resort lor

vessels navigating the Sound, on account of the depth of water and its

sheltered position. Here the brigantines and other vessels of the famous

buccaneers sometimes sought shelter from storms; and it is believed that

therein lay the vessel of the notorious Captain Kidd about the time when

his treasures were concealed on Gardiner's Island, on the opposite side

of the Sound. Great efforts were made by the commanders of British ships

to obtain possession of the city and harbor during the Revolution, and

for a long time a fleet of some thirty vessels hovered along the coast

in the vicinage, chiefly in Gardiner's Bay and the neighborhood of

Fisher's Island. But the vigilant authorities and people of Connecticut

kept them at bay. From the time of the Bunker Hill battle until the town

was burned by British troops, headed by the then traitor, Benedict

September c, Arnold, a strong military force was kept there, and every

attention was paid to 1781fortifying the harbor.

In 1774 the people of New London held a town meeting, and passed strong

resolutions in reference to the oppressive acts of the British

Parliament. After expressing their sincere loyalty to the king, they

resolved that "the cause of Boston is the common cause of all the North

American colonies that a union of all the colonies was of the greatest

importance; that they earnestly wished for, and would promote, the

assembling

* "I shall send Isaac * out to-day. If we are taken or killed, you can

send for the money I have sent out. I would not have this stop your

sending the goods I wrote for, as far as it will do to come by water.

"From your humble servant, "Joseph Williams. "P.S.--Commandant Serjeant

tells me he has just received intelligence that our Congress has

appointed a committee to wait on Lord Howe." **

* He was a brother of the writer of the letter, and was then about

fifteen vears old. He served his country during a greater portion of the

war, and was finally captured by the English and pressed into their

naval service, in which he lost a leg. So great was his hatred of the

English, that he engaged in the French marine service during the French

Revolution, in consequence of which he was tried for violating the

United States laws of neutrality, was found guilty, and fined and

imprisoned. He died a Preston, when about eighty years of age. General

Williams had two other brothers in the Continental army--Frederic, who

died or was killed in New York in 1776, and was buried in St. Paul's

church-yard; and Benjamin, who lost his life in the Jersey prison-ship,

in 1781, at the age of twenty-three.

** The conference of this committee with Lord Howe was held on the 11th

of September, 1776, at the house of Colonel Billop yet standing at the

southwest end of Staten Island. A drawing of the building will be found

on page 609, vol. ii.

Forts Griswold and Trumbull.--Prizes.--Clinton's Designs.--Arnold's

Expedition.--Naval Force of Connecticut.

610of a general Congress; and that they would religiously observe and

abide by the resolves of such a body. They also appointed a committee of

correspondence for the town. *

In 1775 the erection of two forts for the defense of the harbor of New

London was begun, one upon the rocky extremity of a peninsula on the

west side of the Thames, about a mile below the city, and the other upon

Groton Hill, on the opposite side of the harbor. The former, when

completed, was called Fort Trumbull, and the latter Fort Griswold.

Several vessels of the little naval armament of Connecticut were fitted

out at New London; and into that port a number of prizes captured by

American cruisers were taken, and their cargoes disposed of. ** In 1777,

a frigate of thirty-six guns, ordered by the Continental Congress to be

built in Connecticut, was constructed in the Thames, between New London

and Norwich, under the direction of Captain Joshua Huntington. Several

small armed vessels on private account sailed from this port, and

greatly annoyed the enemy upon the coast, capturing their provision

vessels, and injuring transports that happened to be separated from

convoys. These things so irritated the British commanders here, that New

London was marked for special vengeance, and Benedict Arnold was the

chosen instrument to execute it.

I have already alluded to the junction of the American and French armies

upon the Hudson, in the summer of 1781, and their departure for

Virginia--the original design of attacking New York city having been

abandoned, in consequence of the reception, by Clinton, of re-

enforcements from abroad, and the intelligence that the Count de Grasse

might not be expected from the West Indies in time for such an

operation. **** When Sir Henry Clinton be came certain of the

destination of the allied armies, and perceived that they were too far

on their way for him to hope to overtake them in pursuit, he dispatched

Arnold, who had just returned from a predatory expedition in Virginia,

to make like demonstrations upon the New England coast. Clinton's hoped-

for result of this measure was to deter Washington from his purpose of

pushing southward, or, at least, to make him weaken his army by sending

back detachments for the defense of the New England frontier upon the

Sound. But he failed to effect his purpose, and the expedition of Arnold

was fruitful only of misery for a few inhabitants, and of abundant

disgrace and contumely for the perpetrators of the outrage.

At daybreak on the morning of the 6th of September, 1781, a British

fleet, under Captain Beasly, consisting of twenty-four sail, bearing a

considerable land and marine force under the general command of Benedict

Arnold, appeared off the harbor of New London, having left the eastern

end of Long Island the evening previous. A large proportion of the land

forces consisted of Tories and some Hessians, the instruments employed

when any thing cruel

* This committee consisted of Richard Law, Gurdon Salstonstall,

Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., Samuel H. Parsons, and Guy Richards. The little

village of Groton, opposite, also held a town meeting the week previous,

and, after passing similar resolutions, appointed a committee of

correspondence.--See Hinman's Historical Collections, p. 52-56.

** This little sketch shows the relative position of the forts. Fort

Trumbull is seen on the left of the picture, and Fort Griswold, with the

Groton Monument, is on the extreme right.

*** The following are the names of the war-vessels in the service of the

State of Connecticut during the Revolution: Brigs Minerva, American,

Silliman; ship Oliver Cromwell; frigates Trumbull, Bourbon; schooners

Spy, Defense; sloops Dolphin, Mifflin, Resistance, Schuyler, Stark,

Young Cromwell, Confederacy. Count de Grasse, Tiger, Alliance, Phoenix;

and row-galleys Shark, Whiting, Crane, The Guilford, New Defense,

Putnam, and Revenge.

**** See page 436, vol. i.

Landing of the Enemy.--March toward New London.--Destruction of the

Town.--Property destroyed. "Fire Lands."

611was to be performed. * They landed in two divisions of about eight

hundred each: one on the east or Groton side of the Thames, commanded by

Lieutenant-colonel Eyre, and the other on the New London side, led by

the traitor general, who debarked in the cove at Brown's Farm, near the

light-house.

The militia hastened in small parties to oppose them, but were too few

to produce much effect other than wounding some of the enemy on their

march toward the town. The advance battery, situated about half way

between Fort Trumbull and the light-house, in which were eight pieces of

cannon, as well as the fort itself, was too feebly manned to offer

resistance, and the troops of each evacuated, and crossed over to the

stronger post of Fort Griswold, on Groton Hill. The city was thus left

exposed to the enemy, whose great weapon of destruction was the torch.

First, the stores upon the wharves were set on fire, and then the

dwellings on Mill Cove were consumed. Nearly the whole town was laid in

ashes, and several vessels were burned. *** Many inhabitants in

comfortable circumstances were now houseless and wanderers, reduced to

absolute beggary. None were permitted to save their furniture, and the

soldiery were allowed free scope for brutality and plunder. It is said

that Arnold stood in the belfry of a church,

* The division under Arnold consisted of the 38th regiment of regulars,

the Loyal Americans, the American Legion, refugees, and a detachment of

fifty Yagers. Colonel Eyre's was composed of the 40th and 54th

regiments, the third battalion of Jersey volunteers, and a detachment of

Yagers and artillery.

** This sketch is from the west side of the cove in which the troops

under Arnold landed. In the distance, on the extreme right, is the point

where the division under Eyre debarked, and near the center is seen the

monument on Groton Hill, near Fort Griswold. The shores of the cove are

sandy, but the projections which form them are bold promontories of

granite rock.

*** The buildings burned in this expedition were 65 dwelling-houses

containing 97 families, 31 stores, 18 shops, 20 barns, and 9 public and

other buildings, among which were the court-house, jail, and church; in

all 143. Fifteen vessels with the effects of the inhabitants escaped up

the river. The value of propel ty destroyed was estimated at $485,980.

This was the estimate of the committee which was appointed by the

General Assembly of Connecticut, after the war, to ascertain the amount

of loss sustained by the several towns in the state by conflagrations

during the predatory inroads of the enemy. In 1793, the Assembly granted

to the sufferers five hundred acres of land, lying within the precincts

of the Western Reserve, in Ohio, and now included in the counties of

Huron and Erie, and a small part of Ottawa. This tract is known as the

"Fire Lands." I have noticed on page 371, vol. i., the settlement, by

commissioners, who met at Trenton in 1782, of the question of

jurisdiction over the Valley of Wyoming, and that it was decided in

favor of Pennsylvania. Although Connecticut acquiesced in that decision,

that state still claimed a right to the country westward of

Pennsylvania, in extent north and south equal to its own limits in that

direction and indefinitely westward, according to the letter of its

charter. Connecticut, however, waived this claim by a sort of

compromise, in 1786, by ceding to the United States all the lands thus

included within its charter limits westward of Pennsylvania, except the

reservation of a tract one hundred and twenty miles in length, adjoining

that state. This tract w'as called the Western Reserve. After giving the

half million of acres to the sufferers of Danbury, Fairfield, Norwalk,

New Haven, and New London, the remainder was sold in 1795, and the

proceeds were used as a school fund, for the support of schools in the

state. Congress confirmed the title of Connecticut to the Reserve in

1800. It now forms a part of the State of Ohio, and is settled chiefly

by New England people.

Infamy of Arnold.--Attack on Fort Griswold.--Its Defense and Capture.--

Murder of Colonel Ledyard.

612while the town was burning, and looked upon the scene with the

apparent satisfaction of a Nero. Had he been content to be a traitor

merely, the extenuating circumstances that have been alleged in

connection with his treason might have left a feeling of commiseration

in the bosoms of the American people; but this murderous expedition

against the neighbors of his childhood and youth, and the wanton

destruction of a thriving town, almost in sight of the spire of the

church wherein he was baptized, present an act of malice too flagrant to

be overlooked even by "meek-eyed pity" or loving charity. It was his

last prominent blow against his country, and was such a climax to his

treachery, that Britons, who "accepted the treason, but despised the

traitor," shunned him as a monster of wickedness.

When the enemy landed, alarm-guns were fired; and before noon, while the

town was burning, the militia collected in large numbers. Perceiving his

peril, Arnold hastily retreated to his boats, closely pursued by the

armed inhabitants. Five of the enemy were killed, and about twenty

wounded. The Americans lost four killed, and ten or twelve wounded, some

of them mortally.

When Fort Trumbull was evacuated, Arnold sent an order to Lieutenant-

colonel Eyre to take immediate possession of Fort Griswold, in order to

prevent the American shipping from leaving the harbor and sailing up the

river. The militia hastily collected for the defense of the fort to the

number of one hundred and fifty-seven--so hastily that many of them were

destitute of weapons. Colonel William Ledyard was the commander of the

fortress. The enemy approached cautiously through the woods in the rear,

and captured a small advanced battery. Colonel Eyre then sent Captain

Beckwith, with a flag, to demand a surrender of the fort, which was

peremptorily refused. * An assault was begun; the American flag on the

southwest bastion was shot down, and an obstinate battle of about forty

minutes ensued, during which the British were repulsed, and were on the

point of fleeing back to their shipping. The attack was made on three

sides, the fort being square, with flanks. There was a battery between

the fort and the river, but the Americans could spare no men to work it.

The enemy displayed great coolness and bravery in forcing the pickets,

making their way into the fosse, and scaling the revetment, in the face

of a severe fire from the little garrison. When a sufficient number had

obtained entrance thus far, they forced their way through the feebly-

manned embrasures, and decided the conflict with bayonets, after a

desperate struggle with "the handful of determined patriots, many of

whom were armed only with pikes. The fort was surrendered

unconditionally. Colonel Eyre was wounded near the works, and died

within twelve hours afterward on ship-board. Major Montgomery was

pierced through with a spear, in the hands of a negro, and killed as he

mounted the parapet, and the command devolved upon Major Bromfield. The

whole loss of the British was two commissioned officers and forty-six

privates killed, and eight officers (most of whom afterward died), with

one hundred and thirty-nine non-commissioned officers and privates,

wounded. The Americans had not more than a dozen killed before the enemy

carried the fort. When that was effected, Colonel Ledyard ordered his

men to cease firing and to lay down their arms, relying upon the boasted

generosity of Britons for the cessation of bloodshed. But instead of

British regulars, led by honorable men, his little band was surrounded

by wolflike Tories, infernal in their malice, and cruel even to the

worst savagism, and also by the hired assassins, the German Yagers. They

kept up their fire and bayonet thrusts upon the unarmed patriots, and

opening the gates of the fort, let in blood-thirsty men that were

without, at the head of whom was Major Bromfield, a New Jersey Loyalist.

"Who commands this garrison?" shouted Bromfield, as he entered. Colonel

Ledyard, who was standing near, mildly replied, "I did, sir, but you do

now," at the same time handing his sword to the victor. The Tory

miscreant immediately murdered Ledyard by running him through the body

with the weapon he had just surrendered! ** The massacre continued in

all parts

* There were several hundreds of the people collected in the vicinity,

and an officer had been sent out to obtain re-enforcements. Upon these

Colonel Ledyard relied; but the officer became intoxicated, and the

expected aid did not arrive.

** Colonel Ledyard was a cousin of John Ledyard, the celebrated

traveler, who was a native of Groton

His niece, Fanny, mentioned in the text, was from Southold, Long Island,

and was then on a visit at the house of her uncle. The vest worn by

Colonel L. on that occasion (as I have already noticed) is preserved in

the cabinet of the Connecticut Historical Society.

Cruelties at Fort Griswold.--Fanny Ledyard.--Departure of the Enemy.--

Events in 1813.--Arnold's Dispatches.

613of the fort, until seventy men were killed, and thirty-five mortally

or dangerously wounded. * The enemy then plundered the fort and garrison

of every thing valuable. Their appetite for slaughter not being

appeased, they placed several of the wounded in a baggage-wagon, took it

to the brow of the hill on which the fort stands, and sent it down with

violence, intending thus to plunge the helpless sufferers into the

river. The distance was about one hundred rods, the ground very rough.

The jolting caused some of the wounded to expire, while the cries of

agony of the survivors were heard across the river, even in the midst of

the crackling noise of the burning town! The wagon was arrested in its

progress by an apple-tree, and thus the sufferers remained for more than

an hour, until their captors stretched them upon the beach, preparatory

to embarkation. Thirty-five of them were paroled and carried into a

house near by, where they passed the night in great distress, a burning

thirst being their chief tormentor. Although there was a pump in a well

of fine water within the fort, the wounded were not allowed a drop with

which to moisten their tongues, and the first they tasted was on the

following morning, when Fanny Ledyard, a niece of the murdered colonel,

came, like an angel of mercy, at dawn, with wine, and water, and

chocolate. She approached stealthily, for it was uncertain whether the

enemy had left. Fortunately, they had sailed during the night, carrying

away about forty of the inhabitants prisoners. ** Thus ended the most

ignoble and atrocious performance of the enemy during the war, and the

intelligence of it nerved the strong arms of the patriots in the

conflict at Yorktown, in Virginia, a few weeks later, which resulted in

the capture of the British army of the South under Cornwallis.

During the war between the United States and Great Britain, from 1812 to

1815, New London was several times menaced with invasion by the enemy.

In May, 1813, as Commodore

Decatur, then in command of the United States, with his prize, the

Macedonian, fitted out as an American frigate, was attempting to get to

sea, he was chased by a British squadron under Commodore Hardy, and

driven into New London, where he was blockaded for some time. On one

occasion the town and neighborhood were much alarmed on account of a

report that the enemy were about to bombard the place. A considerable

military force was stationed there, and preparations were made to repel

the invaders. The forts were well garrisoned with United States troops,

and the militia turned out in great numbers. The enemy, however, did not

attempt an attack, and, becoming wearied of watching Decatur, the

British squadron put to sea, soon followed by our gallant commodore.

Since that time no event has disturbed the repose or retarded the

progress of New London. The whaling business, and other commercial

pursuits, have poured wealth into its lap, and spread its pleasant

dwellings over more than thrice its ancient area.

The most prominent point of attraction to the visitor at New London is

the Groton Monument, on the eastern side of the Thames, which, standing

upon high ground, is a conspicuous object from every point of view in

the vicinity. I crossed the Thames early on the

* Arnold, in his dispatch to Sir Henry Clinton, gave the impression that

the killed were victims of honorable strife. Of course he knew better,

for his dispatch was written two days after the event, and every

circumstance must have been known by him. Hear him: "I have inclosed a

return of the killed and wounded, by which your excellency will observe

that our loss, though very considerable, is short of the enemy's, who

lost most of their officers, among whom was their commander, Colonel

Ledyard. Eighty-five men were found dead in Fort Griswold, and sixty

wounded, most of them mortally. Their loss on the opposite side (New

London) must have been considerable, but can not be ascertained."

** See Arnold's Dispatch to Sir H. Clinton; Gordon, iii., 249; Sparks's

Life of Arnold; The Connecticut Journal, 1781; Narrative of Stephen

Hempstead. Mr. Hempstead was a soldier in the garrison at the time of

the massacre, and was one of the wounded who were sent down the

declivity in the baggage-wagon, suffered during the night, and

experienced the loving kindness of Fanny Ledyard in the morning. His

narrative was communicated to the Missouri Republican in 1826, at which

time he was a resident of that state. Mr. Hempstead was a native of New

London, and entered the army in 1775. He was at Dorchester during the

siege of Boston, was in the battle of Long Island, and also in the

engagement on Harlem Heights, where he had two of his ribs broken by a

grape-shot.

The Groton Monument--Inscription upon it--Ascent of its Stair-case.--

View from the Top.

October 12, 1848614 morning after my arrival, and ascended to Fort

Griswold, now a dilapidated fortress, without ordnance or garrison, its

embankments breaking the regular outline of Groton Hill, now called

Mount Ledyard.

A little northward of the fort rises a granite monument, one hundred and

twenty-seven feet high, the foundation-stone of which is one hundred and

thirty feet above tide-water. It was erected in 1830, in memory of the

patriots who fell in the fort in 1781. Its pedestal, twenty-six feet

square, rises to the height of about twenty feet, and upon it is reared

an obelisk which is twenty-two feet square at the base, and twelve feet

at the top. It is ascended within by one hundred and sixty-eight stone

steps; and at the top is a strong iron railing for the protection of

visitors. Marble tablets with inscriptions are placed upon the

pedestal.2 The cost of its erection was eleven thousand dollars, which

amount was raised by a lottery authorized by the state for that purpose.

I paid the tribute-money of a "levy," or York shilling, to a tidy little

woman living in the stone building seen at the right of the monument,

which procured for me the ponderous key of the structure, and, locking

myself in, I ascended to the top, with the privilege of gazing and

wondering there as long as I pleased. It was a toilsome journey up that

winding staircase, for my muscles had scarcely forgotten a similar

draught upon their energies at Breed's Hill; but I was comforted by the

teachings of the new philosophy that the _spiral_ is the only true

ascent to a superior world of light, and beauty, and expansiveness of

vision and so I found it, for a most magnificent view burst upon the

sight as I made the last upward revolution and stood upon the dizzy

height. The broad, cultivated hills and valleys; the forests and groves

slightly variegated by the pencil of recent frost; the city and river at

my feet, with their busy men and numerous sails; the little villages

peeping from behind the hills and woodlands in every direction, and the

heaving Sound glittering in the southern horizon, were all basking in

the light of the morning sun, whose radiance, from that elevation,

seemed brighter than I had ever seen it. It was a charming scene for the

student of nature, and yet more charming for the student of the romance

of American history. At the

* This is a view from the southwest angle of old Fort Griswold, looking

northeast. The embankments of the fort are seen in the foreground; near

the figure is the well, the same mentioned by Mr. Hempstead in his

narrative; and just beyond this is the old entrance, or sally-port,

through which the enemy, under Bromfield, entered the fort.

** Over the entrance of the monument is the following inscription: This

Monument was erected under the patronage of the State of Connecticut,

A.D. 1830, and in the 55th year of the Independence of the U. S. A., In

memory of the brave Patriots who fell in the massacre at Fort Griswold,

near this spot, on the 6th of September, A.D. 1781, when the British

under the command of the traitor Benedict Arnold, burned the towns of

New London and Groton, and spread desolation and woe throughout this

region. On the south side of the pedestal, toward the fort, on a large

tablet, are the names of the eighty-five persons who were killed in the

fort, over which is the following: "Zebulon and Naphtali were a people

that jeoparded their lives until the death in the high places of the

field.--Judges, 5 chap., 18 verse."

*** See Swedenborg's Views of the Spiritual World, and Revelations of

Davis, the clairvoyant.

A Retrospect.--The Pequots.--English Expedition against them.--Attack on

their Fort--Pequot Hill.

615base of the monument were the ruined fortifications where patriot

blood flowed in abundance; and at a glance might be seen every locality

of interest connected with the burning of New London and the massacre at

Groton. Here was Fort Griswold; there were Fort Trumbull and the city;

and yonder, dwindling to the stature of a chessman, was the lighthouse,

by whose beacon the arch-traitor and his murderous bands were guided

into the harbor.

Let us turn back two centuries, and what do we behold from this lofty

observatory? The Thames is flowing in the midst of an unbroken forest,

its bosom rippled only by the zephyr, the waterfowl, or the bark canoe.

Here and there above the tree tops curls of blue smoke arise from the

wigwams of the savages, and a savory smell of venison and fish comes up

from the Groton shore. Around us spreads the broad fair land known as

the Pequot country, extending from the Nahantic, on the west, to the

dominion of the Narragansets--the Rhode Island line--on the east, and

northward it interlocks with that of the Mohegans, where Uncas, the

rebel sachem, afterward bore rule. * On yonder hill, a little southeast

from our point of view, crowned with the stately oak and thick-leaved

maple, is the royal residence of Sassacus, the prince of the Pequots.

Haughty and insolent, he scorns every overture of friendship from the

whites, and looks with contempt upon the rebellious doings of Uncas.

Near by is his strong fort upon the Mystic River, and around him stand

seven hundred warriors ready to do his bidding. The English are but a

handful, what has he to fear? Much, very much!

It is the season of flowers. The white sails of vessels flutter in

Narraganset Bay (now the harbor of Newport), and Captain Mason and

seventy-seven well-armed May 1637 men kneel upon their decks in

devotion, for it is the morning of the Christian Sabbath. On Tuesday

they land. Miantonômoh, the chief sachem, gives them audience, and a

free passport through his country. Nor is this all; with two hundred of

his tribe, Miantonômoh joins the English on their march of forty miles

through the wilderness toward the Mystic River; and the brave Niantics

and the rebellious Mohegans, led by Uncas, swell the ranks, until five

hundred savage "bowmen and spearmen" are in the train of Captain Mason.

It is a clear moonlight night. Sheltered by huge rocks on the shore of

the Mystic sleeps the little invading army, ** while the unsuspecting

Pequots in their fort near by are dancing and singing, filled with joy,

because they have seen the pinnaces of the English sail by without

stopping to do them harm, and believe that the Pale-faces dare not come

nigh them. Little do they think that the tiger is already crouching to

spring upon his prey! On that high hill, upon the right, is the Pequot

fort. *** It is early dawn, and the little army June 5, 1637is pressing

on silently up the wooded slope. The Narragansets and Niantics, seized

with fear, are lagging, while the eager English and Mohegans rush up to

the attack. **** All but a sentinel are in a deep sleep. Too late he

cries, "Owanux! Owanux!" "Englishmen! Englishmen!" The mounds are

scaled; the entrance is forced; the palisades are

* Uncas was of the royal blood of the Pequots, and a petty sachem under

Sassacus. When the English first settled in Connecticut, he was in open

rebellion against his prince. To save himself and be revenged on his

adversary, he sought and obtained the alliance of the English, and when

the Pequot nation was destroyed, Uncas became the powerful chief of that

tribe of Pequots called the Mohegans, from the circumstance of their

inhabiting the place called Mohegan, now Norwich. The Pequot country

comprised the present towns of Waterford, New London, and Montville, on

the west side of the Thames, and Groton, Stonington, and North

Stonington, on the east of that river. Windham, and a part of Tolland

county, on the north, was the Mohegan country.

** These are called Porter's Rocks, and are situated near Portersville,

on the west side of the Mystic. They are on the shore, about half a mile

south of the residence of Daniel Eldridge.--See Barber's Hist. Coll, of

Conn., p. 313.

*** This hill, eight miles northeast from New London, is known at the

present day by the name of Pequot Hill. It is a spot of much interest,

aside from the commanding view obtained from its summit, as the place

where the first regular conflict between the English and the natives of

New England took place. Such was the terror which this event infused

into the minds of the Indian tribes, that for nearly forty years they

refrained from open war with the whites, and the colonies prospered.

**** Sassacus was the terror of the New England coast tribes. A belief

that he was in the fort on Pequol Hill was the cause of the fear which

seized the Narragansets. "Sassacus is in the fort! Sassacus is all one

god!" said Miantonômoh; "nobody can kill him."

Destruction of the Fort.--Terrible Massacre.--Departure of the English.-

-Another Invasion.--Destruction of the Pequots.

616broken down; the mattings of the wigwams and the dry bushes and logs

of the fort are set on fire, and seven hundred men, women, and children,

perish in the flames or by the sword! It is a dreadful sight, this

slaughter of the strong, the beautiful, and the innocent; and yet, hear

the commander of the assailants impiously exclaiming, "God is above us!

He laughs his enemies and the enemies of the English to scorn, making

them as a fiery oven. Thus does the Lord judge among the heathen,

filling the place with dead bodies!" *

From the other fort near the Pequot (Thames), where dwells Sassacus,

three hundred warriors approach with horrid yells and bent bows. But the

English are too skillful, and too strongly armed with pike, and gun, and

metal corselet, for those bare-limbed warriors, and they are scattered

like chaff by the whirlwind of destruction. The English make their way

to Groton; and yonder, just in time to receive them, before the remnant

of the Pequots can rally and fall upon them, come their vessels around

the remote headland. With a fair breeze, many of the English sail for

Saybrook, making the air vocal with hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

Others, with the Narragansets, march through the wilderness to the

Connecticut River, and then, in happy reunion, warriors, soldiers,

ministers, and magistrates join in a festival of triumph! **

Stately and sullen sits Sassacus in his wigwam on yonder hill, as the

remnant of his warriors gather around him and relate the sad fortunes of

the day. They charge the whole terrible event to his haughtiness and

misconduct, and tearing their hair, and stamping on the ground, menace

him and his with destruction. But hark! the blast of a trumpet startles

them; from the head waters of the Mystic come two hundred armed settlers

from Massachusetts and Plymouth to seal the doom of the Pequots. Despair

takes possession of Sassacus and his followers, and burning their

wigwams and destroying their fort, they flee across the Pequot River

westward, pursued by the English. What terrible destruction is wrought

by the new invaders! Throughout the beautiful country bordering on the

Sound wigwams and corn-fields are destroyed, and helpless men, women,

and children are put to the sword. With Sassacus at their head, the

doomed Pequots fly like deer pursued by hounds, and take shelter in

Sasco Swamp, near Fairfield, where they all surrender to the English,

except the chief and a few men who escape to the Mohawks. The final blow

is struck which annihilated the once powerful Pequots, and the great

Sassacus, the last of his royal race in power except Uncas, falls by the

hand of an assassin, among the people who opened their protecting arms

to receive him. ***

The dark vision of cruelty melts away; smiling fields, and laden

orchards, and busy towns, the products of a more enlightened and

peaceful Christianity than that of two centuries back, are around me.

Russet corn-fields cover the hill--the royal seat of Sassacus--and in

the bright harbor where the little English pinnaces, filled with bloody

men, were just an-

* See Captain Mason's Brief History of the Pequot War, published in

Boston in 1738, from which the principal facts in this narrative are

drawn. It makes one shudder to read the blasphemous allusions to the

interposition of God in favor of the English which this narrative

contains, as if

"The poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds or hears him

in the wind,"

* was not an object of the care and love of the Deity. Happily, the time

is rapidly passing by when men believe that they are doing God service

by slaughtering, maiming, or in the least injuring with vengeful

feelings any of his creatures.

** The English lost only two men killed and sixteen wounded, while the

Indians lost nearly six hundred men and seventy wigwams.

*** The ostensible cause of this destructive war upon the Pequots was

the fact that in March of that year, Sassacus, jealous of the English,

had sent an expedition against the fort at Saybrook. The fort was

attacked, and three soldiers were killed. In April they murdered several

men and women at Wethersfield, carried away two girls, and destroyed

twenty cows. The English, urged by fear and interest, resolved to

chastise them, and terrible indeed was the infliction. "There did not

remain a sannup or a squaw, a warrior or a child of the Pequot name. A

nation had disappeared in a day!" The Mohegans, under Uncas, then became

the most powerful tribe in that region, and soon afterward, as we have

seen, they and the Narragansets, who assisted in the destruction of the

Pequots, began a series of long and cruel wars against each other.

Mrs. Anna Bailey.--Her Husband at Fort Griswold.--Her Mementoes and her

Polities.

617chored, spreads many a sail of peaceful commerce. The sun is near the

meridian; let us descend to the earth.

From the monument, after sketching the picture on page 46, I returned to

the village of Groton, on the river bank, and visited the patriarch-ess

of the place, Mrs. Anna Bailey, familiarly known as "Mother Bailey." Her

husband, Captain Elijah Bailey, who died a few weeks previous to my

visit, was appointed postmaster of the place by President Jefferson, and

held the office until his death, a lapse of forty years. He was a lad

about seventeen years old when New London was burned, and was in Fort

Griswold just previous to the attack of Colonel Eyre. Young Bailey and a

man named Williams were ordered by Led-yard to man a gun at the advanced

redoubt, a little southeast of the fort. They were directed, in the

event of not being able to maintain their ground, to retreat to the

fort. They soon, found it necessary to abandon their piece. Williams

fled to the fort and got within; but young Bailey, stopping to spike the

gun, lost so much time, that when he knocked at the gate it was close

barred, for the enemy were near. He leaped over the fence into a corn-

field, and there lay concealed until the battle and massacre in the fort

ended. "He was courting me at that very time, boy as he was," said Mrs.

Bailey, who related this circumstance to me. She was then a girl six

weeks older than her lover, and remembers every event of the "terrible

day." I was agreeably surprised on being introduced to Mrs. Bailey,

expecting to find a common, decrepit old woman. She sat reading her

Bible, and received me with a quiet ease of manner, and a pleasant

countenance, where, amid the wrinkles of old age, were lingering traces

of youthful beauty. I had been forewarned that, if I wished to find any

favor in her sight, I must not exhibit the least hue of Whiggery in

politics--a subject which engrosses much of her thoughts and

conversation. Her husband had been a Democrat of the old Jefferson

school; and she possessed locks of hair, white, sandy, and grizzled,

from the heads of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren, and of Colonel

Richard M. Johnson, all of whom had honored her house by personal

visits. With such precious mementoes, how could she be other than a

Democrat? Almost, the first words she uttered on my entrance were, "What

are Cass's prospects in New York?" Forewarned, forearmed, I summoned to

the support of my conscience all the possibilities in his favor, and

told her that Mr. Cass would doubtless be elected President--at any

rate, _he ought to be_. These words unlocked her kind feelings, and I

passed an hour very agreeably with her. Her mind was active, and she

related, in an interesting manner, many reminiscences of her youth and

womanhood, among which was the following, in which she was the chief

heroine. When the British squadron which drove Decatur into the harbor

of New London, in 1813, menaced the town with bombardment, the military

force that manned the forts were deficient in flannel for cannon

cartridges. All that could be found in New London was sent to the forts,

and a Mr. Latham, a neighbor of Mrs. Bailey, came to her at Groton

seeking for more. She started out and collected all the little

petticoats of children that she could find in town. "This is not half

enough," said Latham, on her return. "You

* While making this sketch, I remarked to Mrs. Bailey (and with

sincerity, too) that I saw in her features evidence that Captain Bailey

was a man of good taste. She immediately comprehended my meaning and the

compliment, and replied, with a coquettish smile, "I was never ashamed

of my face, and never mean to be." She lived happily with her husband

for seventy years. Since the above was put in type, she has died. Her

clothes took fire, and she was burned to death on the 10th of January,

1851, aged about 89

Mrs. Bailey's Patriotism.--Landing-place of Arnold.--Bishop Seabury's

Monument.--First Printing in Connecticut

618shall have mine too," said Mrs. B., as she cut with her scissors the

string that fastened it, and taking it off, gave it to Latham. He was

satisfied, and hastening to Fort Trumbull, that patriotic contribution

was soon made into cartridges. "It was a heavy new one, but I didn't

care for that," said the old lady, while her blue eyes sparkled at the

recollection. "All I wanted was to see it go through the Englishmen's

insides!" Some of Decatur's men declared that it was a shame to cut that

petticoat into cartridge patterns; they would rather see it fluttering

at the mast-head of the _United States or Macedonian_, as an ensign

under which to fight upon the broad ocean! This and other circumstances

make Mrs. Bailey a woman of history; and, pleading that excuse, I am

sure, if she shall be living when this page shall appear, that she will

pardon the liberty I have taken. I told her that the sketch of her which

she allowed me to take was intended for publication.

I recrossed the Thames to New London, and after an early dinner rode

down to the lighthouse, near which Arnold landed, and made the drawing

printed on page 43. Returning along the beach, I sketched the outlines

of Fort Trumbull and vicinity, seen on page 42, and toward evening

strolled through the two principal burial-grounds of the city. In the

ancient one, situated in the north part of the town, lie the remains of

many of the first settlers, in the other, lying upon a high slope,

westward of the center of the city, is a plain monument of Bishop

Seabury, whose name is conspicuous in our Revolutionary annals as that

of an unwavering Loyalist. I shall have occasion to notice his abduction

from West Chester county, and imprisonment in Connecticut, as well as

his general biography, when I write of the events at White Plains.

We will now bid adieu to New London, not forgetting, however, in our

parting words, to note the fact so honorable to its name and character,

that the first printing-press in Connecticut was established there,

according to Barber, forty-five years before printing was executed in

any other place in the colony. Thomas Short, who settled in New London

in 1709, was the printer, and from his press was issued _The Saybrook

Platform,_ ** in 1710, said to be the first book printed in the

province. Short died in 1711, and there being no printer in the colony,

the Assembly procured Timothy Green, a descendant of Samuel Green, of

Cambridge, the first printer in America, to settle at New London. Samuel

Green, the publisher of the "Connecticut Gazetteer" until 1845, the

oldest newspaper in the state, is a descendant of this colonial printer.

Business demanding my presence at home, I left New London at ten in the

evening, in the "Knickerbocker," and arrived in New York at nine the

following morning.

* The following is the inscription upon the slab: "Here lieth the body

of Samuel Seabury, D.D., bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island, who

departed from this transitory scene February 25th, Anno Domini 1796, in

the 68th year of his age, and the 12th of his Episcopal consecration.

"Ingenuous without pride, learned without pedantry, good without

severity, he was duly qualified to discharge the duties of the Christian

and the bishop. In the pulpit he enforced religion; in his conduct he

exemplified it. The poor he assisted with his charity; the ignorant he

blessed with his instruction. The friend of men, he ever designed their

good; the enemy of vice, he ever opposed it. Christian! dost thou aspire

to happiness? Seabury has shown the way that leads to it."

** This was a Confession of Faith or Articles of Religion arranged in

1708--Yale College was first established at Saybrook, and fifteen

commencements were held there. To educate young men of talents and piety

for the ministry was the leading design of the institution. The

founders, desirous that the Churches should have a public standard or

Confession of Faith, according to which the instruction of the college

should be conducted, such articles were arranged and adopted after the

commencement at Saybrook in 1708. and from that circumstance were called

the Saybrook Platform. The standards of faith of the Congregational and

Presbyterian Churches are substantially the same as the Saybrook

Platform.

Voyage to Rhode Island.----Stonington.--Arrival at Providence

619

CHAPTER XXVII

"I've gazed upon thy golden cloud

Which shades thine emerald sod;

Thy hills, which Freedom's share hath plow'd,

Which nurse a race that have not bow'd

Their knee to aught but God.

And thou hast gems, ay, living pearls,

And flowers of Eden hue;

Thy loveliest are thy bright-eyed girls,

Of fairy forms and elfin curls,

And smiles like Hermon's dew.

They've hearts, like those they're born to wed,

Too proud to nurse a slave.

They'd scorn to share a monarch's bed,

And sooner lay their angel head

Deep in their humble grave."

Hugh Peters.

"Ye say they all have pass'd away,

That noble race and brave;

That their light canoes have vanish'd

From off the crested wave;

That mid the forests where they warr'd

There rings no hunter's shout;

But their name is on your waters,

Ye may not wash it out."

Mrs. Sigourney.

O the land of the Narragansets and Wampanoags--the land of Massasoit and

Philip, of Canonicus and Miantonornoh--the land of Roger Williams and

toleration--the Rhode Island and Providence plantations of colonial

times, I next turned my attention. On a clear frosty evening, the moon

in its wane and the winds hushed, I went up the Sound in the steam-boat

Vanderbilt. We passed through October 19, 1848 the turbulent eddies of

Hell Gate at twilight, and as we entered the broader expanse of water

beyond Fort Schuyler, heavy swells, that were upheaved by a gale the day

before, came rolling in from the ocean, and disturbed the anticipated

quiet of the evening voyage. It was to end at Stonington * at midnight,

so I paced the promenade deck in the biting night air to keep off sea-

sickness, and was successful. We landed at Stonington between twelve and

one o'clock, where we took cars for Providence, arriving there at three.

Refreshed by a few hours' sleep, and an early breakfast at the

"Franklin," I started upon a day's ramble with Mr. Peeks, of Providence,

who kindly offered to accompany me to memorable places around that

prosperous city. We first visited the most interesting, as well as one

of the most ancient, localities connected with the colonial history of

Rhode Island, the rock on which Roger Williams first landed upon its

shores. It is reached

* Stonington is a thriving town, situated upon an estuary of Long Island

Sound, and about midway between the mouths of the Mystic and Paweatuc

Rivers. It was settled by a few families about 1658. The first squatter

was William Cheeseborough, from Massachusetts, who pitched his tent

there in 1649. It has but little Revolutionary history except what was

common to other coast towns, where frequent alarms kept the people in

agitation. It suffered some from bombardment in 1813, by the squadron

under Sir Thomas Hardy, which drove Decatur into the harbor of New

London. The enemy was so warmly received, that Hardy weighed anchor, and

made no further attempts upon the coast of Connecticut.

Roger Williams's Rock.--"Water Lots."--Proposed Desecration.--Arrival of

Roger Williams.--His Character

620from the town by the broad avenue called Power Street, which extends

to the high bank of the Seekonk or Pawtucket River, and terminates

almost on a line with the famous rock, some sixty feet above high water

mark.

The town is rapidly extending toward the Seekonk, and the hand of

improvement was laying out broad, streets near its bank when I was

there. The channel of the Seekonk here is narrow, and at low tide broad

flats on either side are left bare. I was informed that a proposition

had been made to dig down the high banks and fill in the flats to the

edge of the channel, to make "desirable water lots," the "Roger

Williams' Rock" to be in the center of the public square, though at

least thirty feet below the surface! Mosheim informs us that when the

Jews attempted to rebuild Jerusalem, in the time of Julian, the workmen

were prevented from labor by the issuing of fire-balls from the earth

with a horrible noise, and that enterprise, undertaken in opposition to

the prophecy of Jesus, was abandoned ** Should mammon attempt the

desecrating labor of covering the time-honored rock on the shore of old

Seekonk, who can tell what indignant protests may not occur?

Here is a mossy spot upon the patriarch's back; let us sit down in the

warm sunlight and wind-sheltered nook, and glance at the record.

A few months after the arrival of Winthrop and his company at Boston,

and before Hooker and Cotton, afterward eminent ministers in the colony,

had sailed from England, there landed February 5, 1631 at Nantasket an

enlightened and ardent Puritan divine, young in years (for he was

thirty-one), but mature in judgment and those enlightened views of true

liberty of conscience, which distinguish the character of modern

theological jurisprudence from the intolerance of the seventeenth

century. He was a fugitive from English persecution; but his wrongs had

not clouded his accurate understanding. In the capacious recesses of his

mind he had resolved the nature of intolerance, and he alone had arrived

at the great principle which is its sole effectual remedy. He announced

his discovery under the simple proposition of sanctity of conscience.

The civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion;

should punish, guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul. ***

This was a wonderful discovery in modern science; too wonderful for the

hierarchy of England, or the magistrates and ministers of the Puritan

colony of America. They could not comprehend

* This view is on the left bank of the Seekonk, looking south. The point

on which the figure stands is the famous rock, composed of a mass of

dark slate, and rising but little above the water at high tide. The high

banks are seen beyond, and on the extreme left is India Point, with the

rail-road bridge near the entrance of the river into Narraganset Bay.

** Mosheim's Church History (external), part i., chap, i., sec. xiv.

*** Bancroft, i., 367.

Narrow Views of the old Puritans.--Zeal of Roger Williams.--Disturbance

at Salem.--Williams arraigned for Treason.

621its beauty or utility; and as it had no affinity with their own

narrow views of the dignity of the human soul, they pronounced it

heresy, as soon as the discoverer began to make a practical development

of his principles. Yet they perceived, with a yearning affection for the

truth, that it would quench the fires of persecution, abrogate laws

making non-conformity a felony, abolish tithes, and all forced

contributions to the maintenance of religion, and protect all in that

freedom of conscience to worship God as the mind should dictate, for

which they had periled their lives and fortunes in the wilderness.

Still, its glory was too brilliant it dazzled their vision; the

understanding could not comprehend its beneficent scope; they looked

upon it with the jealous eye of over-cautiousness, and, true to the

impulses of human nature, what they could not _comprehend,_ they

_rejected._ This great apostle of toleration and intellectual liberty

was Roger Williams.

The New England Churches had not renounced the use of coercion in

religious matters, and Williams, so soon as his tolerant views were made

known, found himself regarded with suspicion by the civil and religious

authorities. Disappointed, yet resolutely determined to maintain his

principles, he withdrew to the settlement at Plymouth, where he remained

two years, and by his charity, virtues, and purity of life, won the

hearts of all. The people of Salem called him to be their minister, a

movement which made the court of Boston marvel. Being an object of

jealousy, and now having an opportunity to speak in the public ear, he

was in perpetual collision with the clergy. The magistrates insisted on

the presence of every man at public worship. Williams reprobated the

law. To compel men to unite with those of a different creed he regarded

as an open violation of their natural rights; to drag to public worship

the irreligious and unwilling seemed only like requiring hypocrisy. This

doctrine alarmed both magistrates and clergy, and they began to denounce

Williams. In proportion to the severity of their opposition his zeal was

kindled, and so earnest did he become in enforcing his tolerant views,

that intolerance and fanaticism marked his own course. He denounced King

James as a liar; declared that the settlers had no right to the lands

they occupied, these belonging to the aborigines; raised a tumult about

the red cross of St. George in the banner; (a) at last boldly denounced

the Churches of New England as anti-Christian, and actually

excommunicated such of his parishioners as held intercourse 1634 with

them. The vision of that great mind which saw general principles of

righteousness in a clear light, became clouded in his practical

endeavors to bring the power of those principles to bear upon society.

When weak and persecuted, the scope of his vision of intellectual

liberty and Christian charity embraced the earth; when in power and

strong, it contracted to the small orbit of his parish at Salem--himself

the central sun of light and goodness. Such is the tendency of all human

minds under like circumstances; and Roger Williams, great and good as he

was, was not an exception.

The magistrates were greatly irritated; some of Williams's language was

construed as treasonable and schismatic, and he was arraigned before the

General Court at Boston on this charge. There he stood alone in defense

of his noble principles; for his congregation, and even the wife of his

bosom, could not justify all his words and acts. Yet he was undaunted,

and declared himself "ready to be bound, and banished, and even to die

in New England," rather than renounce the truth whose light illuminated

his mind and conscience. He was allowed to speak for himself before the

court, and also to dispute upon religious points with the Reverend Mr.

Hooker. Every effort to "reduce him from his errors" was unavailing, and

the court, composed of all the ministers, proceeded to pass sentence

October, 1635 of banishment upon him. He was ordered to leave the

jurisdiction of the colony

* The preaching of Williams warmed the zeal of Endicott, then one of the

board of military commissioners for the colony, and afterward governor.

The banner of the train-bands at Salem had the cross of St. George

worked upon it. Endicott, determining to sweep away every vestige of

what he deemed popish or heathenish superstition, caused the cross to be

cut out of the banner. The people raised a tumult, and the court at

Boston, mercifully considering that Endicott's intentions were good,

though his act was rash, only "adjudged him worthy admonition, and to be

disabled for one year from bearing any public office."--Savage's

Winthrop, i., 158; Moore's Colonial Governors, i., 353.

Banishment of Roger Williams.--Flight to the Seekonk.--Landing at

Providence.--Commencement of a Settlement

622within six weeks. He obtained leave to remain until the rigors of

winter had passed, but, continuing active in promoting his peculiar

views, the court determined to ship him immediately for England. He was

ordered to Boston for the purpose of embarking. He refused obedience,

and, hearing that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, set out,

with a few followers, for the vast unexplored wilds of America, with an

ambitious determination to found a new colony, having for its foundation

the sublime doctrine of liberty of conscience in all its plenitude, and

the equality of opinions before the law. In the midst of deep snows and

bitter January, 1636 winds they journeyed toward Narraganset Bay. "For

fourteen weeks he was 1636. sorely tossed in a bitter season, not

knowing what bread or bed did mean." * He describes himself, in a letter

to Mason, "as plucked up by the roots, beset with losses, distractions,

miseries, hardships of sea and land, debts and wants." He at last found

refuge and hospitality from the Indian sachem Massasoit, whom he had

known at Plymouth; and in the spring, under a grant from that sachem,

commenced a settlement at Seekonk, ** on the east side of the Seekonk or

Pawtucket River, just within the limits of the Plymouth colony. Many of

the ministers in that colony wrote him friendly letters, for he was

personally beloved by all. Winslow, who was then governor, wrote a

letter to Williams, in which he claimed Seekonk as a part of the

Plymouth domain, and suggested his removal beyond the jurisdiction of

that colony to prevent difficulty. Williams heeded the advice of

Winslow, June, 1636 and entering a canoe with five others, paddled down

the Seekonk almost to its mouth, and landed upon the west side of the

river, upon the bare rock, delineated on page 52. He crossed over to the

west side of the peninsula, and upon that shore, at the head of the bay,

commenced a new settlement. He obtained from Canonicus and Miantonômoh,

principal chiefs of the Narragansets, a grant of land for the purpose.

He named his new settlement Providence, "in commemoration of God's

providence to him in his distress."

"I desired," he said, "it might be for a shelter for persons distressed

for conscience." And so it became, for men of every creed there found

perfect freedom of thought. Although every rood of land belonged to

Williams, by right of deed from the Narraganset sachems, not a foot of

it did he reserve for himself. He practiced his holy precepts, and "gave

away his lands and other estates to them that he thought most in want,

until he gave away all." *** Nor was there any distinction made among

the settlers, "whether servants or strangers;" each had an equal voice

in the affairs of government, and the political foundation of the

settlement was a pure democracy. The Massachusetts people believed that

the fugitives "would have no magistrates," and must necessarily perish

politically, yet they thrived wonderfully. The impress of that first

system is yet seen upon the political character of Rhode Island, for "in

no state in the world, not even in the agricultural state of Vermont,

have the magistrates so little power, or the representatives of the

freemen so much." **** Such was the planting of the first and only

purely democratic colony in America; and its founder, though persecuted

and contemned, maintained, in the opinion of all good men, that high

character which Cotton Mather and others were constrained to award him,

as "one of the most distinguished men that ever lived, a most pious and

heavenly-minded soul." (v)

The Christian charity of Roger Williams was remarkably displayed soon

after his banishment from Massachusetts. In 1637, when the Pequots were

attempting to induce the Narragansets to join them in a general war upon

the whites, and particularly against the

* Massachusetts Historical Collections, i., 276.

** Seekonk is the Indian name for the wild or black goose with which the

waters in that region originally abounded. The town is the ancient

Rehoboth, first settled by William Blackstone, an English non-conformist

minister, a few months previous to the arrival here of Roger Williams.

Blackstone was the first white man who lived upon the peninsula of

Shawmut, where Boston now stands. Williams's plantation was on the

little Seekonk River, the navigable portion of which is really an arm of

Narraganset Bay. Although Williams was the real founder of Rhode Island,

Blackstone was the first white settler within its borders. He had no

sympathy with Williams, and continued his allegiance to Massachusetts,

though without its jurisdiction.

*** Backus's History of New England, i., 290.

**** Bancroft, i., 380.

(v) Callender's Historical Discourse.

Williams's Negotiations with the Indians.--Ingratitude of the

Massachusetts Colony.--March of the French Army to Providence.

623Massachusetts people, Mr. Williams informed the latter of the fact.

They solicited his mediation, and, forgetting the many injuries he had

received from those who now needed his favor, he set out on a stormy

day, in a poor canoe, upon the rough bay, and through many dangers

repaired to the cabin of Canonicus. The Pequots and Narragansets were

already assembled in council. The former threatened him with death, yet

he remained there three days and nights. "God wonderfully preserved me,"

he said, "and helped me to break in pieces the designs of the enemy, and

to finish the English league, by many travels and changes, with the

Narragansets and Mohegans against the Pequots." This alliance we noticed

in the last chapter. Notwithstanding this great service, the

Massachusetts court would not revoke Williams's sentence of banishment.

Let us now close the volume for a time, and visit other places of

historic interest.

Leaving the Seekonk, we walked to the site of the encampment of the

French army in the autumn of 1782, while on its march to Boston for

embarkation. It had remained in Virginia after the battle of Yorktown,

in the autumn of 1781, until the summer of 1782, when it joined

Washington and his army on the Hudson. The place of its encampment there

was near Peekskill. The order and discipline of this army, and its

uniform respect for property--the soldiers not even taking fruit from

the trees without leave--were remarkable, and on their march northward

Rochambeau and his officers received many congratulatory addresses. **

The army remained at Peekskill until October, when it commenced its

march for Boston, going by the way of Hartford and Providence. Count de

October 22, 1732 Rochambeau accompanied it to the latter place, where he

took his leave of the troops and returned to Washington's head-quarters.

The army had received orders to sail to the West Indies in the French

fleet of fifteen sail of the line and four frigates, then lying in the

harbor of Boston, in the event of the evacuation of New York or

Charleston by the British. The Baron de Viomenil was ordered to

accompany the troops as commander instead of Rochambeau. The latter,

with several other officers, returned from Rhode Island to Virginia, and

at Norfolk embarked for France.

* Roger Williams was born in Wales, in 1599, and was educated at Oxford.

He became a minister in the Church of England, but his views of

religious liberty made him a non-conformist, and he came to America.

Bold in the annunciation of his tenets respecting the perfect liberty of

mind and conscience, he was banished from Massachusetts, and planted a

colony at the head of Narraganset Bay, now the city of Providence. In

1639 he embraced the doctrines of the Baptists, and being baptized by

one of his brethren, he baptized ten others. Doubts as to the

correctness of his principles arose in his mind, and he finally

concluded that it would be wrong to perform the rite of baptism without

a revelation from Heaven. The Chureh which he had formed was accordingly

dissolved. He went to England in 1643, as agent for the colony, and

obtained a charter, with which he returned in September, 1644. This

charter was granted on the 14th of March, and included the shores and

islands of Narraganset Bay, west of Plymouth and south of Massachusetts,

and as far as the Pequot River and eountry, to be known as the

Providence Plantations. He landed at Boston, but was not molested on

account of being under sentence of banishment, for he brought with him

recommendatory letters from influential members of Parliament. He went

to England again for the colony in 1651, where he remained until 1654.

He was chosen president of the government on his return, which office he

held until 1657, when Benedict Arnold was appointed. In 1672 he held a

dispute with the Quakers for three days at Newport, of whieh he wrote an

account. * He died in April, 1683, aged eighty-four years.

** At Philadelphia, a deputation of Quakers waited upon Rochambeau, and

one of them, in behalf of the others, said, "General, it is not on

account of thy military qualities that we make thee this visit; those we

hold in little esteem; but thou art the friend of mankind, and thy army

conducts itself with the utmost order and discipline. It is this which

induces us to render thee our respects."

* The title of the pamphlet containing the account (which was published

in 167 G) was, "George Fox digged out of his Burrows," it being written

against Fox and Burrows, two eminent Quakers. An answer to it was

published in 1679, entitled "A New England Fire-brand Quenched."

The French Troops at Providence.--Site of the Encampment.--Remains.--

Departure of the French from Boston.

624The French troops arrived at Providence in November, and to give

color to the pretext that they marched eastward to go into winter

quarters, made excavations, in which to find protection from the cold,

instead of pitching their tents, as a moving army would do. The object

was to allow the expedition to the West Indies--where a brisk naval

warfare was in progress between the French and British--to remain a

secret even to the suspicions of the English. After remaining about a

fortnight at Providence the troops marched toward Boston, where they

arrived early in December. * On the 24th of that month the French fleet

sailed from Boston for St. Domingo, with all the troops except Lanzun's

legion, the army having been in the United States two and a half years.

**

The place of the encampment at Providence is in a field of cold, wet

land, rough and rocky, a mile and a half east-northeast from Market

Square in the city. It lies on the northeast side of Harrington's Lane,

at the head of Greene Lane, which latter runs parallel with Prospect

Street. We passed on our way along the brow of Prospect Hill, whence we

had a fine view of the city and surrounding country, including northward

the spires of Pawtucket, and southward the blue waters of Narraganset

Bay. The encampment was on the western slope of the northern termination

of Prospect Hill. Several shallow pits and heaps of stones, with some

charcoal intermingled (the remains of the temporary dwellings of the

French soldiers), are yet to be seen. It was a sheltered position, and

favorable for a The ground is full of small surface springs, which, with

the wash from the cultivated hills above, will soon obliterate every

trace of the encampment.

About a quarter of a mile westward of the camp ground is the "North

Burying-ground," belonging to the city. It has been beautified within a

few years by graveled foot-paths and carriage-ways, fine vaults,

handsome monuments and inclosures. Its location is such that it may be

made a beautiful cemetery, though small. Not far from the south entrance

is a marble monument about nine feet high, erected to the memory of

Stephen Hopkins, for a long time colonial governor of Rhode Island, and

one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. On the southern

side of the obelisk is the name of Hopkins in large letters. The

inscriptions are upon three sides of the pedestal. ***

In the northeast part of the burial-ground is a granite ob-

* Soon after their arrival, Governor John Hancock and the Council gave a

public dinner to the commanding general, Viomenil, and his officers, and

to the commander of the fleet, Vaudreuil, and his officers.

** The Magnifique, a French seventy-four gun ship, one of the fleet,

having been lost in Boston Harbor by accident, Congress, in testimony of

their sense of the generosity of the French king, had resolved, more

than three months before (September 3), to present the America, a

seventy-four gun ship, to the French minister, the Chevalier de Luzerne,

for the service of his king.--See Journals of Congress, viii., 343.

*** The following are the inscriptions: North side.--"Sacred to the

memory of the illustrious Stephen Hopkins, of Revolutionary fame,

attested by his signature to the Declaration of our National

Independence. Great in council, from sagacity of mind; magnanimous in

sentiment, firm in purpose, and good as great, from benevolence of

heart, he stood in the first rank of statesmen and patriots. Self-

educated, yet among the most learned of men, his vast treasury of useful

knowledge, his great retentive and reflective powers, combined with his

social nature, made him the most interesting of companions in private

life." West side.--"His name is engraved on the immortal records of the

Revolution, and can never die. His titles to that distinction are

engraved on this monument, reared by the grateful admiration of his

native state in honor of her favorite son." South side.--Born March 7,

1707. Died July 13, 1785." A biography and portrait of this venerated

patriot will be found among those of the signers of the Declaration of

Independence, in another part of this work. The fac-simile of his

signature here given is a copy of his autograph in my possession,

attached to the commission of Captain Ephraim Wheaton, issued in June,

1761. Mr. Hopkins was then Governor of Rhode Island, and in that

capacity signed the instrument. It is attested by Henry Ward, secretary.

Mr. Ward was one of the delegates from Rhode Island to the "Stamp Act

Congress" in 1765. This signature of Hopkins exhibits the same

tremulousness of hand which is seen in that attached to the Declaration

of Independence, written fifteen years afterward, and is a proof, if

evidence were wanting, that it was not the effect of fear, but "shaking

palsy," that makes the patriot's sign-manual to our National Document

appear so suspiciously crooked.

Governor Cooke's Monument.--La Fayette's Head-quarters.--Roger

Williams's Spring.

625elisk erected to the memory of Nicholas Cooke, who was Governor of

Rhode Island from 1775 until 1778, and an active and efficient patriot

until his death, which occurred before the independence of his country

was secured by treaty.

His biography is briefly inscribed upon his monument in the following

words:

"Nicholas Cooke, born in Providence, February 3d, 1717; Died September

14th, 1782. Unanimously elected Governor of Rhode Island in 1775, he

remained in office during the darkest period of the American Revolution.

He merited and won the approbation of his fellow-citizens, and was

honored with the friendship and confidence of Washington."

This is the inscription upon the east side, immediately above which, in

raised letters, is the name Cooke. On the west is the following:

"Hannah Sabine, relict of Nicholas Cooke, born in Killingly,

Connecticut, March 13th, 1722; died in Providence, March 22d, 1792."

This monument is about twenty feet high, composed of a single block. The

sketch of it here given is from the cemetery, looking eastward, and

includes in the distance the French camp-ground just mentioned. The most

remote of the two fields seen between the trees on the right, is the one

wherein the remains of the encampment are to be seen.

On the road leading from the cemetery to the town is a brick building,

with a hip-roof, which La Fayette occupied as head-quarters, while in

Providence a short time in 1778 He had been sent by Washington with two

thousand men to assist Sullivan in the siege of Newport. The house is

well preserved, but changed somewhat in its external appearance On our

way into the town we passed along Benefit Street, on the east side of

which, in a vacant lot, upon the slope of a steep hill, near the mansion

of the father of Governor Dorr, is a living water-fountain, called

_Roger Williams's Spring_. Tradition asserts that here, in the cool

shade of sycamores (of which the huge trees that now overshadow it are

the sprouts), Williams first reposed after his journey, and that here

his first tent was pitched, at twilight, on a beautiful evening in June.

It is a pleasant spot now, even with the pent-up city around it; it must

then have been a delicious resting-place for the weary exile, for below

him were the bright waters of the Narraganset, beyond which arose the

gentle slopes and more lofty hills of the fair land of Canonicus, his

friend and protector.

* Mr. Cooke was deputy governor in 1775. When the Assembly, or House of

Magistrates of the colony, voted to raise an army of fifteen hundred

men, Joseph Wanton, then the Governor of Rhode Island, his deputy, and

others in the government, were opposed to the measure. The people were

displeased, yet Wanton, who had been chief magistrate since 1769, was

rechosen governor in May; but, failing to appear and take the prescribed

oath, the Assembly directed that the deputy governor should perform the

duties of chief magistrate. Mr. Cooke became convinced that the warlike

measures of the Assembly were correct, and entered heartily into all

their views. Wanton appeared in June, and demanded that the oath of

office should be administered to him, but, as he had not given

satisfaction to the Assembly, his request or demand was not complied

with.

Old Tavern in Providence.--Its Associations.--Destruction of Tea in

Market Square.--Rhode Island Historical Society

626Within the city, on the east side of Market Square, stands the old

tavern, with moss-grown roof, where many a grave and many a boisterous

meeting were held by the freemen of the Providence Plantations during

the Stamp Act excitement, and the earlier years of the of the people;

and many excited audiences have crowded Market Square, in front of it,

to listen to patriotic speeches.

The people ol Providence, and particularly the matrons and maidens,

cheerfully acquiesced in the demands made upon their self-denial by the

non-importation agreements, and foreign tea was discarded as if it had

been a poisonous drug. ** In 1773, when it was ascertained that the

ships of the East India Company, heavily laden with tea, were about to

sail for America, the people of Providence were among the first to

express their disapprobation; and on one occasion the town crier, with a

drum, patroled the streets in the evening, announcing that a bonfire of

_tea_ would be made in Market Square at ten o'clock at night, and

requesting those who possessed and repudiated the article to cast it

upon the heap. At the appointed hour the square was crowded, and the old

tavern front and its neighbors were brilliantly illuminated by the glow

of the burning tea, aided by other combustibles, while shouts long and

loud went up as one voice from the multitude. This was but a prelude to

the united and vigorous action of the people when the war notes from

Lexington aroused the country; and until the close of the contest

Providence was a "nest of rebels against the king."

I concluded the labors and pleasures of the day by making the above

sketch, and in the evening attended, by invitation, a meeting of the

Rhode Island Historical Society, over which Albert G. Greene, Esq.,

presided, the venerable president, John Howland, then ninety-one years

of age, being absent. Their rooms are in a small but convenient building

near Brown University, and contain about five thousand volumes of books

and pamphlets, many of them very rare. The meeting was one of much

interest, especially to Rhode Islanders, for Professor Gammel, of the

University, made a verbal communication on the subject of important

manuscripts concerning the early history of New England, which are in

the British colonial office. He imparted the gratifying intelligence

that J. Carter Brown, Esq., of Providence,

* This view is from the market, looking north. The building stands on

the east side of the square, and parallel with its front commences North

Main Street. In the yard on the right is a venerable horse-chestnut

tree, standing between the house and the Roger Williams' Bank. In former

times, a balcony extended across the front. The door that opened upon it

is still there, but the balcony is gone. The roof is completely

overgrown with moss, and every appearance of age marks it.

** On the 12th of June, 1769, twenty-nine young ladies, daughters of the

first citizens of Providence, met under the shade of the sycamores at

the Roger Williams' Spring, and there resolved not to drink any more tea

until the duty upon it should be taken off. They then adjourned to the

house of one of the company (Miss Coddington), where they partook of a

frugal repast, composed in part of the "delicious Hyperion," a tea of

domestic manufacture--See note on page 481. There the Sons of Liberty

met and planned their measures in opposition to the British ministry.

From the same balcony were read the proclamation announcing the

accession of George III. to the throne in 1760; the odious Stamp Act in

1765; the bill for its repeal in 1766; and the Declaration of

Independence in 1776. That balcony seemed to be the forum

Valuable Manuscripts.--A telescopic Peep at the Moon and Stars.--

Bryant's "Song of the Stars."--Voyage to Gaspeo Point

627with an enlightened liberality worthy of all praise, had made

arrangements to have all the manuscripts in question copied at his own

expense, under the direction of Mr. Stephens, the eminent agriculturist,

then in Europe. * The manuscripts relate to New England history, from

1634 to 1720, and consist of more than four hundred pieces, about two

hundred and fifty of which have special reference to the Rhode Island

and Providence Plantations. Among them is a minute account of all the

transactions relating to Captain Kidd, the noted pirate. Already two

thousand four hundred pages of copies, beautifully written by one hand,

on vellum foolscap, had been forwarded to Mr. Brown, a few of which were

exhibited by Professor Gammel.

Moon and stars were shining brightly when we left the Society's rooms,

and afforded a fine field of view through a large telescope that was

standing under the porch of the college. The professor having it in

charge kindly allowed me a glance at our celestial neighbors. The moon

was gibbous, and brilliant as molten silver appeared its ragged edges.

Saturn was visible, but the earth being upon the plane of its rings,

they could not be seen. Some double stars, even of the seventeenth

magnitude, were pointed out; and over the whole field of view, those

distant worlds, that appear like brilliant points to the unaided vision,

were seen glowing in all the beautiful colors of the emerald, the ruby,

the sapphire, and the topaz While gazing upon them, it seemed to me as

if

"Their silver voices in chorus rang,

And this was the song the bright ones sang.

"Away! away! through the wide, wide sky--

The fair blue fields that before us lie.

Each sun with the worlds that round it roll;

Each planet poised on her turning pole;

With her isles of green and her clouds of white,

And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the Source of Glory uncovers his face,

And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;

And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides,

In our ruddy air and our blooming sides.

Lo! yonder the living splendors play;

Away on our joyous path, away!

"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,

To weave the dance that measures the years.

Glide on in the glory and gladness sent

To the farthest wall of the firmament--

The boundless, visible smile of Him,

To the veil of whose brow our lamps are dim."

Bryant's "Song of the Stars."

On the morning of the 21st, I procured a sort of pinnace, and a boatman

to manage October, 1848it, and with a stiff, cold breeze from the

northwest, sailed down the Narraganset Bay ** to Gaspee Point, a place

famous in our Revolutionary annals as the scene of a daring act on the

part of the people of Rhode Island. The Point is on the west side of the

bay, about six miles below Providence, and consists, first, of a high

jutting bank, and then a sandy beach stretching into the bay, almost

uncovered at low tide, but completely submerged at high water. The bay

is here about two miles wide, and the low bare point extends at least

half a mile from the bank, its termination marked by a buoy. The

navigation of this section of the bay is dangerous on account of the

sand-bars, and also of submerged rocks, lying just below the surface at

low water. Two of them, in the vicinity of Field's Point, are marked by

strong stone towers about thirty feet high, both of which are

* Mr. Brown is a son of Nicholas Brown, whose liberal endowment of the

college at Providence, and active influence in its favor, caused the

faculty to give his name to the institution. It is called Brown

University.

** The northern portion of the bay is quite narrow, and from the

Pawtuxet to its head is generally called Providence River.

The Gaspee.--Conduct of her Commander.--Sketch of Gaspee Point--Governor

Wanton

628above Gaspee Point. The tide was ebbing when we arrived at the Point,

and anchoring our vessel, we sought to reach the shore in its little

skiff--a feat of no small difficulty on account of the shallowness of

the water. I waited nearly an hour for the ebbing tide to leave the

Point bare, before making my sketch.

The historical incident alluded to was the burning of the Gaspee, a

British armed schooner, in 1772. She first appeared in the waters of

Narraganset Bay in March, having been dispatched thither by the

commissioners of customs at Boston to prevent infractions of the revenue

laws, and to put a stop to the illicit trade which had been carried on

for a long time at Newport and Providence.

Her appearance disquieted the people, and her interference with the free

navigation of the bay irritated them. Deputy-governor Sessions, residing

at Providence, wrote in behalf of the people there to Governor Wanton *

at Newport, expressing his opinion that the commander of the Gaspee,

Lieutenant Duddington, had no legal warrant for his proceedings.

Governor Wanton immediately dispatched a written message, by the high

sheriff, to Duddington, in which he required that officer to produce his

commission without delay. This the lieutenant refused to do, and Wanton

made a second demand for his orders. Duddington, apparently shocked at

the idea that a colonial governor should claim the right to control, in

any degree, the movement of his majesty's officers, did not reply, but

sent Wanton's letters to Admiral Montague at Boston.

* Joseph Wanton was a native of Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated at

Harvard in 1751. In 1759 he was elected Governor of Rhode Island, which

office he held by re-election until 1775. when his opposition to the

views of the people, and his neglect to take the oath of office at the

proper time, made the Assembly declare his place vacant. His deputy,

Nicholas Cooke, performed the duties of governor. The confidence of the

people in his attachment to American liberty was doubtless shaken by his

appointment, under the great seal of England, to inquire into the affair

of the Gaspee. But in that he acted as a conscientious man, and there

was evidently a desire on his part that the incendiaries of that vessel

should not be known, although he labored with apparent zeal to discover

them. He was regarded as a Loyalist during the remainder of his life. He

died at Newport in 1782.

** This view is from the bank of the cove just below the Point, looking

northeast, showing its appearance at low water when the clam-fishers are

upon it. The buoy is seen beyond the extreme end of the Point on the

right. The bank is about fifteen feet high. In front of Pawtuxet, about

a mile above, are the remains of breast-works, thrown up during the war

of 1812. There are also breast-works at Field's Point, two miles below

Providence, where is a flag-staff There is the quarantine ground.

Montague's insolent--Letter. Wanton's Rejoinder.--Captain Lindsey's

Packet chased by the Gaspee.--Grounding of the Gaspee.

629That functionary, forgetting that the Governor of Rhode Island was

elected to office by the voice of a free people--that he was the chief

magistrate of a colony of free Englishmen, and not a creature of the

crown--wrote an insulting and blustering letter to Governor April 6,

1772 Wanton in defense of Duddington, and in reprehension of his

opponents. In it he used these insulting words: "I shall report your two

insolent letters to my officer [Duddington] to his majesty's secretaries

of state, and leave them to determine what right you have to demand a

sight of all orders I shall give to all officers of my squadron; and I

would advise you not to send your sheriff on board the king's ship again

on such ridiculous errands." To this letter Governor Wanton wrote a

spirited reply. "I am greatly May 8,1772 obliged," he said, "for the

promise of transmitting my letters to the secretaries of state. I am,

however, a little shocked at your impolite expression made use of upon

that occasion. In return for this good office, I shall also transmit

your letter to the Secretary of State, and leave to the king and his

ministers to determine on which side the charge of insolence lies. As to

your advice not to send a sheriff on board any of your squadron, please

to know, that I will send the sheriff of this colony at any time, and to

any place within the body of it, as I shall think fit." On the 20th of

May, Governor Wanton, pursuant to a vote of the Assembly, transmitted an

account of the matter to the Earl of Hillsborough; but, before any reply

could be received, the Gaspee became a wreck, under the following

circumstances:

On the 9th of June, 1772, Captain Lindsey left Newport for Providence,

in his packet * at about noon, the wind blowing from the South. ** The

Gaspee, whose commander did not discriminate between the well-known

packets and the strange vessels that came into the harbor, had often

fired upon the former, to compel their masters to take down their colors

in its presence--a haughty marine Gesler, requiring obeisance to its

imperial cap. As Captain Lindsey, on this occasion, kept his colors

flying, the Gaspee gave chase, and continued it as far as Namquit (now

Gaspee) Point. The tide was ebbing, but the bar was covered. As soon as

Lindsey doubled the Point, he stood to the westward Duddington,

commander of the Gaspee, eager to overtake the pursued, and ignorant of

the extent of the submerged Point from the shore, kept on a straight

course, and in a few minutes struck the sand. The fast ebbing tide soon

left his vessel hopelessly grounded. Captain Lindsey arrived at

Providence at sunset, and at once communicated the fact of the grounding

of the Gaspee to Mr. John Brown, one of the leading merchants of that

city. Knowing that the schooner could not be got off until flood-tide,

after midnight, Brown thought this a good opportunity to put an end to

the vexations caused by her presence. He ordered the preparation of

eight of the largest long-boats in the harbor, to be placed under the

general command of Captain Whipple, one of his most trusty ship-masters;

each boat to have five oars, the row-locks to be muffled, and the whole

put in readiness by half past eight in the evening, at Fenner's Wharf,

near the residence of the late Welcome Arnold. At dusk, a man named

Daniel Pearce passed along the Main Street, beating a drum, and

informing the inhabitants that the Gaspee lay aground on Namquit Point;

that she could not get off until three o'clock in the morning; and

inviting those who were willing to engage in her destruction to meet at

the house of James Sabine, afterward the residence of Welcome Arnold.

The boats left Providence between ten and eleven o'clock, filled with

sixty-four well-armed men, a sea captain in each boat acting as

steersman. They took with them a quantity of round paving-stones.

Between one and two in the morning they reached the Gaspee, when a June

9, 1772 sentinel on board hailed them. No answer being returned,

Duddington appeared in his shirt on the starboard gunwale, and waving

the boats off, fired a pistol at them. This

* This packet was called the Hannah, and sailed between New York and

Providence, touching at Newport.

** Cooper, in his Naval History, i., 81, says that the Hannah was

"favored by a fresh southerly breeze." The details here given are taken

chiefly from a statement by the late Colonel Ephraim Bowen, of

Providence, who was one of the party that attacked the Gaspee. Colonel

Bowen says the wind was from the North. The circumstances of the chase,

however, show that it must have been from the South.

Expedition against the Gaspee.--Her Destruction.--Efforts to discover

the Incendiaries.--The Commissioners,

630discharge was returned by a musket from one of the boats. *

Duddington was wounded in the groin, and carried below. The boats now

came alongside the schooner, and the men boarded her without much

opposition, the crew retreating below when their wounded commander was

carried down. A medical student among the Americans dressed Duddington's

wound, ** and he was carried on shore at Pawtuxet. The schooner's

company were ordered to collect their clothing and leave the vessel,

which they did; and all the effects of Lieutenant Duddington being

carefully placed in one of the American boats to be delivered to the

owner, the Gaspee was set on fire and at dawn blew up. ***

On being informed of this event, Governor Wanton issued a proclamation,

ordering diligent search for persons having a knowledge of the crime,

and offering a reward of five hundred dollars "for the discovery June 1

of the perpetrators of said villainy, to be paid immediately upon the

conviction of any one or more of them." Admiral Montague also made

endeavors to discover the incendiaries. Afterward the home government

offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the leader, and two

thousand five hundred dollars to any person who would discover the other

parties, with the promise of a pardon should the informer be an

accomplice. A commission of inquiry, under the great seal of England,

was established, which sat from the 4th until the 2 2d of January, 1773.

**** It then adjourned until the 26th of May, when it assembled and sat

until the 23d of June. But not a solitary clew to the identity of the

perpetrators could be obtained, notwithstanding so many of them were

known to the people. (v) The price of treachery on the part of any

accomplice would have been exile from home and country; and the

proffered reward was not adequate to such a sacrifice, even though weak

moral principles or strong acquisitiveness had been tempted into

compliance. The commissioners closed their labors on the 23d of June,

and further inquiry was not attempted. (vi)

* Thomas Bucklin, a young man about nineteen years of age, fired the

musket. He afterward assisted in dressing the wound which his bullet

inflicted.

** This was Dr. John Mawney. His kindness and attention to Duddington

excited the gratitude of that officer, who offered young Mawney a gold

stock-buckle; that being refused, a silver one was offered and accepted.

*** The principal actors in this affair were John Brown, Captain Abraham

Whipple, John B. Hopkins, Benjamin Dunn, Dr. John Mawney, Benjamin Page,

Joseph Bucklin, Turpin Smith, Ephraim Bowen, and Captain Joseph

Tillinghast. The names were, of course, all kept, secret at the time.

**** The commission consisted of Governor Joseph Wanton, of Rhode

Island; Daniel Horsmanden, chief justice of New York; Frederic Smyth,

chief justice of New Jersey; Peter Oliver, chief justice of

Massachusetts; and Robert Auchmuty, judge of the Vice-admiralty Court.

*(v) The drum was publicly beaten; the sixty-four boldly embarked on the

expedition without disguise; and it is asserted by Mr. John Howland

(still living), that on the morning after the affair, a young man, named

Justin Jacobs, paraded on the "Great Bridge," a place of much resort,

with Lieutenant Duddington's gold-laced beaver on his head, detailing

the particulars of the transaction to a circle around him.

*(vi) See Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee, by the

Honorable William R. Staples; Providence, 1845. In a song written at the

time, and composed of fifty-eight lines of doggerel verse, is

ingeniously given the history of the affair. It closes with the

following allusion to the rewards offered:

"Now, for to find these people out. King George has offered very stout.

One thousand pounds to find out one That wounded William Duddington. One

thousand more he says he'll spare, For those who say the sheriff's were.

One thousand more there doth remain For to find out the leader's name;

Likewise five hundred pounds per man For any one of all the clan. But

let him try his utmost skill, I'm apt to think he never will Find out

any of those hearts of gold, Though he should offer fifty-fold."

Return to Providence.--Visit to Mr. John Howland.--His military Career

in the Revolution

631After finishing my sketch of Namquit, or Gaspee Point (page 60), we

embarked for Providence, the wind blowing a gale from the northwest. It

was with much difficulty that we managed our vessel; and before we

reached the harbor we were drenched with the spray that dashed over the

gunwale from the windward. In company with Mr. Weeden I visited the fine

library of the Athenium Association, * and afterward had the pleasure of

a brief interview, at his residence, with the venerable Mr. Howland,

president of the Historical Society. So clear and vigorous was his well-

cultivated mind, that I regretted the brevity of my visit, made

necessary by the near approach of the hour of departure of the steam-

packet, in which I was to proceed to Newport. Mr. Howland passed his

ninety-first birth-day a few days before I saw him. He was a soldier

early in the war for independence, having been drafted as a minute man

in the winter of 1775, to go to Newport. He was afterward attached to

the Rhode Island regiment under Colonel Lippincott, and joined the

Continental army under Washington at Kingsbridge, at the upper end of

York or Manhattan Island. He was in the retreat to White Plains in the

autumn of 1776, and was engaged in the skirmish at Chatterton's Hill. He

related an amusing circumstance which occurred during that retreat.

While the Americans halted upon Chatterton's Hill, the British, in close

pursuit, rested, for a short time, upon another eminence close by. An

Irishman, one of Colonel Lippincott's servants, who was called "Daddy

Hall," seemed quite uneasy on account of the presence of the enemy. Pie

had charge of the colonel's horse, and frequently exclaimed, "What are

we doing here? Why do we stop here? Why don't we go on? I don't believe

the colonel knows that the red-coated rascals are so near." Paymaster

Dexter,2 seeing the perturbation of the poor fellow, said, "Daddy Hall,

you're afraid! you're a trembling coward!" The Milesian's ire was

aroused at these words, and looking the paymaster in the face with a

scornful curl of his lips, he said, "Be jabers! no, Maisther Dexther,

I'm not afeerd more nor yez be; but faith! ye'll find yourself that one

good pair of heels is worth two of hands afore night; if ye don't, call

Daddy Hall a spalpeen." And so he did; for before sunset the Americans

were flying before their pursuers, more grateful to heels than hands for

safety.

Mr. Howland accompanied Washington in his retreat across New Jersey, and

was in the division of Cadwallader, at Bristol, which was to go over the

Delaware on the night when Washington crossed that river, and surprised

the Hessians at Trenton. The December 25, 1776 ice prevented; but they

crossed the next day, and were stationed at Crosswicks for a day or two.

Mr. Howland was among those at Trenton who were driven across the

Assanpink by the British on the evening of the 2d of January, the night

before the battle of Princeton. The bridge across the Assanpink was much

crowded, and Mr. Howland remembers having his arm scratched by one of

Washington's spurs as he passed

* Mr. Weeden was formerly librarian of the institution. It is situated

in a handsome building on the east side of Benefit Street, and contains

about five thousand volumes, among whieh is a copy of the great work on

Egypt, arranged under the superintendence of Denon, and published by

Napoleon at the expense of the government of France. This copy belonged

to Prince Polignac, the minister of Charles X. Many of the plates were

colored by his direction. It is a beautiful copy, bound in morocco.

** I was informed, after leaving Providence, that Mr. Dexter was yet

living in the northern part of the town, at the age of ninety-two years.

Departure for Newport.--Appearance of Rhode Island.--Old Tower at

Newport.--Mansion of Governor Gibbs

632by the commander in the crowd, who sat upon his white horse at the

south end of the bridge. He performed the dreary night march through the

snow toward Princeton, and was in the battle there on the following

morning. His term of service expired while the American army was at

Morristown, whither it went from Princeton. From Morristown, himself and

companions made their way on foot, through deep snows, back to

Providence, crossing the Hudson River at King's Ferry (Stony Point), and

the Connecticut at Hartford. Gladly would I have listened until sunset

to the narrative of his great experience, but the first bell of the

packet summoned me away.

I left Providence at three o'clock in the Perry, and arrived at Newport,

thirty miles distant, at about five, edified on the way by the

conversation of the venerable William Cranston, of Attlebury,

Massachusetts, then eighty-one years of age, who was a resident of

Newport during the Revolution. The bald appearance of Rhode Island,

relieved only by orchards, which showed like dark tufts of verdure in

the distance, with a few wind-mills and scattered farm-houses, formed a

singular and unfavorable feature in the view as we approached Newport;

while upon small islands and the main land appeared the ruins of forts

and batteries, indicating the military importance of the waters we were

navigating. This was

"Rhode Island, the land where the exile sought rest;

The Eden where wandered the Pilgrim oppress'd.

Thy name be immortal! here man was made free,

The oppress'd of all nations found refuge in thee.

"There Freedom's broad pinions our fathers unfurl'd,

An ensign to nations and hope to the world;

Here both Jew and Gentile have ever enjoy'd

The freedom of conscience in worshiping God."

Arthur. A. Ross.

The fair promises of a pleasant morrow, sweetly expressed by a bright

moonlight evening, October 22, 1848 were not realized, for at dawn heavy

rain-drops were pattering upon my window, and the wind was piping with

all the zeal of a sudden "sou'easter." I had intended to start early for

the neighborhood of Quaker Hill, toward the north end of the island, the

scene of conflict in 1778; but the storm frustrated my plans, and I

passed the day in visiting places of interest in the city and its

immediate vicinity. The object of greatest attraction to the visitor at

Newport is the Old Tower, or wind-mill, as it is sometimes called. It

stands within a vacant lot owned by Governor Gibbs, directly in front of

his fine old mansion, which was erected in 1720, and was then one of the

finest dwellings in the colony. It is a brick building, covered with red

cedar. The main object in the picture is a representation of the tower

as it appeared at the time of my visit. On the right of it is seen the

residence of Governor Gibbs, * surrounded by shade-trees and flowering

shrubs in abundance. I passed the stormy morning under its roof; and to

the proprietor I am indebted for much kindness during my visit at

Newport, and for valuable suggestions respecting the singular relic of

the past that stands upon his grounds, mute and mysterious as a mummy.

On the subject of its erection history and tradition are silent, and the

object of its construction is alike unknown and conjectural. It is a

huge cylinder, composed of unhewn stones--common granite, slate,

sandstone, and pudding-stone--cemented with coarse mortar, made of the

soil on which the structure stands, and shell lime. It rests upon eight

round columns, a little more than three feet in diameter, and ten feet

high from the ground to the spring of the arches. The wall is three feet

thick, and the whole edifice, at the present time, is twenty-four feet

high. The external diameter is twenty-three feet. Governor Gibbs

informed me that, on excavating at the base of one of the pillars, he

found the soil about four feet deep, lying upon a stratum of hard rock,

and that the foundation of the column, which rested upon this rock, was

composed of rough-hewn spheres of stone, the lower ones about four feet

in circumference. On the interior, a little above the arches, are small

square

* Mr. Gibbs was Governor of Rhode Island in 1819

Old Tower at Newport--Its former Appearance.--Attempt to destroy it--

Obscurity of its Origin

633niches, in depth about half the thickness of the wall, designed,

apparently, to receive floor-timbers. In several places within, as well

as upon the inner surface of some of the columns

are patches of stucco, which, like the mortar, is made of coarse sand

and shell lime, and as hard as the stones it covers. Governor Gibbs

remembers the appearance of the tower more than forty years ago, when it

was partially covered with the same hard stucco upon its exterior

surface. Doubtless it was originally covered within and without with

plaster, and the now rough columns, with mere indications of capitals

and bases of the Doric form, were handsomely wrought, the whole

structure exhibiting taste and beauty. During the possession of Rhode

Island by the British, in the Revolution, the tower was more perfect

than now, having a roof, and the walls were three or four feet higher

than at present. * The British used it for an ammunition magazine, and

when they evacuated the island, they attempted to demolish the old

"mill" by igniting a keg of powder within it! But the strong walls

resisted the Vandals, and the only damage the edifice sustained was the

loss of its roof and two or three feet of its upper masonry. Such is the

Old Tower at Newport at the present time. Its early history is yet

unwritten, and may forever remain so. **

* Governor Gibbs showed me a Continental bill of the denomination of

five dollars (not signed), which his son found in a crevice in the

tower.

** There has been much patient investigation, with a great deal of

speculation, concerning this ancient edifice, but no satisfactory

conclusion has yet been obtained. Of its existence prior to the English

emigration to America there is now but little doubt; and it is asserted

that the Indians, of whom Mr. Coddington and other early settlers upon

Aquitneck (now Rhode Island) solicited information concerning the

structure, had no tradition respecting its origin. Because it was called

a "mill" in some old documents, some have argued, or, rather, have

flippantly asserted, that it was built by the early English settlers for

a wind-mill. Thus Mr. Cooper disposes of the matter in his preface to

Red Rover. A little patient inquiry would have given him a different

conclusion; and if the structure is really ante-colonial, and perhaps

ante-Columbian, its history surely is worthy of investigation. That it

was converted into and used for a wind-mill by some of the early

settlers of Newport, there is no doubt, for it was easily convertible to

such use, although not by a favorable arrangement. The English

settlement upon the Island was commenced in 1636, at the north end, and

in 1639 the first house was erected on the site of Newport, by Nicholas

Easton. Mention is made in the colonial records of the erection of a

wind-mill by Peter Easton, in 1663, twenty-five years after the founding

of Newport; and this was evidently the first mill erected there, from

the fact that it was considered of sufficient importance to the colony

to induce the General Court to reward Mr. Easton for his enterprise, by

a grant of a tract of fine land, a mile in length, lying along what is

still known as Easton's Beack. That mill was a wooden structure, and

stood upon the land now occupied by the North Burying-ground, in the

upper suburbs of Newport. The land on which the Old Tower stands once

belonged to Governor Benedict Arnold, and in his will, bearing the date

of 1678, forty years after the settlement, he mentions the "stone mill,"

the tower having evidently been used for that purpose. Its form, its

great solidity, and its construction upon columns, forbid the idea that

it was originally erected for a mill; and certainly, if a common wind-

mill, made of timber, was so highly esteemed by the people, as we havs

seen, the construction of such an edifice, so superior to any dwelling

or church in the colony, would have received special attention from the

magistrates, and the historians of the day. And wherefore, for such a

purpose, were the foundation-stones wrought into spheres, and the whole

structure stuccoed within and without? When, in 1837, the Royal Society

of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen published the result of their ten

years' investigations concerning the discovery of America by the

Northmen in the tenth century, in a volume entitled "Antiquitates

Americana," the old "mill" at Newport, the rock inscription at Dighton,

in Massachusetts, and the discovery of skeletons, evidently of a race

different from the Indians, * elicited the earnest attention of

inquirers, as subjects in some way connected with those early

discoveries. Dr. Webb (whom I have mentioned as extending to me his

friendly services at the rooms of the Historical Society of

Massachusetts), who was then a resident of Providence, and secretary to

the Rhode Island Historical Society, opened a correspondence with

Charles C. Rafn, the secretary to the Royal Society of Copenhagen. Dr.

Webb employed Mr. Catherwood to make drawings of the "mill," and these,

with a particular account of the structure, he transmitted to Professor

Rafn. Here was opened for the society a new field of inquiry, the

products of which were published, with engravings from Mr. Catherwood's

drawings. According to Professor Rafn, the architecture of this building

is in the ante-Gothic style, which was common in the north and west of

Europe from the eighth to the twelfth century. "The circular form, the

low columns, their thickness in proportion to their distance from each

other, and the entire want of ornament," he says, "all point out this

epoch." He imagines that it was used for a baptistry, and accounts for

the absence of buildings of a similar character by the abundance of wood

in America. The brevity of the sojourn of the Northmen here was

doubtless another, and perhaps principal reason, why similar structures

were not erected. The fact that the navigators of Sweden, Norway, and

Iceland visited and explored the American coast as far as the shores of

Connecticut, and probably more southerly, during the tenth and eleventh

centuries (five hundred years before the voyages of Columbus), appears

to be too well attested to need further notice here. For the proofs, the

reader is referred to the interesting work alluded to, "Antiquitates

Americana." The inscription upon the rock at Diffton has given rise to

much speculation and to many theories. The rock lies upon the east side

of Taunton River, between high and low water marks, so that it is

covered and exposed at every ebb and flow of the tide. It is an

insulated mass of fine-grained granite, or grunstein, lying northwest

and southeast on the sands of the river. Its length is eleven feet, and

its height four and a half feet. It has a regular surface and nearly

smooth, whereon the inscription is carved. The inscription presents four

parts or divisions, and evidently refers to a combat. On the left is a

figure armed with a bow and arrow, and may represent an Indian. Next to

it is an inscription composed of Runic or Phoenician characters,

doubtless a history of the event there partially pictured. Further to

the right is a vessel, and on the extreme right are two figures,

differing from the one on the left, without bows and arrows, and

evidently connected with the vessel. These and the vessel doubtless

indicate them as voyagers from a distant land. ** Between the figures

and the boat are Runic or Phoenician characters. The question arises, By

whom was the inscription made? The Phoenician characters seem to be

proof that those ancient navigators visited the American coast and made

this record of combat with the Indians; and hence some reject the

opinion of others that the rock was inscribed by the hand of a

Scandinavian. When we remember that the Phoenicians were for many ages

in the undisputed possession of the traffic of the Baltic, around which

clustered the Scandinavian nations, and that Runic, or ancient German

inscriptions, in Phoenician characters, have been discovered in

abundance in all the countries formerly occupied by these nations, the

inference is plainly correct, that the Scandinavians received their

alphabet from the Phoenicians.* In the Journal des Debats of Paris, a

letter was published, dated Copenhagen, February 5, 1850, in which it is

mentioned that Dr. Pierre André Munch, professor at the University of

Christina, then in Copenhagen, had just presented to the Society of

Northern Antiquaries an extremely curious manuscript, in a state of

excellent preservation, which he discovered and obtained during his

voyage, in 1849, to the Orkney Isles. This manuscript, which the

professor refers to the ninth and tenth centuries, contains several

episodes, in the Latin language, on the history of Norway, presenting

some important facts, heretofore entirely unknown, which illustrate the

obscure ages that in Norway preceded the introduction of Christianity.

Dr. Munch also presented to the society several fae-similes of Runic

inscriptions, which he discovered in the Orkney Isles and in the north

of Scotland. It is probable these discoveries may cast some light upon

the obscure subject under consideration. In the record of the voyages to

America of the Northmen, a severe combat with the natives (skrellings)

is mentioned, and various circumstances show that in the vicinity of

this inscription the battle occurred. Is it not reasonable to infer that

those Scandinavians, acquainted with the Phoenician alphabet, made a

record of the battle upon the rock, by a mingling of alphabetical

characters and pictorial hieroglyphics? And may not the same people have

reared the Old Tower at Newport, in the vicinity, for a baptistry, with

a view of erecting a church, and making a permanent settlement there?

for it must be remembered that at that time those Northern nations were

nominal Christians. The records of their voyages were compiled by Bishop

Thorlack, of Iceland, a grandson of Snorre's, son of Gudrida, who was

born in Wineland, or Massachusetts, in 1008. The subject is one of great

interest, and worthy of further and more minute inquiries than have yet

been made.

* On this point consult Fehlegel's fourth lecture on The History of

Literature.

** The late Bertel Thorwalsden, the greatest sculptor of our time, was a

lineal descendant of Snorre.

* Dr. J. C. V. Smith, of Boston, has written an account of a remarkable

stone cemetery, discovered about fifty years ago on Rainsford Island, in

Boston Bay, which contained a skeleton and sword-hilt of iron. Dr. Webb

has also published an interesting account of a skeleton discovered at

Fall River, in Massachusetts, on or near which were found a bronze

breast-plate, bronze tubes belonging to a belt, &c., none of which

appear to be of Indian, or of comparatively modern European manufacture.

Drs. Smith and Webb both concluded that these skeletons were those of

Scandinavian voyagers.