etc. Spring 2024

The Beginning: Newport’s Historic Spring Park Documenting the Redwood’s Origins

You’re invited to experience the world through a lens of wonder and discovery, joining renowned experts and lectures for behind-the-scenes looks at unforgettable destinations. The Redwood Library & Athenaeum is a proud member of the Museum Travel Alliance (MTA), a consortium of art institutions committed to deepening cultural understanding through meticulously curated travel opportunities. This partnership grants you access to unparalleled, curator-led tours that illuminate the intricacies of art and culture.

On journeys with the Redwood and MTA, discover the unseen facets of UNESCO World Heritage Sites with private guides, gain exclusive entry to special gatherings in venues rich with history, visit private collections alongside their owners, and relish the nostalgia of travel aboard sumptuous, privately chartered vessels and trains. We look forward to seeing you on your next elegant cultural journey!

Consider one of these extraordinary trips:

The Arts in America’s Heartland: Kansas City & Crystal Bridges

May 14 – 19, 2024

Holland & Belgium: Amsterdam to Bruges Aboard Magnifique III

May 27 – June 4, 2024

Black Excellence in London:

An Insider’s Journey into the Culture & Cuisine of Britain’s African Diaspora

June 1 – 8, 2024

Alluring Aegean: Athens to Istanbul Aboard Sea Cloud II July 8 – 17, 2024

Baroque Brilliance: A Bernini Odyssey in the Heart of Rome

October 20 – 27, 2024

Ancient & Modern Southeast Asia Featuring the Bangkok Art Biennale, Singapore & Indonesia

January 18 – 31, 2025

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas

Dear Friends and Members,

I write always first with gratitude, especially in light of this issue’s theme—origins— given that it is your support that precedes the Redwood as the source of its success.

The theme of origins is an important one, particularly in the context of the country’s first purpose-built public library, an institution foundational to American intellectual history. For understanding the conceptual and intellectual lineage of an institution such as the Redwood—or of our own heritage as individuals—serves both an epistemological and ontological function. Such knowledge provides us with explanations as to why things are as they are and how we fit into the present, while also guiding our understanding of how things are likely to evolve. Knowledge of origins is thus essentially historical understanding itself, the key faculty forever promoted at the Redwood that enables us to understand and improve the present as well as to positively shape the future.

The origin of the idea of this theme for the present magazine was the fruit of the collaboration of the Newport Spring Leadership Committee, the Newport Historical Society, and Lirio Landscape Architects. The first initiated the Spring Park project, relying on the spring site report produced by the second, yielding the Park design by the latter. With the theme of origins inherent in the spring around which our city was first built, we were very fortunate to be apprised of the exceptional archaeological work on early Ice Age New England led by Salve Regina’s Dr. Heather Rockwell. Her important work gives a whole new perspective on origins—by taking us way, way back! Finally, it seemed logical in turn to look inward and examine the Redwood’s earliest working papers documenting our own institutional origins, a task admirably undertaken by our ace Librarian Michelle Farias.

In conclusion I would salute all of the participants, and give a special nod to the two local institutional partners, the Newport Historical Society and Salve Regina University. Working together on this issue of our magazine has taken us right back to the original objective of the Redwood itself, that is, to create an intellectual commons where we might together nourish our need for culture and satisfy our curiosity.

Thank you again, and see you at the Redwood

Benedict Leca, Ph.D. Executive Director

Mission Statement

Founded in 1747 on the Enlightenment ideals of intellectual pursuit and civic engagement, and committed to lifelong, interdisciplinary learning, the Redwood Library & Athenæum generates knowledge in the humanities for the benefit of the widest possible audience with “nothing in view but the good of mankind.”

Redwood Library & Athenæum Board of Directors 2023-2024

Janet Alexander Pell, President

Daniel Benson, Vice President

Michelle Drum, Secretary

M. Holt Massey, Treasurer

Edwin G. Fischer, M.D., Edward W. Kane, R. Daniel Prentiss, Esq. Emeritus Board Members

Josiah Bunting III

Maura Smith Cullen

Jacalyn Egan

Michael Gewirz

John Rovensky Grace

John D. Harris II

Aida Neary

Spring 2024 | Vol. IV, 2 redwoodlibrary.org

Editorial Director Benedict Leca, Ph.D.

Editor Patricia Barry Pettit

Design

Pam Rogers Design

chartered 1747

Redwood Library & Athenæum

Waring Partridge

Earl A. Powell III

Frank Ray

Andy Ridall

Jeffrey Siegal

Susan M. Sipprelle

Robin Warren

redwood@redwoodlibrary.org

@theredwoodlibrary

@RedwoodLibrary

@redwoodlibrary

Reprint of any content herein must bear following credit line: Originally Published in etc.,

The Magazine of the Redwood Library & Athenæum

Spring 2024

Cover:

Spring Park Rendering courtesy of Lirio Landscape Architects

Photo: Michael Osean

The Redwood Library & Athenæum’s commitment to environmental responsibility includes utilizing paper products manufactured through sustainable forest practices and using low VOC inks and solvents.

The First Explorers of North America

by Dr. Heather M. Rockwell and Dr. Nathaniel R. Kitchel

New Englanders tend to think of this landscape as old. The sturdy stone and wooden buildings feel as though they have been here forever. But this place we call New England did not always look like this. There was a time thousands of years before the colonists arrived when this place was still wild. The last great Ice Age reached its zenith 20,000 years ago. During this time much of North America, from Labrador to Long Island, was buried under two miles of ice. Slowly over the next 8,000 years the ice began to recede, shaping the mountains and valleys we know, yet utterly unrecognizable when compared to the landscape of today. To picture it, one must first try to imagine that all the buildings and roads and trappings of modern life are gone. Then one must imagine the land without most of the trees, a difficult task for many of us who closely associate New England with our forests, and bright fall colors. Much of the Northeast would have been a sparsely forested landscape, with small pockets of spruce and other coniferous trees.

For a time, the land would have been populated by a diverse group of animals many of which are now extinct. Wooly Mammoths and mastodons, saber toothed cats, lions, horses, beavers the size of cars, and short faced bears, fearsome creatures that were 50% larger than a grizzly, could run forty miles per hour, and are believed to have hunted in packs. We do not know exactly when people first entered this landscape, it is time immemorial, but this new and dangerous land is what the first indigenous people would have encountered. They came here and not only survived in this world, but thrived, exploring every corner of this landscape, and creating communities. This beginning, this initial colonization of North America has fascinated archaeologists for over a century and is the focus of our current research in the Noreen Stonor Drexel Cultural and Historic Preservation Program.

In many ways our study and understanding of the first people to enter New England, called the Paleoindians, is in its infancy. There are few archaeologists and institutions focusing on the time before European arrival, and even fewer focusing on the earliest period. Fundamental questions about these populations remain unanswered. How did they get here? How did they live? And what did they care about? While all these questions are difficult to answer, the last, what they cared about, is what drew us to research in Maine. In nearly every, very early site we have across New England we find tools made from a beautiful red stone called red Munsungun chert

(fig. 1) named after the only geologic formation where this material can be found. If we wish to understand what mattered to people in the past, it makes sense to go to places they frequented. This simple idea began our ongoing project at the Munsungun Quarries of Northern Maine.

The Munsungun Lake formation and the chert (also commonly known as flint) deposits it contains, are in a remote corner of Piscataquis and Aroostook counties called the North Maine Woods. This privately owned, publicly accessible commercial forest is over 3.5 million acres, exceeding in size the largest national park in the lower 48, Yellowstone, by over one million acres. Its landscapes were the focus of Henry David Thoreau’s The Maine Woods, and today it is considered a paradise for hunters, fisherman, and naturalists. It is one of the areas of New England that still feels truly wild, with

Figure 1. Red Munsungun chert quarry face

frequent sightings of moose, bears, foxes, and lynx. Our first journey to the North Maine Woods was in 2011, on what was supposed to be a simple trip to the quarry source of red Munsungun chert. However, we quickly learned that the exact source of this rock had never been found. While black chert was readily available, the red material so prevalent within the earliest sites in the region was nowhere to be found.

Our team spent nearly four years hiking the remote hills of this landscape, finally identifying the red stone quarry in the summer of 2015. The quarry’s face itself is up to three feet tall, and hundreds of feet long wall of red rock occasionally striped with black or green. Compared to many other chert quarries it is relatively small. It sits high on a steep hill nearly 50 miles from the nearest paved road. Its inaccessible location has protected it as it shows no signs of having ever been disturbed in the modern era. Looking at its face one can still see the strikes of stone hammers slammed on its surface thousands of years ago. With this discovery we could finally pursue our main goal, to discover how this location was used by the first people.

Our first field season in 2016 we dug beside the quarry face itself with a small team of volunteers. What we found mainly the debris from removing stone from the quarry face and some of the initial shaping of stone tools. The excavation units were more artifacts than dirt, giving the ground surface a texture like a railroad bed. While dense in cultural material these excavations yielded only debris, no tools or projectile points or other materials from which we could understand who was there or when. It appeared that when people used this location they came, they hammered off the rock they needed, and they left. Logical really, as the quarry sits on a high steep ridge, with little space available to make a suitable camp site. To understand the lives of these early groups we needed to find habitations sites, areas where people would have made their home while collecting this rock and crafting their stone tools.

Due to the hard work of volunteers over the summers of 2018 and 2019, and more recently our students from Salve Regina University in the summer of 2022 (fig. 2) we have been able to excavate small sections of these camps. The Stevens and PPE Sites tell a story of land use spanning thousands of years. We recovered stone tools which appear to be related to Paleoindian peoples and artifacts which date to just a few thousand years ago, when the beginnings of agriculture were just starting to enter southern New England. With nearly 100,000 stone artifacts it might seem simple to understand how people lived at these sites. However, interpreting human behavior using nothing but chips of stone is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. One where you do not have a picture to follow on the box, there are no edge pieces, and before you started the puzzle most of the pieces were lost or destroyed. However, with each subsequent field season and the more objects we find, the clearer the picture becomes.

The last great Ice Age reached its zenith 20,000 years ago. During this time much of North America, from Labrador to Long Island, was buried under two miles of ice. Slowly over the next 8,000 years the ice began to recede, shaping the mountains and valleys we know, yet utterly unrecognizable when compared to the landscape of today.

When people think of the prehistoric past they often think of strong, able bodied, adult, men, and women, hunting their way across the land. Perhaps true to an extent during the Paleoindian period, as we find many small hunting camps across the landscape that would have been occupied by this small segment of a larger group. These small camps give us only a narrow view of the past, that may not include elders, children, or non-hunting adults. To truly understand human behavior we need larger campsites, what archaeologists call residential sites. Residential sites were likely occupied by extended family groups, children, grandparents, cousins, moving together as a community. Sometimes they might split up, with smaller units fetching resources and returning to the main camp. Occasionally they would join with other family groups in the region, sharing stories, swapping resources, and having fellowship. Finding the site of these sorts of gatherings became our main goal. In 2017, we moved our excavations down the hill from the quarry, focusing on broad flat areas close to a nearby lake. Just a half mile from the quarry face, we identified two prehistoric residential campsites, now dubbed The Stevens Site and the PPE Complex.

At the Stevens and PPE sites artifacts such as projectile points, scraping tools, wedges—called piéce esquillées—, and stone knives give a glimpse into the kinds of activities undertaken at these sites. We can imagine a group of hunters returning with a deer or caribou, they successfully dispatched using a stone tipped spear. They would use stone knives to butcher the animal and piéce esquillées to split the bones and extract the nutritious marrow. Others from the group may have spent their day making tools to replace those lost or broken during the hunt, massive piles of chipping debris would have been produced to shape new stone spear points. The scraping tools (fig. 3) may have been used to carve a new spear shaft from a tree branch or to clean the hides of the animal killed to make into clothing. Still others likely would have spent the day entertaining children, taking them to help gather wild plants and teaching them how to create their own stone tools. At night they would gather around a fire, remnants of which were found within the Stevens site in the form of stained earth and bits of charcoal. We know that the people living at these sites traveled great distances across New England and into Canada. We have multiple artifacts made of Kineo Traveler Rhyolite (fig.4), distinctive due to its bright white color, the source of which is located far to the south of the site. Even more intriguing is a single piece of a delicate pinkish stone (fig.5), believed to have come from as far away as the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia over 300 miles to the east. These materials were likely collected directly by the inhabitants of the Stevens and PPE sites, as few trade networks are well established at this time.

What does this all man for our understanding of the first people in the region? It means that they knew this landscape well, they had already identified many remote resources over hundreds of miles by the time they reached the Munsungun Quarry. The massive quantities of material found at our sites suggest that this location was valuable, having both adequate food and material resources to support communities for an extended period. This may mean that this spot was once used to gather multiple families to celebrate and have community. Importantly this site was one for teaching. We can see that some of the artifacts left here show a high degree of skill and expertise in their creation, while others appear less well made,

perhaps the product of a novice. It is likely that this spot would have served as a training ground, one where you have plenty of stone to practice on, making many mistakes and learning from elders along the way. Just as we are using the Munsungun project to teach our students how to properly excavate a site, people in the past were using this location to teach their children how to make the tools they needed to survive.

The work we have undertaken at the Munsungun quarries project is important to our understanding of the cultural values of these early people. But we still have a long way to go and a lot more digging to do. Accompanied by a dozen Salve students we will be continuing our excavations this summer and learning from traditional knowledge holders from the Aroostook band of Mi’kmaq. We hope that our work will continue to reveal the lives of these first indigenous people. This founding population that faced

incredible challenges, traveled immense distances, and created a rich culture and community in this new and wild land.

Dr. Heather M. Rockwell is Assistant Professor of Cultural and Historic Preservation at Salve Regina University. Dr. Heather Rockwell is an anthropological archaeologist in the Noreen Stonor Drexel Cultural and Historic Preservation Program in the Department of Cultural, Environmental, and Global Studies at Salve Regina University. Her areas of expertise include hunter-gatherer studies, colonization of the Americas, and historic preservation law and practice.

Dr. Nathaniel R. Kitchel is Assistant Professor of Cultural and Historic Preservation at Salve Regina University and a specialist in the material culture of early America in the Northeast.

Figure 2. Salve Regina students excavating at the Munsungun Quarries Project

Figure 3. Endscraper made of exotic chert ca. 13-8,000 years old

Figure 5. Exotic piece of stone, possibly from the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia

Figure 4. Endscrapers made of Kineo Traveler rhyolite

THE BEGINNING: NEWPORT’S HISTORIC SPRING PARK

by the Newport Historical Society/Lirio Landscape Architects

“It is agreed and ordered that the Plantation now begun at this South west end of the island, shall be called Newport... and that the Towne shall be built upon both sides of the spring, and by the sea-side Southward.” Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, March 16, 1639

“... do hereby publish, grant, ordain and declare, that our royal will and pleasure is, that no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion in matters of religion ...”

Rhode Island Royal Charter, July 1663

Newport, Rhode Island was founded in 1639 by nine families who fled religious persecution in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and came to the southern end of Aquidneck Island via Providence and Portsmouth. A freshwater spring, noted in early reports, came to the surface in the area that would become the first center of the settlement. The spring no longer surfaces, but its location has long been presumed to be at the corner of Spring and Barney Streets, on the grounds of a long standing gas station. In his “Memoir of Rhode Island” (1832), Henry Bull IV describes the settlement of Newport around the spring. When Mr. Neil Coffey, the final owner of the property and of the gas station operating on the site, made his desire to retire known to the community, a group of private citizens—the Newport Spring Leadership Committee (NSLC)—came together to purchase the site to save it from further development, eventually deciding to create a park dedicated to religious freedom.

eighteenth century. In 1797, the land was passed from the estate of Peleg Barker to his daughter and son-inlaw in a deed using the language “the same lane where the town spring is.”

The surrounding properties were covered with a dense settlement of homes and small businesses. David Williams, Newport clockmaker, lived and worked here, as did Giles Hozier (brewer). The families worshipped in the rich traditions of diverse religions which made Newport distinctive. Baptist, Seventh-Day Baptist, Quaker, Jew, Congregationalist, and Church of England denominations all had representatives here. Indeed, their churches and meeting houses were all within a few moments’ walk. Many still stand today.

Aquidneck Island was the territory of the Narragansett Tribe of Native Americans when it was first encountered by European settlers in the 1630s. With the help of (and perhaps the insistence of) Providence’s Roger Williams, the Island was purchased from the Narragansett sachems Conanicus and Miantonomi. What the English settlers found on their arrival was not an empty wilderness. Native people had been in the area for thousands of years, and had established sophisticated land management and fishing practices. Current evidence points to the existence of a large summer settlement in what is now downtown Newport, and the presence of the freshwater spring at the location we are discussing was certainly a factor in Native use. Archeological work done in the yard of Touro Synagogue some years ago indicates the presence of a Native American lithics manufacturing site.

The Coffey’s gas station/Newport Spring site first appears visually in the record on the Mumford Map of Newport, drawn in 1712, where it is one block square (Fig. 1). It is in the original settled center of Newport, and is still surrounded by some of the oldest extant buildings, several of which date to the seventeenth century. While the spring itself is not indicated, the likely location of the original spring can be presumed on this map by the corner of Spring Street and Spring Court (later Spring Lane).

The site’s original owner may have been John Coggeshall, an original founder of Newport, as the first known recorded owner is Joshua Coggeshall (1623-1689), his son. The property was the site of domestic use for the next 200 years. It was owned by two generations of the Marchant family, who appear to have lived on Cape Cod while owning this property, and a dwelling, in the center of Newport, during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, then by other Newport families through the late

During seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while the land use was basically domestic, a public function was also fulfilled. The site, which is the point from which the One Mile Corner marker is measured, was likely seen as the center of town. While we do not know when the spring was no longer available at the surface, the underground river that runs down Barney Street toward the harbor has continuously been a source of fresh water. Almost every existing lot on Barney Street includes a cistern underneath the structure or buried in the yard—and a photograph from as late as 1874 shows a well on the spring site (Fig. 2). It is likely that the cisterns served more than private uses— horses needed to be watered, and stored water was essential to the community in this wooden city as a way to fight inevitable fires. In addition, the placement of the Touro Synagogue may have been influenced in part by the need for running water for the associated mikvah, or ritual bath. Although the location of the original mikvah is not known, a nineteenth-century mikvah sits under a current residence on Barney Street.

It might not be surprising that when industry grew at this location it was transportation related. A branch of the Hazard family opened a livery stable on the site in the mid-nineteenth century. Livery stables operated on the site into the 1930s, and the first gas station appears to have been added in the 1920s. A gas station was operating here by the Colonial Beacon Oil Company in the 1940s, and it is at this time that the plaque marking the site of the town spring was also placed. The site remained in service to the automobile under a number of owners, and selling gasoline from a variety of companies, until sold by the Coffeys in 2015.

The historic downtown of Newport that is centered on the spring is a tangible representation of the founding philosophy of Rhode Island as a whole, as expressed in our Charter of 1663. The commitment of Rhode Island’s earliest settlers to tolerance of all religious beliefs was exceptional for its time and perhaps even for today. The Charter, which advertised this tolerance to the world, also made clear that the settlers here believed that by tolerating

Figure 1. Mumford Map (1712) detail. The site can be seen as a plot at the intersection of what is now Spring and Touro Street. Collection of the Newport Historical Society

Figure 5.

Figure 2. McKim portfolio photo of the Spring site with well head (1874). Collection of the Newport Historical Society

Figure 3. Demolition on the southern end of the future gas station site. Bliss House is located at left; Levi Gale House is to its right. Park House Hotel has been demolished as well (ca.1925). Collection of the Newport Historical Society

each other’s religious beliefs, encouraging freedom of religion, and creating a separation between Church and State, they would also foster a community that would thrive economically.

This was demonstrably true, as Newport became one of the five wealthiest Colonial cities over time. It was also true that religious dissidents from European nations came here and found a home, and the ability to be economic and civic participants in this new kind of community. In Newport’s earliest days, there was little distinction between economic and residential spaces – people generally worked where they lived. There is good evidence that residences filled this neighborhood with some density throughout the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The oldest known residential structures on their original sites in Newport are all within striking distance of the spring site, including the Wanton-Lyman Hazard House (1696-today) and the Mayes-Nichols House (1673 -today, converted to a tavern before 1687, and now the White Horse). Additional early homes, including the Henry Bull House (16391912), the Easton House, and others were demolished in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; note the presence of the names of the founders of Newport. A ring of houses of worship demonstrate Newport’s profound religious tolerance and the proximity of congregations and churches around the town center (See Fig. 7), which remained generally free of religious architecture. The town center that developed to the west of the spring site, called the Parade, and now Washington Square, is anchored by the Colony House (1739, Richard Munday) and the Brick Market (1762, Peter Harrison).

originally sat at the corner of Spring and Barney Streets. Originally home to a congregation with roots in the seventeenth century, during the Civil War it housed the Shiloh Baptist congregation, which was primarily African-American.

Trinity Church: While New England’s original settlers came here with antipathy to the Church of England, Newport’s tolerance in religious matters extended even to these former adversaries. Anglicans settlers, joined by Protestant Huguenots, formed a congregation as early as the 1690s. Beautiful Trinity Church was designed by Newport’s Richard Munday, who also created the Seventh Day Baptist Meeting house and the Colony House on Washington Square, and was built in 1726.

It is notable that in a map created for the British in 1777, the named structures are almost entirely houses of worship from a variety of denominations. Religious buildings adjacent to the Spring site today include:

Great Friends Meeting House (1699): Quakers were welcome in Rhode Island even as they were being tortured and executed in neighboring colonies. The Meeting House stands at the corner of Marlborough Street and Marcus Wheatland Boulevard. Home to Newport’s Quaker community and annually to a meeting of all of New England’s Quakers, this structure sits three blocks from the spring.

First Baptist Church: Many of Newport’s original settlers were Baptists, and Newport’s First Baptist congregation was led in the seventeenth century by Dr. John Clarke, original settler and the individual who likely wrote, and certainly obtained, Rhode Island’s precedent-setting “lively experiment” Charter in 1663. A meeting house was built in this location in 1737, but is no longer standing. The descendent congregation, now known as the United Baptist Church, worships at 30 Spring Street, in a structure built in 1846. The Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House. This 1730 structure

Touro Synagogue: Like the Quakers, the Jews of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries found refuge in Rhode Island and particularly in Newport. Early arrivals in the mid-seventeenth century came from the Caribbean, where Spanish and Portuguese Jews fled to following their expulsion from their home countries. Forbidden in many places from conducting trade, in Newport, they were allowed to conduct business, and became, like the Quakers, prosperous merchants. Touro Synagogue, built within blocks of the town center in 1763, was designed by noted architect Peter Harrison. In the mid-nineteenth century the site began to have a focused commercial presence. Edward Hassard was a Connecticut relation of the Newport Hazards who established livery stables at the intersection of Spring Street, Spring Lane, and Park Street in 1854. The family operated the stables which served the still lively downtown of Newport including the State House (Old Colony House) and the Park House Hotel on Washington Square. The family operated liveries on the site into the first decades of the twentieth century. Stables or liveries also were sited on Barney Street and in the surrounding area at this time (Fig. 3). Service to horses was enhanced by service to the automobile by at least 1925, when Horace Hassard operated a gas station on the site. By 1940, the site was leased to the Colonial Beacon Oil Company, which likely constructed the existing garage structure shortly thereafter. In 1958 George and Barbara Gold purchased the site and the gas station, from which they sold ESSO gas (Fig. 4). In 1971, Spring Lane was officially abandoned by the City of Newport. The site continued to be operated as a gas station after being purchased by Neil Coffey in 1985, offering both gas and garage services.

When Neil Coffey indicated his desire to sell his property and put it on the market, a number of citizens and groups began to propose potential public uses for the Square. A “Charter Square” proposal was put forth by John Grosvenor of Northeast Collaborative Architects, in which the site would be used to celebrate the City’s history of religious tolerance and diversity. A citizens group led by

Figure 4. Gas station when selling ESSO gas (ca. 1958) Collection of the Newport Historical Society

Figure 5. Spring site cleared for construction.

Photo: Michael Osean

Lilly Dick and Frank Ray formed the Newport Spring Leadership Committee. The group purchased the site from Neill Coffey in 2015. Soon after, a decision was made to commemorate the site as a public park dedicated to the founding of Newport and religious freedom, and to donate the park to the city and its residents.

Construction began in 2018 with demolition, site preparation and removal of the gas station’s tanks (Fig. 5). This led to the unexpected discovery of the original spring box. The spring box, which served as a large municipal cistern, was found largely intact and still holding water. Another study specifically of the spring box was conducted in 2021 by subterranean archaeologists Roma Sotterranea from Rome, Italy. It revealed that much of the spring box has remained intact, including remains of a wooden duct pipe that was originally used to carry water to the developing city (Fig. 6). Evidence of updates to infrastructure were also seen. The pipes date as far back as 1650 and a stoneware handle marked with a “K” has been traced to a manufacturer in Konigsberg, Germany in 1800.

A study team from Salve Regina University was invited to conduct an archaeological excavation due to the historical significance of the site. The team found hundreds of artifacts spanning centuries. These include many partial pipe stems, ceramic, and porcelain pieces. Many faunal remains were also found: a partial deer mandible, a pig and cow tooth, as well as seashells and oyster shells. These are important, for they provide insight into conditions at the time, revealing information about the habits and culture of the people that inhabited the spring site.

The Spring Park Design by Lirio Landscape Architects:

To recognize and celebrate the Spring as the birthplace of Newport and the important role this place had in sustaining the life and growth of this town, the birthplace in the United States of religious freedom and separation of church and state; and to make this place, once again, a gathering place for all people to commemorate Newport’s pivotal role in the development of our nation’s values.

Mission Statement Newport Historic Spring Leadership Committee 2017

FOUR CORE GOALS

GOAL 1: HISTORY

Preservation of the unique historical significance of the site: the original town spring around which our community was founded on the sole premise of religious freedom and tolerance.

GOAL 2: ENVIRONMENT

Remediation of the site and an Open Space Guarantee: A space that provides new opportunities for public access and civic enjoyment in perpetuity.

GOAL 3: BENEFITS

A sustainable community-based design that will foster cultural and economic vitality.

GOAL 4: SAFETY

Traffic and pedestrian circulation and safety improvements in this complicated intersection.

Figure 6. Spring Park original subterranean 17th-c. Spring box.

Photo: Erik Gottlieb, Newport Environmental

DESIGN INSPIRATION AND THOUGHT PROCESS

NATURAL HISTORY

How may the founding freshwater spring of Newport be commemorated when the spring no longer gurgles to the surface, the groundwater suffers from subterranean pollution, and yet, the public overwhelmingly declared that there must be water in the design?

The spring and the sea were the two natural landmarks that defined the extents of colonial Newport. Of these, the voice of the spring has been largely muted since the mid-1800’s. This project celebrates the spring as a founding resource and commemorates the natural history of Newport.

FOUNDING PRINCIPLE

How can Newport Historic Spring express the founding principle of religious freedom and tolerance?

First, it is designed as a gathering place, open and free, a place for connecting people.

Second, texts are inscribed to monumentalize those important words.

Thirdly, significant adjacent sites and structures are framed with views through, and out from, the site in order to orient citizens and visitors to the larger influence of this founding principle (Fig. 7).

NEWPORT HISTORIC SPRING IS CONFIGURED AROUND THREE DISTINCT SPACES: THE GATHERING PLACE, SPRING GROVE, AND CHARTER GROVE

(Fig. 8)

THE GATHERING

PLACE

The Gathering Place is a central open area that affords long views into, through, and across the park to orient visitors to adjacent historic sites: the south facade of the Colony House, the portico of Touro Synagogue, the steeple of the Second (United) Baptist Church, Great Friends Meeting House, and other sites.

The Gathering Place, importantly, is the site of the historic town spring and the later spring box which was discovered during remediation of the site and has been preserved and protected through the National Register of Historic Places. Once the property donated to the City, the entire property will be protected from future development through a conservation easement from the Aquidneck Land Trust.

The Gathering Place maintains the spirit of this site as a place for people to gather—as it has for several centuries. The open quality of this space allows for unobstructed views of some of Newport’s oldest and most valued sites: the Colony House, Washington Square, Touro Synagogue, Second Baptist Church, and others.

Figure 7. Spring Park concept diagram. Lirio Landscape Architects

WHITE HORSE TAVERN AND GREAT FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE

THE PARADE

TRINITY CHURCH STEEPLE

BRICK MARKET AND WASHINGTON SQUARE

SPRING GROVE

The Spring Grove recognizes the natural history of the site; the spring around which the founding documents of Newport describe the location of the city. Spring Grove is a representation of the natural hydrological system that flowed through this area of colonial Newport, after which Spring Street was named.

The Spring Grove, with a modest, passive, water basin, establishes a geological, hydrological, and botanical space that orients citizens and visitors to this profound natural history of Newport and Aquidneck Island. The Spring Grove is a place which can be casually occupied but also anchors the south end of the site to buffer and protect the commemorative cultural richness that is centered at the Gathering Place.

The perimeter of the Spring Grove will provide generously scaled sidewalks and corner thresholds into the park so that pedestrians are safely and graciously welcomed into and through the park.

The Spring Grove celebrates the natural history of the Spring: hydrology, geology, and botany. Unlike most other colonial cities, Newport retains evidence of its founding freshwater source.

CHARTER GROVE

… do hereby publish, grant, ordain and declare, that our royal will and pleasure is, that no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion in matters of religion ... Rhode Island Royal Charter, July 1663

Charter Grove enlightens visitors to Newport’s and Rhode Island’s unique role in the history of our country as a place where

people of all beliefs were welcome. The Rhode Island Royal Charter, secured by the Newporter John Clarke, established this freedom and served as the basis for the Declaration of Independence, which is read from the steps of the Colony House by the Sons of the Revolution every Fourth of July.

The Charter Grove provides a shady respite in the south-facing park; a casual space with native trees and seating that establishes a social area welcoming to families, individuals, and tour groups to rest and refresh.

The Charter Grove is a casual, shady, and relaxed area to pause and observe the history and life of Newport.

NEWPORT FOUNDING INSCRIPTION

(Fig. 9)

A passage from the founding documents of Newport has been excerpted for inscription on the stone wall that defines the East edge of the Gathering Place.

The inscription, carved by Nick Benson of the John Stevens Shop, is situated to the southward and to the sea of the existing spring box and is highly visible in the Gathering Place.

The stone wall is required to retain a grade change and to protect the Gathering Place from Spring Street traffic. The stone for the inscription is modestly higher to allow for eye-level reading. As one reads the inscription, the view is oriented uphill toward the Loeb Visitors Center and Touro Synagogue.

...and the Towne shall be built upon both sides of the spring, and by the sea-side Southward...

Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, March 16, 1639

Figure 8. Spring Park concept diagram. Lirio Landscape Architects

SPRING GROVE

CHARTER GROVE

GATHERING PLACE

SPRING BOX

SPRING BOX (Fig. 10)

During the initial environmental remediation, a subterranean chamber (spring box) was discovered. Water still flows through the spring box, which was a key part of Newport’s public water system developed by George Henry Norman, who founded Newport Water Works. The spring box has been investigated by Salve Regina’s Cultural and Historic Preservation Program and digitally mapped by Roma Sotterenea, a group of Italian urban spelunkers headed by Professor Nick DePace of RISD. The current underground water quality is poor and opening the spring box to light and air would promote organic growth and therefore future degradation to the structure. So, the spring box will remain closed.

The spring box, an historic water infrastructure artifact discovered during remediation of the site, has been preserved.

WATER BASIN

The original town spring would have emerged out of a location where underground water that flows through the gravelly glacial till of Aquidneck Island flowed downhill and encountered the bedrock Jamestown Formation where water was pushed to the surface. The surface of the stone cover, which protects the spring box, is carved with an abstract bas-relief depiction of the spring box below. An inlaid bronze channel, designed and fabricated with Newmans, Ltd, simulates the function of the original spring box as a source of water distribution for the City. Rainwater collects in the shallow surface basin and flows out the bronze channel.

A shallow water basin and bronze channel on the surface of the spring box cover depicts the spring box underground and commemorates the spring around which Newport was founded.

Figure 9. Spring Park rendering facing northeast. Lirio Landscape Architects

NEWPORT CHARTER INSCRIPTION

SPRING BOX

WATER BASIN IN SPRING GROVE

Figure 10. Elevation drawing showing underground Spring box

Lirio Landscape Architects

The Charter granted the Company of the Redwood Library the right to form, operate, make laws, collect funds, appoint officers, hold to account and be held accountable to its members, and to meet at least once annually to discuss business.

Documenting the Redwood’s Origins

by Michelle Farias

The archives at the Redwood Library & Athenæum house many documents vital to understanding both the creation and early operation of the Redwood Library in colonial Rhode Island. The ongoing preservation of these records allows the Library to continue to share its story from the beginning. Before the Library was ever even established, the learned and wealthy men of Newport met to discuss philosophy and literature as part of a society formed in 1730, which met in the various homes of its members. Although there are no original documents from that society at the Library today, a transcription of its rules and members was published in the Newport Mercury on November 23, 1833. This article was then clipped out of the newspaper and pasted inside the front cover of the earliest book of meeting minutes belonging to the Library, which dates from 1747 to 1848. The article says that the Redwood Library “owes its origin to this very Society” and its list of members shows how many of those same people went on to become founders of the Company of the Redwood Library in 1747.

accordingly, the Library should be “where unto the curious and impatient inquirer after resolution of doubts, and the bewildered ignorant might freely repair for discovery and demonstration to the one and true knowledge and satisfaction to the other.”

The Charter granted the Company of the Redwood Library the right to form, operate, make laws, collect funds, appoint officers, hold to account and be held accountable to its members, and to meet at least once annually to discuss business. As such, the Charter is the essential foundational document of the Redwood’s existence, a fact underlined when it was read aloud at the first meeting of the newly formed Company of the Redwood Library held in September of 1747 as documented in the meeting minutes.

As is spelled out in the charter, the Library’s appeal for incorporation is owed to Abraham Redwood, who promised to give five hundred pounds sterling for the purchase of “a collection of Useful Books suitable for a Public Library” with “nothing in view but the Good of Mankind,” as well as to the promise of all of the other founders to join him and form “a Society, or Company, for the propagating [of] Virtue, Knowledge, and Useful Learning.”

The Redwood’s original Charter is a large document, measuring 60 x 75 cm, approximately two feet by two and a half feet (Fig. 1). It is kept safe today in an oversized, flat file box that does not often leave storage. Fortunately, the charter was digitally scanned in 2011 and has been made available online as evidence of the Library’s official start over two hundred and seventy five years ago. It was granted “By the [honorable] Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England in America in General Assembly met at Newport within and for the Colony aforesaid on this third Tuesday in August One thousand seven hundred and forty seven” and signed by Colonial Governor Gideon Wanton. As is spelled out in the charter, the Library’s appeal for incorporation is owed to Abraham Redwood, who promised to give five hundred pounds sterling for the purchase of “a collection of Useful Books suitable for a Public Library” with “nothing in view but the Good of Mankind,” as well as to the promise of all of the other founders to join him and form “a Society, or Company, for the propagating [of] Virtue, Knowledge, and Useful Learning.” The Body of Laws drawn up by the Directors in 1750 further elaborates the Library’s overarching purpose:

“At a meeting of the Company of the Redwood Library, in the Council Chamber at Newport, the last Wednesday of September, 1747.

This being the first meeting of the Company since their Incorporation, the Charter was publicly read.

It is agreed by the Company that the Directors shall be eight in number and any five of them constitute a quorum.

This day being the anniversary for electing Directors, etc., according to the Company’s Charter, the following gentlemen were chosen to the respective offices ascribed to their names:

Directors for the Year Ensuing:

Abraham Redwood, Esq.

The Rev. Mr. Honyman

The Rev. Mr. Callender

Mr. Henry Collins

Edward Scott, Esq.

Samuel Wickham, Esq.

Capt. John Tillinghast

Peter Bours, Esq.

Capt. Joseph Jacob—Treasurer Edward Scott, Esq.—Librarian Thomas Ward—Secretary

The Company agree to meet again the 7th of October at 3 o’clock afternoon.”

The minutes from the earliest days of the Redwood Library can be difficult to read; many of the pages have faded text and other marks of age. The Redwood Annals, compiled in 1891 by George Champlin Mason, have reproduced those minutes as faithfully as possible in transcriptions that aid research into the early period of the Library to this day. Once the Library was established, these early records show the efforts that the founders went through to

prepare a list of books to be purchased with Abraham Redwood’s funds in London and also to solicit additional funds from members for the construction of the library building.

Uniquely, the original building contract for the Redwood Library has survived from 1748 (Fig. 2). It lays out the arrangement between the contracted master-builders: Wing Spooner, Samuel Green, Thomas Melvil and Israel Chapman, and the representatives of the Redwood Library: Samuel Wickham, Henry Collins, and John Tillinghast. As is written in the contract, all these parties “Do hereby Covenant Promise and Engage to Erect and build in Newport aforesaid on the Lott of Land given by said Henry Collins for that purpose a House of Building (to be called the Redwood Library suitable and convenient for depositing therein a large Number of Books given by Abraham Redwood Esq. for Publick use).”The initial agreement refers to plans drawn by Joseph Harrison, likely working as a representative for his brother Peter, who was away in London. An addendum to the contract signed shortly after refers all parties to follow updated plans drawn by Peter Harrison: “the Plans & Entablature and all other parts of said Building be finished & Completed well & workmanlike agreeable to a plan or Draught drawn by Mr. Peter Harrison and all other Parts of the within mentioned articles of agreement to stand good excepting such alterations as are made by this additional agreement.”

The contract stipulates that the Redwood Library’s planned structure should be as follows: “The [said] Building is to consist of one large Room & two small ones. The large Room to be thirty seven feet long and twenty six feet broad in the Inside and Nineteen feet high. At the West End (which is the Principal Front) is to be a Portico of four Columns according to the Dorick Order… The Outside to be cover’d with Pine Plank work’d in Imitation of Rustick…[and] At the West End next the Portico to be two Small Wings or Outshots for two Little Rooms or offices one on each Side and both alike in form and Bigness each to be about twelve feet Square.” This forms the basic plan for the library. Additionally, the East wall of the library was going to feature one large Venetian Window, but in the addendum, the new plan was to have three smaller windows instead.

The original Library building was completed in 1750 and the directors of the Company of the Redwood Library voted on December 28, 1750 to equally tax the members for the cost of finishing the structure, as attested to by a document that survives along with the 1748 contract.

Once the building was completed, the books bought in London by John Tomlinson, Abraham Redwood’s agent, could be added to the shelves in the same room where they are still housed today. Known as the Original Collection, these books are recorded in the manuscript “Catalogue of the Books belonging to the Company of the Redwood Library in Newport on Rhode Island A.D. 1750.” (Fig. 3) In this catalog, still in possession of the Library, the books are organized by size and then by subject, beginning with the largest books, those printed in Folio. Multi-volume sets and costs are noted alongside titles and authors, amounting to a list of 751 titles or 1,338 volumes. Additional titles given by several other founders are added to the back of this catalog to complete the Original Collection as it was made available to members in March of 1750, when the laws governing the use of the library were accepted by the Directors.

This manuscript catalog along with the earliest printed edition from 1764 have been instrumental in replacing books lost from the collection during the American Revolution. Their continued

value to the Library for this purpose is immeasurable, but they also show what books the early founders felt should be a part of a public library collection in the eighteenth century: included in the list are volumes of classics in the original and translation, books on history, medicine, religion, law, history, natural history, mathematics, visual and literary arts, and more. There are works by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, John Gay, William Shakespeare, John Milton and others held in esteem by the early founders. Notably, there was only one novel, Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding, but there were many books on various parts of the world where they hoped to expand their business interests, which as we know included the trading and ownership of enslaved people, As per the general categories established in the earliest manuscript catalog, the collection today includes volumes on all of those early subjects and has been expanded in adjacent areas of decorative arts and architecture that continue to grow. These holdings are all available to researchers, members and nonmembers alike, continuing in the tradition established in 1747.

The receipt books from the first few decades of the Redwood’s operation as a circulating membership library are some of the most fragile documents in the Library’s institutional archives (Fig. 4). This is through no fault of the paper used to create them or the storage conditions of the books over the years; instead, it is a result

Figure 2. Redwood Library & Athenæum Building Contract

of the way in which the receipt books were intended to function. When a member, or guest, came to the Library to check out a book, they filled out one of the three printed receipt templates per page with the title of the book and its cost. If they failed to bring the book back to the Library, they agreed to pay that cost so the Library could purchase a replacement. To each receipt, the patron signed their name and committed to this agreement. When the book was

returned to the Library, or the fee was paid, the patron’s name was torn out of the receipt book. It is due to the practice of tearing out the signatures that every page of the receipt book is torn in three separate places, one for each receipt. This presents a preservation challenge in making sure that the torn pages do not catch and are kept in their proper place, as well as a research challenge; every receipt would have contained valuable information about which early members were actually making use of the Library’s holdings, but all of their names are gone. There are some pages with fragments of names remaining, which might serve as a valuable future research project for someone with great patience, but does limit the ability to know who was using the Library and how, beyond the names of members and directors recorded in the meeting minutes.

Altogether, the early working papers of the Library might in fact be among the most historically significant holdings at the Redwood, given that they document the intentions of the early founders in creating a place for research and learning that has endured through the present. Not only do the archives contain records about the Library and about eighteenth century Newport history more broadly, they offer very rare insights on early American intellectual history.

Michelle Farias is the Redwood Library & Athenæum Archivist and Special Collections Librarian.

Figure 3. A catalogue of the Books belonging to the Company of the Redwood Library in Newport on Rhode Island A.D. 1750, Manuscript Catalog of the Redwood Library, (1750-1764)

Figure 4. Receipt Book of the Company of the Redwood Library, 1757, Receipt Book beginning April 21, 1757

Photos: David Hansen

At The Athenæum

Mark Egan, Jacalyn Egan, Sheika Egan

Dan & Dory Benson

Penelope Green, Sarah Lyall, Anne Foxley and Michelle Kirby

Stephen Smith, Eleanor and Dan Gilbane, Janet Pell

Gala Chairs: Janet Pell, Betsy Ray, Shari Grace, Elizabeth McMillan, Jacalyn Egan, Maura Smith Cullen, Elizabeth Leatherman, Benedict Leca

Photos: David Hansen

Benedict Leca, Pamela McColl, Trevor Neal

Steve Forbes

Schwarzman Lecture in Rovensky Room

Stephen Schwarzman

Michelle Drum, Rob and Jen Higginbotham and youngest guest

Katy & Elijah Duckworth-Schachter

Trevor Traina Exhibition Betsy & Frank Ray

Reading Room Bride

Sally Bedell Smith & Jonna Chewning

Bedell Smith Lecture in Rovensky Room

Wilson conversation in Reading Room

Fred Wilson

Newport's Mayor Xay

Summer Sounds at the Redwood

Clouds Hill Exhibition

Celebrating Bloomsday

Washington Salute

Photo: Allan Millora

EXHIBITIONS AT THE REDWOOD

THIS DROP OF EARTH: AMERICAN LANDSCAPE MINIATURES, 1840-1890

The first exhibition to examine the substantive and significant phenomenon of small-scale and miniature landscape painting in the United States.

In many accounts of artistic practice, miniature-scaled works are assigned subsidiary roles, valued as mere precursors to later, larger, and more significant compositions. The more than 100 paintings, drawings, and photographs included in this exhibition will demonstrate instead the multifaceted ways small pictures were big business in nineteenth-century America, related to but independent from their larger siblings.

Opens June 20, 2024

Peirce Prince Gallery

SLIM AARONS: NEWPORT DAYS

Working in partnership with Getty Images and in collaboration with Newport Curates, the exhibition is the first devoted to the Newport and New England photographs of renowned lifestyle photographer Slim Aarons (1916-2006). The Redwood being the sole venue, the show will bring together over fifty photographs drawn from the Slim Aarons archive held by Getty Images in London.

In a forty-year career as a globe-trotting, freelance photographer capturing “attractive people… doing attractive things in attractive places” for magazines such as Holiday, Town & Country, Life, and Travel & Leisure, Aarons produced a corpus of distinctly styled photographs that establish him as the ultimate chronicler of the post-war beau monde from Acapulco to St Moritz.

Opens July 11, 2024

Van Alen Gallery

Redwood Library & Athenæum charter, 1747