etc. Spring 2024

Spring 2024

Ice Age Origins The Beginning: Newport’s Historic Spring Park

The Magazine of The Redwood Library & Athenæum

Documenting the Redwood’s Origins

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W E LCO M E

CONTENTS

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

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Ice Age Origins Dr. Heather M. Rockwell Dr. Nathaniel R. Kitchel

5

The Beginning: Newport’s Historic Spring Park The Newport Historical Society/ Lirio Landscape Architects

1 5 Documenting the Redwood’s Origins Michelle Farias

18 At the Athenæum 20 Exhibitions at the Redwood

etc.

Spring 2024 | Vol. IV, 2 redwoodlibrary.org Editorial Director Benedict Leca, Ph.D. Editor Patricia Barry Pettit Design Pam Rogers Design

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 Waring Partridge Maura Smith Cullen Earl A. Powell III Jacalyn Egan Frank Ray Michael Gewirz Andy Ridall John Rovensky Grace Jeffrey Siegal John D. Harris II Susan M. Sipprelle Aida Neary Robin Warren

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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

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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

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Figure 1. Red Munsungun chert quarry face

(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

frequent sightings of moose, bears, foxes, and lynx. Our first journey Due to the hard work of volunteers over the summers of to the North Maine Woods was in 2011, on what was supposed 2018 and 2019, and more recently our students from Salve Regina to be a simple trip to the quarry source of red Munsungun chert. University in the summer of 2022 (fig. 2) we have been able to However, we quickly learned that the exact source of this rock had excavate small sections of these camps. The Stevens and PPE Sites never been found. While black chert was readily available, the red tell a story of land use spanning thousands of years. We recovered material so prevalent within the earliest sites in the region was stone tools which appear to be related to Paleoindian peoples and nowhere to be found. artifacts which date to just a few thousand years ago, when the Our team spent nearly four years hiking the remote hills of this beginnings of agriculture were just starting to enter southern New landscape, finally identifying the red stone quarry in the summer of England. With nearly 100,000 stone artifacts it might seem simple 2015. The quarry’s face itself is up to three feet tall, and hundreds to understand how people lived at these sites. However, interpreting of feet long wall of red rock occasionally striped with black or human behavior using nothing but chips of stone is a bit like a jiggreen. Compared to many other chert quarries it is relatively saw puzzle. One where you do not have a picture to follow on the small. It sits high on a steep hill nearly 50 miles from the nearest box, there are no edge pieces, and before you started the puzzle most paved road. Its inaccessible location has protected it as it shows no of the pieces were lost or destroyed. However, with each subsequent signs of having ever been disturbed in the modern era. Looking at field season and the more objects we find, the clearer the picture its face one can still see the strikes of stone hammers slammed on becomes. its surface thousands of years ago. With this discovery we could At the Stevens and PPE sites artifacts such as projectile points, finally pursue our main goal, to discover how this location was scraping tools, wedges—called piéce esquillées—, and stone knives used by the first people. give a glimpse into the kinds of activities undertaken at these sites.

Our first field season in 2016 we dug beside the quarry face We can imagine a group of hunters returning with a deer or caribou, itself with a small team of volunteers. What we found mainly the they successfully dispatched using a stone tipped spear. They would debris from removing stone from the quarry face and some of the use stone knives to butcher the animal and piéce esquillées to split initial shaping of stone tools. The excavation the bones and extract the nutritious marrow.

The last great Ice Age reached its units were more artifacts than dirt, giving Others from the group may have spent zenith 20,000 years ago. During this the ground surface a texture like a railroad their day making tools to replace those lost time much of North America, from bed. While dense in cultural material these or broken during the hunt, massive piles of Labrador to Long Island, was buried excavations yielded only debris, no tools or chipping debris would have been produced under two miles of ice. Slowly over projectile points or other materials from to shape new stone spear points. The the next 8,000 years the ice began which we could understand who was there scraping tools (fig. 3) may have been used to to recede, shaping the mountains or when. It appeared that when people used carve a new spear shaft from a tree branch and valleys we know, yet utterly this location they came, they hammered off or to clean the hides of the animal killed to unrecognizable when compared to the rock they needed, and they left. Logical make into clothing. Still others likely would the landscape of today. really, as the quarry sits on a high steep ridge, have spent the day entertaining children, with little space available to make a suitable taking them to help gather wild plants and camp site. To understand the lives of these early groups we needed teaching them how to create their own stone tools. At night they to find habitations sites, areas where people would have made their would gather around a fire, remnants of which were found within home while collecting this rock and crafting their stone tools. the Stevens site in the form of stained earth and bits of charcoal. We When people think of the prehistoric past they often think know that the people living at these sites traveled great distances of strong, able bodied, adult, men, and women, hunting their way across New England and into Canada. We have multiple artifacts across the land. Perhaps true to an extent during the Paleoindian made of Kineo Traveler Rhyolite (fig.4), distinctive due to its bright period, as we find many small hunting camps across the landscape white color, the source of which is located far to the south of the site. that would have been occupied by this small segment of a larger Even more intriguing is a single piece of a delicate pinkish stone group. These small camps give us only a narrow view of the past, (fig.5), believed to have come from as far away as the Minas Basin of that may not include elders, children, or non-hunting adults. To Nova Scotia over 300 miles to the east. These materials were likely truly understand human behavior we need larger campsites, what collected directly by the inhabitants of the Stevens and PPE sites, archaeologists call residential sites. Residential sites were likely as few trade networks are well established at this time. occupied by extended family groups, children, grandparents, What does this all man for our understanding of the first people cousins, moving together as a community. Sometimes they might in the region? It means that they knew this landscape well, they had split up, with smaller units fetching resources and returning to the already identified many remote resources over hundreds of miles main camp. Occasionally they would join with other family groups by the time they reached the Munsungun Quarry. The massive in the region, sharing stories, swapping resources, and having quantities of material found at our sites suggest that this location fellowship. Finding the site of these sorts of gatherings became was valuable, having both adequate food and material resources to our main goal. In 2017, we moved our excavations down the hill support communities for an extended period. This may mean that from the quarry, focusing on broad flat areas close to a nearby lake. this spot was once used to gather multiple families to celebrate and Just a half mile from the quarry face, we identified two prehistoric have community. Importantly this site was one for teaching. We can residential campsites, now dubbed The Stevens Site and the PPE see that some of the artifacts left here show a high degree of skill Complex. and expertise in their creation, while others appear less well made,

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

Figure 3. Endscraper made of Figure 4. Endscrapers made of Kineo Traveler rhyolite exotic chert ca. 13-8,000 years old

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 4 etc. Sp r in g 2024

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

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.

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

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Newport, Rhode Island was eighteenth century. In 1797, the land founded in 1639 by nine families was passed from the estate of Peleg who fled religious persecution in Barker to his daughter and son-inthe Massachusetts Bay Colony law in a deed using the language “the and came to the southern end of same lane where the town spring is.”

Aquidneck Island via Providence and The surrounding properties Portsmouth. A freshwater spring, were covered with a dense settlement noted in early reports, came to the of homes and small businesses. David surface in the area that would become Williams, Newport clockmaker, lived the first center of the settlement. and worked here, as did Giles Hozier The spring no longer surfaces, but its (brewer). The families worshipped in location has long been presumed to the rich traditions of diverse religions be at the corner of Spring and Barney which made Newport distinctive.

Streets, on the grounds of a long Baptist, Seventh-Day Baptist, standing gas station. In his “Memoir Quaker, Jew, Congregationalist, and of Rhode Island” (1832), Henry Church of England denominations Bull IV describes the settlement of all had representatives here. Indeed, Newport around the spring. When their churches and meeting houses Mr. Neil Coffey, the final owner of were all within a few moments’ walk. the property and of the gas station Many still stand today. operating on the site, made his desire During seventeenth and to retire known to the community, Figure 1. Mumford Map (1712) detail. The site can be seen eighteenth centuries, while the land a group of private citizens—the as a plot at the intersection of what is now Spring and use was basically domestic, a public Newport Spring Leadership Touro Street. Collection of the Newport Historical Society function was also fulfilled. The site, Committee (NSLC)—came together which is the point from which the to purchase the site to save it from further development, eventually One Mile Corner marker is measured, was likely seen as the center deciding to create a park dedicated to religious freedom. of town. While we do not know when the spring was no longer Aquidneck Island was the territory of the Narragansett Tribe available at the surface, the underground river that runs down of Native Americans when it was first encountered by European Barney Street toward the harbor has continuously been a source settlers in the 1630s. With the help of (and perhaps the insistence of fresh water. Almost every existing lot on Barney Street includes of ) Providence’s Roger Williams, the Island was purchased from a cistern underneath the structure or buried in the yard—and a the Narragansett sachems Conanicus and Miantonomi. What the photograph from as late as 1874 shows a well on the spring site English settlers found on their arrival was not an empty wilderness. (Fig. 2). It is likely that the cisterns served more than private uses— Native people had been in the area for thousands of years, and had horses needed to be watered, and stored water was essential to the established sophisticated land management and fishing practices. community in this wooden city as a way to fight inevitable fires. In Current evidence points to the existence of a large summer addition, the placement of the Touro Synagogue may have been settlement in what is now downtown Newport, and the presence of influenced in part by the need for running water for the associated the freshwater spring at the location we are discussing was certainly mikvah, or ritual bath. Although the location of the original mikvah a factor in Native use. Archeological work done in the yard of is not known, a nineteenth-century mikvah sits under a current Touro Synagogue some years ago indicates the presence of a Native residence on Barney Street.

American lithics manufacturing site.

It might not be surprising that when industry grew at this The Coffey’s gas station/Newport Spring site first appears location it was transportation related. A branch of the Hazard visually in the record on the Mumford Map of Newport, drawn family opened a livery stable on the site in the mid-nineteenth in 1712, where it is one block square (Fig. 1). It is in the original century. Livery stables operated on the site into the 1930s, and the settled center of Newport, and is still surrounded by some of the first gas station appears to have been added in the 1920s. A gas oldest extant buildings, several of which date to the seventeenth station was operating here by the Colonial Beacon Oil Company in century. While the spring itself is not indicated, the likely location the 1940s, and it is at this time that the plaque marking the site of of the original spring can be presumed on this map by the corner of the town spring was also placed. The site remained in service to the Spring Street and Spring Court (later Spring Lane). automobile under a number of owners, and selling gasoline from a The site’s original owner may have been John Coggeshall, an variety of companies, until sold by the Coffeys in 2015. original founder of Newport, as the first known recorded owner The historic downtown of Newport that is centered on the is Joshua Coggeshall (1623-1689), his son. The property was the spring is a tangible representation of the founding philosophy of site of domestic use for the next 200 years. It was owned by two Rhode Island as a whole, as expressed in our Charter of 1663. The generations of the Marchant family, who appear to have lived on commitment of Rhode Island’s earliest settlers to tolerance of all Cape Cod while owning this property, and a dwelling, in the center religious beliefs was exceptional for its time and perhaps even for of Newport, during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth today. The Charter, which advertised this tolerance to the world, centuries, then by other Newport families through the late also made clear that the settlers here believed that by tolerating Figure 5.

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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

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each other’s religious beliefs, encouraging freedom of religion, and originally sat at the corner of Spring and Barney Streets. Originally creating a separation between Church and State, they would also home to a congregation with roots in the seventeenth century, foster a community that would thrive economically. during the Civil War it housed the Shiloh Baptist congregation, This was demonstrably true, as Newport became one of the five which was primarily African-American. wealthiest Colonial cities over time. It was also true that religious Trinity Church: While New England’s original settlers came dissidents from European nations came here and found a home, and here with antipathy to the Church of England, Newport’s tolerance the ability to be economic and civic participants in this new kind of in religious matters extended even to these former adversaries. community. In Newport’s earliest days, there was little distinction Anglicans settlers, joined by Protestant Huguenots, formed a between economic and residential spaces – people generally worked congregation as early as the 1690s. Beautiful Trinity Church was where they lived. There is good evidence that residences filled this designed by Newport’s Richard Munday, who also created the neighborhood with some density throughout the late seventeenth Seventh Day Baptist Meeting house and the Colony House on and eighteenth centuries. The oldest known residential structures Washington Square, and was built in 1726. on their original sites in Newport are all within striking distance Touro Synagogue: Like the Quakers, the Jews of the of the spring site, including the Wanton-Lyman Hazard House seventeenth and eighteenth centuries found refuge in Rhode Island (1696-today) and the Mayes-Nichols House (1673 -today, converted and particularly in Newport. Early arrivals in the mid-seventeenth to a tavern before 1687, and now the White Horse). Additional century came from the Caribbean, where Spanish and Portuguese early homes, including the Jews fled to following their Henry Bull House (1639expulsion from their home 1912), the Easton House, countries. Forbidden in many and others were demolished places from conducting trade, in in the nineteenth and early Newport, they were allowed to twentieth centuries; note the conduct business, and became, presence of the names of the like the Quakers, prosperous founders of Newport. A ring of merchants. Touro Synagogue, houses of worship demonstrate built within blocks of the town Newport’s profound religious center in 1763, was designed by tolerance and the proximity noted architect Peter Harrison. of congregations and churches In the mid-nineteenth century around the town center (See the site began to have a focused Fig. 7), which remained commercial presence. Edward generally free of religious Hassard was a Connecticut architecture. The town center relation of the Newport that developed to the west Hazards who established livery of the spring site, called the stables at the intersection of Parade, and now Washington Figure 4. Gas station when selling ESSO gas (ca. 1958) Spring Street, Spring Lane, Square, is anchored by the Collection of the Newport Historical Society and Park Street in 1854. The Colony House (1739, Richard family operated the stables Munday) and the Brick Market (1762, Peter Harrison). which served the still lively downtown of Newport including the It is notable that in a map created for the British in 1777, State House (Old Colony House) and the Park House Hotel on the named structures are almost entirely houses of worship from Washington Square. The family operated liveries on the site into the a variety of denominations. Religious buildings adjacent to the first decades of the twentieth century. Stables or liveries also were Spring site today include: sited on Barney Street and in the surrounding area at this time (Fig. Great Friends Meeting House (1699): Quakers were welcome 3). Service to horses was enhanced by service to the automobile in Rhode Island even as they were being tortured and executed in by at least 1925, when Horace Hassard operated a gas station on neighboring colonies. The Meeting House stands at the corner of the site. By 1940, the site was leased to the Colonial Beacon Oil Marlborough Street and Marcus Wheatland Boulevard. Home to Company, which likely constructed the existing garage structure Newport’s Quaker community and annually to a meeting of all of shortly thereafter. In 1958 George and Barbara Gold purchased New England’s Quakers, this structure sits three blocks from the the site and the gas station, from which they sold ESSO gas (Fig. spring.

4). In 1971, Spring Lane was officially abandoned by the City of First Baptist Church: Many of Newport’s original settlers were Newport. The site continued to be operated as a gas station after Baptists, and Newport’s First Baptist congregation was led in the being purchased by Neil Coffey in 1985, offering both gas and seventeenth century by Dr. John Clarke, original settler and the garage services. individual who likely wrote, and certainly obtained, Rhode Island’s When Neil Coffey indicated his desire to sell his property and precedent-setting “lively experiment” Charter in 1663. A meeting put it on the market, a number of citizens and groups began to house was built in this location in 1737, but is no longer standing. propose potential public uses for the Square. A “Charter Square” The descendent congregation, now known as the United Baptist proposal was put forth by John Grosvenor of Northeast Collaborative Church, worships at 30 Spring Street, in a structure built in 1846.

Architects, in which the site would be used to celebrate the City’s The Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House. This 1730 structure history of religious tolerance and diversity. A citizens group led by 8 etc. Sp r in g 2024

Figure 5. Spring site cleared for construction.

Photo: Michael Osean

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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.

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

Photo: Erik Gottlieb, Newport Environmental

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.

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WHITE HORSE TAVERN AND GREAT FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE

SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH

OLD COLONY HOUSE ONE COURTHOUSE SQUARE

THE PARADE

LOEB VISITORS CENTER

COURTHOUSE

BRICK MARKET AND WASHINGTON SQUARE

TOURO SYNAGOGUE

TRINITY CHURCH STEEPLE

SPRING STREET

TOURO STREET AND NEWPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Figure 7. Spring Park concept diagram. Lirio Landscape Architects

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.

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GATHERING PLACE

CHARTER GROVE SPRING GROVE

SPRING BOX Figure 8. Spring Park concept diagram. Lirio Landscape Architects

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

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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

NEWPORT CHARTER INSCRIPTION

SPRING BOX

WATER BASIN IN SPRING GROVE Figure 9. Spring Park rendering facing northeast. Lirio Landscape Architects

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.

Figure 10. Elevation drawing showing underground Spring box Lirio Landscape Architects

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.

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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.

Figure 1. Charter for the Redwood Library Company 1747. Signed by Gideon Wanton (1693-1767)

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Documenting the Redwood’s Origins

by Michelle Farias The archives at the Redwood Library & Athenæum house accordingly, the Library should be “where unto the curious and many documents vital to understanding both the creation and impatient inquirer after resolution of doubts, and the bewildered early operation of the Redwood Library in colonial Rhode Island. ignorant might freely repair for discovery and demonstration to the The ongoing preservation of these records allows the Library to one and true knowledge and satisfaction to the other.” continue to share its story from the beginning. Before the Library The Charter granted the Company of the Redwood Library was ever even established, the learned and wealthy men of Newport the right to form, operate, make laws, collect funds, appoint officers, met to discuss philosophy and literature hold to account and be held accountable as part of a society formed in 1730, which to its members, and to meet at least once As is spelled out in the charter, the met in the various homes of its members. annually to discuss business. As such, Library’s appeal for incorporation is owed Although there are no original documents the Charter is the essential foundational to Abraham Redwood, who promised to from that society at the Library today, a document of the Redwood’s existence, a give five hundred pounds sterling for the transcription of its rules and members was fact underlined when it was read aloud purchase of “a collection of Useful Books published in the Newport Mercury on at the first meeting of the newly formed suitable for a Public Library” with “nothing November 23, 1833. This article was then Company of the Redwood Library held in view but the Good of Mankind,” as clipped out of the newspaper and pasted in September of 1747 as documented in well as to the promise of all of the other inside the front cover of the earliest book the meeting minutes. founders to join him and form “a Society, of meeting minutes belonging to the “At a meeting of the Company of or Company, for the propagating [of] Library, which dates from 1747 to 1848. the Redwood Library, in the Council Virtue, Knowledge, and Useful Learning.”

The article says that the Redwood Library Chamber at Newport, the last Wednesday “owes its origin to this very Society” and of September, 1747. its list of members shows how many of those same people went on This being the first meeting of the Company since their Incorporation, to become founders of the Company of the Redwood Library in the Charter was publicly read.

1747.

It is agreed by the Company that the Directors shall be eight in The Redwood’s original Charter is a large document, measuring number and any five of them constitute a quorum.

60 x 75 cm, approximately two feet by two and a half feet (Fig. This day being the anniversary for electing Directors, etc., according 1). It is kept safe today in an oversized, flat file box that does not to the Company’s Charter, the following gentlemen were chosen to the often leave storage. Fortunately, the charter was digitally scanned respective offices ascribed to their names: in 2011 and has been made available online as evidence of the Directors for the Year Ensuing: Library’s official start over two hundred and seventy five years ago. Abraham Redwood, Esq. Edward Scott, Esq. It was granted “By the [honorable] Governor and Company of the The Rev. Mr. Honyman Samuel Wickham, Esq. English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in The Rev. Mr. Callender Capt. John Tillinghast New England in America in General Assembly met at Newport Mr. Henry Collins Peter Bours, Esq. within and for the Colony aforesaid on this third Tuesday in August One thousand seven hundred and forty seven” and signed Capt. Joseph Jacob—Treasurer Edward Scott, Esq.—Librarian Thomas

by Colonial Governor Gideon Wanton. As is spelled out in the Ward—Secretary th charter, the Library’s appeal for incorporation is owed to Abraham The Company agree to meet again the 7 of October at 3 o’clock afternoon.”

The minutes from the earliest days of the Redwood Library Redwood, who promised to give five hundred pounds sterling for the purchase of “a collection of Useful Books suitable for a Public can be difficult to read; many of the pages have faded text and other Library” with “nothing in view but the Good of Mankind,” as well marks of age. The Redwood Annals, compiled in 1891 by George as to the promise of all of the other founders to join him and form “a Champlin Mason, have reproduced those minutes as faithfully as Society, or Company, for the propagating [of ] Virtue, Knowledge, possible in transcriptions that aid research into the early period of and Useful Learning.” The Body of Laws drawn up by the Directors the Library to this day. Once the Library was established, these in 1750 further elaborates the Library’s overarching purpose: early records show the efforts that the founders went through to

Figure 1. Redwood Library & Athenæum Charter (1747)

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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 16 etc. Sp r in g 2024

Figure 2. Redwood Library & Athenæum Building Contract

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 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

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.

Photos: David Hansen

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At The Athenæum Photos: David Hansen

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

Mark Egan, Jacalyn Egan, Sheika Egan

Penelope Green, Sarah Lyall, Anne Foxley and Michelle Kirby

Stephen Smith, Eleanor and Dan Gilbane, Janet Pell

Dan & Dory Benson

Benedict Leca, Pamela McColl, Trevor Neal

Steve Forbes

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Schwarzman Lecture in Rovensky Room

Stephen Schwarzman

Trevor Traina Exhibition

Katy & Elijah Duckworth-Schachter

Sally Bedell Smith & Jonna Chewning

Reading Room Bride

Wilson conversation in Reading Room

Newport's Mayor Xay

Summer Sounds at the Redwood

Betsy & Frank Ray

Michelle Drum, Rob and Jen Higginbotham and youngest guest

Bedell Smith Lecture in Rovensky Room

Fred Wilson

Washington Salute Photo: Allan Millora

Clouds Hill Exhibition

Celebrating Bloomsday

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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

Join us in Honoring the Past and Celebrating the Future

Become a Redwood Member redwoodlibrary.org/membership Tel: 401.847.0292 x 115

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Back cover graphic: Fleming + Company

season 4

stream now ripbs.org

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From Redwood Library & Athenæum charter, 1747

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www.redwoodlibrary.org