H O U S E
S T O R Y
What’s in a Name?
T
he land on which Arnold House in Lincoln, Rhode Island, stands has gone by many names over the past three hundred years. The Narragansett Indians referred to the general area as Quinsnicket, which means “place of stone houses” or “at my stone house.” The tribe established a pathway through Quinsnicket; English colonists expanded the way farther in 1683 and named it Great Road, the first highway in the future state of Rhode Island. During this period, the place was considered to be in the outer reaches of the town of Providence and hence was known as World’s End. In 1685, Thomas Arnold, a settler who had emigrated from England in 1635, deeded fifty acres of land along
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Historic New England Summer 2014
the Great Road to his son Eleazer. On that land in 1693, Eleazer and his wife, Eleanor, built an imposing twoand-a-half-story stone-ender with a pilastered chimney and settled in with at least nine of their ten children. All ten children survived to adulthood and produced many children of their own. Because so many Arnolds settled near their ancestral home, the area soon acquired the nickname Arnoldia. Eleazer, being a landholder of considerable property, enjoyed widespread influence within the community. He served on the Providence Town Council between 1684 and 1686, was a deputy of the General Assembly eight times between 1686 and 1715, and Justice of the Peace from 1705 to 1709. His farm eventually grew
to 140 acres. In 1703, he permitted the Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, to build a meetinghouse on his land; five years later he formally deeded the land to them. The Great Road was the only traveled road between Providence and the growing villages between the Moshassuck and much larger Blackstone rivers. Arnold House, strategically situated beside the road, offered a logical site for a tavern. In 1710, Eleazer applied for and was granted license for a “publick house,” and the property continued to be operated as a tavern through 1725. Built as a stone-ender in 1693, Eleazer Arnold’s “Splendid Mansion” has been a Historic New England property since 1918. ABOVE