Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

CHAPTER XXII.

NEWPORT OF AQUIDNECK

"This castle hath a pleasant seat: the airNimbly and sweetly recommends itselfUnto our gentle senses." —Macbeth.

Newport is an equivoque. It is old, and yet not; grave, though gay; opulent and poor; splendid and mean; populous or deserted. As the only place in New England where those who flee from one city are content to inhabit another, it is anomalous.

In his "Trois Mousquetaires" Alexander Dumas makes his giant, Porthos, encounter a ludicrous adventure. The guardsman is the complacent possessor of a magnificent golden sword-belt, the envy of his comrades, until on one unlucky day it is discovered that the half concealed beneath his cloak is nothing but leather; whereupon some sword-thrusts occur. It was M. Besmeaux, afterward governor of the Bastile, who was the real hero of the sword-belt – half gold, half leather – that Dumas has hung on the shoulders of his gigantic guardsman.

Newport's ocean side is belted with modern villas, costly, showy, and ornate. They mask the town in splendid succession, as if each had been built to surpass its neighbor. This is the Newport of to-day. Behind it, old, gray, and commonplace by comparison, is the Newport of other days. The difference between the two is very marked. The old town is the effete body into which the new is infusing young blood, warming and invigorating it into new life. If the figure were permissible, we should say the Queen of Aquidneck had drunk of the elixir of life, so unexampled is the rapidity with which she transfigures herself.

I like Newport because it is old, quaint, and peculiar. Though far from insensible to its difficult feats in architecture, I did not come to see fine houses. To me they embody nothing besides the idea of wealth and luxurious ease. Many of them are as remarkable for elegance as are others for ugliness of design; yet I found it much the same as walking in Fifth Avenue or Beacon Street. They are at first bewildering, then monotonous; or, as Ruskin says of types of form, mere form, "You learn not to see them. You don't look at them."

I said Newport was commonplace, and I said it with mental reservation. It has a matchless site, glorious bay, and delicious climate, that many have been willing, perhaps a little too willing, to compare with Italy. If we have in New England any phase of climate we may safely match with that favored land,248 I frankly concede Newport possesses it. The Gulf Stream approaches near enough to temper in summer the harshness of sea-breezes, and the rigor of cold northern winds in winter. The only faults I had to find with the summer and autumn aspects of Newport climate were the fogs and humidity of the nights. The pavements are frequently wet as if by light showers. This condition of the atmosphere is the plague of laundresses and hair-dressers at the great houses: the ringlets you see in Newport are natural.

When at the Isles of Shoals, we were a "thin under-waistcoat warmer" than on the main-land. Neal says it is a coat warmer in winter at Newport than at Boston. I remarked that evening promenaders in the streets there were more thinly clothed than would be considered prudent elsewhere. In Newport, according to Neal, it would lose much point to say a man was without a coat to his back. Mr. Cooper, in the "Red Rover," calls attention to the magnificent harbor of Newport in the language of the practiced seaman. It fully meets all the requisites of easy approach, safe anchorage, and quiet basin. Isles and promontories, frowning with batteries, shield it from danger or insult. The verdure of the shores is of the most brilliant green, and grows quite to the water's edge, or to the verge of the cliffs. In a calm day, when the water is ruffled only by light airs, the tints of sea and sky are scarcely different: then the bay really looks like

"Un pezzo di cielo caduto in terra."

In approaching Newport from sea, after weathering much-dreaded Point Judith,249 we shall fall in with the light-vessel anchored off Brenton's Reef, the extreme south-west point of the island of Rhode Island. At the same time the light-house on Beaver Tail250 flashes greeting, and we may now enter the port with confidence. Passing beside the "Dumplings" and the old round tower, perched on a projecting and almost insulated rock, we steer under the walls of Fort Adams.251 Sleepy fishing-boats, coming in with the morning's flood, are sent, with rattling blocks, and sails idly flapping, reeling and rocking on big waves caused by the majestic onward march of our great steamer; the beat of the paddles comes audibly back from rocks washed for a moment by our attendant wave. As we round the fortress the bugles play. A ball goes quickly up to the very top of the flag-staff; there is a flash, and a roar of the morning gun; and when the smoke drifts slowly before the breeze, we see the dear old flag blowing out clear, with every stripe still there, and never a reproach in one of them. At our right, and close inshore, is Lime Rock Light, with its associations of female heroism.252 At the left is Goat Island, long and low, with Fort Wolcott and pleasant cottages for the officers of the torpedo station.253 Beyond, rising tier above tier, with the beautiful spire of Trinity Church in its midst, is Newport.

Newport has been compared to the Lothians and to the Isle of Wight, the British Eden. By all old travelers it was admitted to be the paradise of New England. Its beautiful and extensive bay reminds Scotsmen of the Clyde. In fact, every traveled person at once estimates it with what has hitherto impressed him most – an involuntary but sure recognition of its charms.

Previous to the Revolution, Newport was the fourth commercial town in the colonies, once having more than nine thousand inhabitants. It was at first tributary to Boston, sending its corn, pork, and tobacco to be exchanged for European goods. Its commercial recovery from the prostration in which the old war left it was again arrested by that of 1812; and this time it did not rise again. The whale-fishery was introduced and abandoned: writers of this period describe it as lifeless, with every mark of dilapidation and decay. The salubrity of the climate of Newport had long been acknowledged, and before 1820 it had become a place of resort for invalids from the Southern States and the West Indies. This one original gift has ever since been out at interest, until, where a few acres of grass once flourished, you might cover the ground with dollars before you became its owner.254

At Newport the visitor is challenged by past and present, each having large claims on his attention. I spent much of my time among old houses, monuments, and churches. Some of these are in public places and are easily found, while others are hidden away in forgotten corners, or screened from observation by the walls of intervening buildings. As is inevitable in such a place, the visitor will unwittingly pass by many objects that he will be curious to see, and in retracing his footsteps will have occasion to remark how much a scrap of history or tradition adds to the charm of an otherwise uninteresting structure.

The town along the water resembles Salem, except that it has neither its look of antiquity nor its dilapidation. Here the principal thoroughfare is Thames Street, long, narrow, and almost wholly built of wood. The narrowness of Thames Street has been referred to the encroachments of builders of a former time, the old houses standing at some distance back from the pavement being pointed to as evidence of the fact. I can only vouch for glimpses of some very habitable and inviting old residences in back courts and alleys opening upon the street. Here, too, old gambrel-roofed houses are plenty as blackberries in August. They have a portly, aldermanic look, with great breadth of beam, like ships of their day. When these houses that now stand end to the street had pleasant garden spots between, a walk here would have been worth the taking. When there were no sidewalks, it meant something to give the wall to your neighbor, and tact and breeding were requisite to know when to demand and when to decline it.

In Thames Street are several imperturbable notables in brick or wood. The City Hall – for as early as 1784 Newport had reached the dignity of a city – is usually first encountered. Notwithstanding they tell you it was one of Peter Harrison's255 buildings, it is very ordinary-looking, inside and out. It was built on arches, which indicates the lower floor to have been intended as a public promenade; and shows that the architect had the Old Royal Exchange in mind. For some time it was used as a market. This house came into the little world of Newport in 1763. A word of admiration from Allston has long been treasured.

In this building I saw hanging the escutcheon of William Coddington, who, as every body at all familiar with the history of Rhode Island knows, was one of the founders of Newport, and first governor of the little body politic organized upon the Isle of Aquidneck.

We have decided to cast a glance backward, and, to know our ground, must pay our duty to this old founder. William Coddington, Esquire, came to New England in 1630 with the Boston colonists, as one of the assistants named in their charter. He was several times rechosen to this important position, became a leading merchant in Boston, and is said to have built the first brick house there.256 The house he afterward built and lived in at Newport, of the quaint old English pattern, was standing within the recollection of many older inhabitants.

Mr. Coddington became involved in the Anne Hutchinson controversy, as did Wheelwright, the founder of Exeter. Mrs. Hutchinson was banished, and took refuge with Coddington and others on Rhode Island. In the presence of Governor Winthrop and of Dudley, his deputy; of the assistants, among whom were Endicott, Bradstreet, and Stoughton; confronted by the foremost and hardest-shelled ministers in the colony, such as Hugh Peters, Eliot, and Wilson, this woman defended herself, almost single-handed and with consummate address, against a court which had already prejudged her case, and which stubbornly refused, until the very last stage of the proceedings, to put the witnesses upon oath. As a specimen of the way in which justice was administered in the early day, and of judicial procedure, this trial is exceedingly curious.257 Here is a specimen of brow-beating that recalls "Oliver Twist:"

Deputy-governor. "Let her witnesses be called."

Governor. "Who be they?"

Mrs. Hutchinson. "Mr. Leveret, and our teacher, and Mr. Coggeshall."

Governor. "Mr. Coggeshall was not present."

Mr. Coggeshall. "Yes, but I was, only I desired to be silent until I was called."

Governor. "Will you, Mr. Coggeshall, say that she did not say so?"

Mr. Coggeshall. "Yes, I dare say that she did not say all that which they lay against her."

Mr. Peters. "How dare you look into the court to say such a word?"

Mr. Coggeshall. "Mr. Peters takes upon him to forbid me. I shall be silent."

As the governor was about to pass sentence, Mr. Coddington arose and spoke some manly words:

Mr. Coddington. "I do think that you are going to censure, therefore I desire to speak a word."

Governor. "I pray you speak."

Mr. Coddington. "There is one thing objected against the meetings. What if she designed to edify her own family in her own meetings, may none else be present?"

Governor. "If you have nothing else to say but that, it is a pity, Mr. Coddington, that you should interrupt us in proceeding to censure."

Despite this reproof, Mr. Coddington had his say, and one of the assistants (Stoughton) insisting, the ministers were compelled to repeat their testimony under oath; which they did after much parleying and with evident reluctance. It is curious to observe that in this trial the by-standers were several times appealed to for an expression of opinion on some knotty question.258 Had it not involved the liberty and fortunes of many more than the Hutchinsons, its ludicrous side would scarcely have been surpassed by the celebrated cause of "Bardell vs. Pickwick."

There is something inexpressibly touching in the decay of an old and honorable name – in the struggle between grinding poverty and hereditary family pride. Instead of finding the Coddingtons, as might be expected, among the princes of Newport, a native of the place would only shake his head when questioned of them.

Touching the northern limits of Newport is a placid little basin called Coddington's Cove. It is a remembrancer of the old governor. The last Coddington inherited an ample estate, upon the principal of which, like Heine's monkey, who boiled and ate his own tail, he lived, until there was no more left. The Cossacks have a proverb: "He eats both ends of his candle at once." Having dissipated his ancestral patrimony to the last farthing, the thriftless and degenerate Coddington descended all the steps from shabby gentility to actual destitution; yet, through all these reverses, he maintained the bearing of a fine gentleman. One day he was offered a new suit of clothes – his own had the threadbare gloss of long application of the brush – for the Coddington escutcheon that had descended to him. Drawing himself up with the old look and air, he indignantly exclaimed, "What, sell the coat of arms of a Coddington!" Nevertheless, he at last became an inmate of the poor-house at Coddington's Cove; and that is the way the family escutcheon came to be hanging in the City Hall. I tell you the story as it was told to me.

The Wanton House, still pointed out in Thames Street, may be known by its ornamented cornice and general air of superior condition. It stands within a stone's-throw of the City Hall. The Wantons, like the Malbones, Godfreys, Brentons, Wickhams, Cranstons, and other high-sounding Newport names, were merchants. Like the Wentworths of New Hampshire, this was a family, I might almost say a dynasty, of governors. When one Wanton went out, another came in. It was the house of Wanton, governing, with few intervals, from 1732, until swept from place by the Revolution.259 As the king never dies, at the exit of a Wanton the sheriff should have announced, "The governor is dead. Long live the governor!"

Joseph Wanton, the last governor of Rhode Island under the crown, was the son of William. He was a Harvard man, amiable, wealthy, of elegant manners, and handsome person. In the description of his outward appearance we are told that he "wore a large white wig with three curls, one falling down his back, and one forward on each shoulder." I have nowhere met with an earlier claimant of the fashion so recently in vogue among young ladies who had hearts to lose.

Turning out of narrow and noisy Thames Street into the broader and quieter avenues ascending the hill, we find ourselves on the Parade before the State-house. Broad Street, which enters it on one side, was the old Boston high-road; Touro Street, debouching at the other, loses its identity ere long in Bellevue Avenue, and is, beyond comparison, the pleasantest walk in Newport.

The Parade, also called Washington Square, is the delta into which the main avenues of Newport flow. It is, therefore, admirably calculated as a starting-point for those street rambles that every visitor has enjoyed in anticipation. On this ground I saw some companies of the Newport Artillery going through their evolutions with the steadiness of old soldiers. Their organization goes back to 1741, and is maintained with an esprit de corps that a people not long since engaged in war ought to know how to estimate at its true value. A custom of the corps, as I have heard, was to fire a feu de joie under the windows of a newly married comrade; if a commissioned officer, a field-piece.

At the right of the Parade, and a little above the hotel of his name, stands the house purchased by Commodore Perry after the battle of Lake Erie; in Clarke Street, near-by, is the church in which Dr. Stiles, afterward president of Yale, preached, built in 1733; and next beyond is the gun-house of the Newport Artillery.

The State-house is a pleasing, though not imposing, building, known to all evening promenaders in Newport by the illuminated clock in the pediment of the façade. It is in the style of colonial architecture of the middle of the last century, having two stories, with a wooden balustrade surmounting the roof. The pediment of the front is topped by a cupola, and underneath is a balcony, from which proclamations, with "God save the king" at the end of them, have been read to assembled colonists; as in these latter days, on the last Tuesday of May, which is the annual election in Rhode Island, after a good deal of parading about the streets, the officials elect are here introduced by the high sheriff with a flourish of words: "Hear ye! Take notice that his Excellency, Governor – , of Dashville, is elected governor, commander-in-chief, and captain-general of Rhode Island for the year ensuing. God save the State of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations!" The candidate smiles, bows, and withdraws, and the populace, as in duty bound, cheers itself hoarse. It loves the old forms, though some of them seem cumbrous for "Little Rhody." Sometimes a sheriff has been known to get his formula "out of joint," and to tack the words "for the year ensuing" at the end of the invocation.

During the Revolution the State-house was used as a hospital by British and French, and of course much abused. In the restoration some little savor of its ancient quaintness is missed. The interior has paneled wainscoting, carved balusters, and wood-work in the old style of elegance. The walls of the Senate chamber are sheathed quite up to the ceiling, in beautiful paneling, relieved by a massive cornice. Stuart's full-length portrait of Washington, in the well-known black velvet and ruffles, is here. I have somewhere seen that the French "desecrated," as some would say, the building by raising an altar on which to say mass for the sick and dying. In the garret I saw a section of the old pillory that formerly stood in the vacant space before the building. Many think the restoration of stocks, whipping-post, and pillory would do more to-day to suppress petty crimes than months of imprisonment. They still cling in Delaware to their whipping-post. There, they assert, the dread of public exposure tends to lessen crime.

The pillory, which a few living persons remember, was usually on a movable platform, which the sheriff could turn at pleasure, making the culprit front the different points of the compass it was the custom to insert in the sentence. Whipping at the cart's tail was also practiced.

One of the finest old characters Rhode Island has produced was Tristram Burgess, who administered to that dried-up bundle of malignity, John Randolph, a rebuke so scathing that the Virginian was for the time completely silenced. Having roused the Rhode Islander by his Satanic sneering at Northern character and thrift, his merciless criticism, and incomparably bitter sarcasm, Burgess dealt him this sentence on the floor of Congress: "Moral monsters can not propagate; we rejoice that the father of lies can never become the father of liars."

It was at first intended to place the State-house with its front toward what was then known as "the swamp," in the direction of Farewell Street. In 1743 it was completed. Rhode Island may with advantage follow the lead of Connecticut in abolishing one of its seats of government. At present its constitution provides that the Assembly shall meet and organize at Newport, and hold an adjourned session at Providence.260

Walking onward and upward in Touro Street, the visitor sees at its junction with Kay Street what he might easily mistake for a pretty and well-tended garden, but for the mortuary emblems sculptured on the gate-way. The chaste and beautiful design of this portal, even to the inverted flambeaux, is a counterpart of that of the Old Granary ground at Boston. This is the Jewish Cemetery.

"How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,Close by the street of this fair sea-port town.Silent beside the never-silent waves,At rest in all this moving up and down!"And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,That pave with level flags their burial-place,Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown downAnd broken by Moses at the mountain's base."

Close at hand is the synagogue, in which services are no longer held, though, like the cemetery, it is scrupulously cared for.261 The silence and mystery which brood over each are deepened by this reverent guardianship of unseen hands. In 1762 the synagogue was dedicated with the solemnities of Jewish religious usage. It was then distinguished as the best building of its kind in the country. The interior was rich and elegant. Over the reading-desk hung a large brass chandelier; in the centre, and at proper distances around it, four others. On the front of the desk stood a pair of highly ornamented brass candlesticks, and at the entrance on the east side were four others of the same size and workmanship. As usual, there was for the women a gallery, screened with carved net-work, resting on columns. Over this gallery another rank of columns supported the roof. It was the commonly received opinion that the lamp hanging above the altar was never extinguished.

The Hebrews began to settle on the island before 1677. The deed of their ancient burial-place is dated in this year. They first worshiped in a private house. Accessions came to them from Spain, from Portugal, and from Holland, with such names as Lopez, Riveriera, Seixas, and Touro, until the congregation numbered as many as three hundred families. The stranger becomes familiar with the name of Touro, which at first he would have Truro, from the street and park, no less than the respect with which it is pronounced by all old residents. The Hebrews of old Newport seem to have fulfilled the destiny of their race, becoming scattered, and finally extinct. Moses Lopez is said to have been the last resident Jew, though, unless I mistake, the Hebrew physiognomy met me more than once in Newport. This fraction formed one of the curious constituents of Newport society. Its history is ended, and "Finis" might be written above the entrances of synagogue and cemetery.

Lord Chesterfield once told Lady Shirley, in a serious conversation on the evidences of Christianity, that there was one which he thought to be invincible, namely, the present state of the Jews – a fact to be accounted for on no human principle. The Hebrew customs have remained inviolate amidst all the strange mutations which time has brought. The Sabbath by which Shylock registered his wicked oath is still the Christian's Saturday. In the Jewish burial rite the grave was filled in by the nearest of kin.

In no other cemetery in New England have I been so impressed with the sanctity, the inviolability of the last resting-place of the dead, as here among the graves of a despised people. The idea of eternal rest seemed really present. Not long since I heard the people of a thriving suburb discussing the removal of their old burial-place, bodily – I mean no play upon the word – to the skirts of the town. Being done, it was thought the land would pay for the removal, and prove a profitable speculation. Since Abraham gave four hundred shekels of silver for the field of Ephron, the Israelites have reverenced the sepulchres wherein they bury their dead. Here is religion without ostentation. In our great mausoleums is plenty of ostentation, but little religion.

The visitor here may note another distinctive custom of this ancient people. The inscription above the gate reads, "Erected 5603, from a bequest made by Abraham Touro."262 They compute the passage of time from the creation.

An hour, or many hours, may be well spent in the Redwood Library, founded by Abraham Redwood,263 one of the Quaker magnates of old Newport. His fine and kindly face has been carefully reproduced in the engraving. The library building is in the pure yet severe style of a Greek temple. The painter Stuart considered it classical and refined. It has a cool and secluded look, standing back from the street and shaded by trees, that is inviting to the appreciative visitor. This is one of the institutions of Newport which all may praise without stint. It has grown with its growth; yet, after repeated enlargements, the increased collections in art and literature of this store-house of thought have demanded greater space.