Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

The comfortable and contented lives of the French soldiers daily astonished our poor and tattered, but unconquerable ragamuffins. At parade they appeared so neat and gentleman-like as hardly to be distinguished from their officers. They were paid every week, and seemed to want for nothing. No sentinel was allowed to stand on his post without a warm watch-coat to cover him. The officers treated their soldiers with attention, humanity, and respect, neglecting no means of inculcating sentiments of honor. Stealing was held by them in abhorrence. As a consequence, punishments were extremely rare, desertions unfrequent, and the health of the troops excellent.

Speculations more or less unfavorable to French disinterestedness, more or less destructive of American enthusiasm for the alliance, must arise from a knowledge of the secret policy of France in coming to the aid of democracy. Possibly she hoped for the reconquest of Canada. Rochambeau would have first employed his forces against Castine, had he not been overruled. That would have been curious, indeed, to have seen France re-established at old Pentagoët, carrying war into Canada, as, more than a century previous and from the same vantage-ground, she had carried it into New England. Not much later she tried to wheedle and then to bully us into ceding to her the island of Rhode Island, in order, as urged by her, to prevent its being seized again at any future time by Great Britain. Her armed intervention was of little worth compared with the moral effect of the alliance.

Pierre du Guast had groped his way along the coast in 1605, seeking a habitation. He, and his lieutenant, Poutrincourt, had well-nigh reached their goal when compelled to turn back, baffled, for wintry Acadia. A French colony, in 1605, upon Aquidneck might have changed the order of history, and rendered impossible the events of which this chapter is the skeleton.

CHAPTER XXV.

NEWPORT CEMETERIES

"Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession." – Shakspeare.

Assuming the looker-on to be free from all qualms on the subject of grave-yard associations, I invite him to loiter with me awhile among the tombstones of buried Newport. As we thread the streets of the town, sign-boards or door-plates inform us who are the occupants; and in pursuing the narrow paths of the burial-place, the tablets set up denote, not only the final residences, but symbolize the dread of the world's forgetfulness, of those who sleep there. The analogy might still be pursued, as it was an old custom to inscribe the occupation and birthplace upon a memorial stone. Here is one I found in the old ground adjoining Rhode Island Cemetery:

Here lyeth the Bodyof Roger BasterBachelor Block mackrAged 66 yeres He Dyed23 Day of Aprel 1687He was one of the First Beginers of a Chvrch of Christ obsrving —Of the 7th Day Sabbath of THE LORD INNE AND BEGAN 23D IS 1671

The grave-yards are the first green spots. Dandelions, buttercups, and daisies blossom earliest there. The almost imperceptible shading-off of winter into spring is signaled by tufts of freshly springing grass on the sunny side of a grave-stone; the birds build betimes among the tree-branches of the cemetery. Your grave-maker is always a merry fellow, who cares no more for carved cross-bones than for the clay-pipes so artistically crossed in shop-windows.

I found many stones dating from 1726 to 1800, but even these had become much defaced by time. Where freestone slabs had been used, the inscriptions were either illegible or quite obliterated. Some of the older slate stones had been painted to protect them from the weather. The city takes commendable care of the grounds; yet I could not help thinking that a little money might be well spent in renewing the fading inscriptions. Throughout the inclosure the pious chisel of some "Old Mortality" is painfully in request.

In a retired part of the ground I found two horizontal slabs – one of white, the other red, freestone – lying side by side over man and wife. I transcribed the epitaph of the wife, as the more characteristic:

Here lyeth the body of HarteGarde the wife of Iohn GardeMerchant who departed thisthe 16 day of September AnDom 1660Aged 55 years

Another slate stone contained the singular inscription given in the engraving; and still another was lettered:

In Memory OfMrs. Elizabeth Linturn widow for manyyears a noted midwifeShe departed this lifeOctober 23d 1758In the 63d year of her ageIn the old Common Burying-ground is the following plaint:Here doth Simon Parrett lyeWhose wrongs did for justice cryBut none could haueAnd now the GraueKeeps him from InivrieWho Departed this lifeThe 23 Day of May 1718Aged 84 years

Farewell Street, by which you approach the principal cemetery of Newport, is not ill-named. The ground, a generally level area, permits the eye to roam over the whole region of graves. Glimpses of the bay and of the islands dispersed so picturesquely about it harmonize with the calm of the place. Sails drift noiselessly by, and the fragrance of evergreens and of eglantine perfumes the air. There was breeze enough to bring the strains of martial music from the fort even here.

It is stated, I know not how authoritatively, that the Hessians, whose hospital was close at hand, defaced many stones here by altering the inscriptions. Here is buried William Ellery,289 one of the signers of the Declaration. On the day of his death he rose as usual, dressed, and seated himself in the old flag-bottomed chair which he had sat in for more than half a century. Here he remained reading a volume of Cicero in Latin until his physician, who had dropped in, perceived that he could scarcely raise his eyelids to look at him. The doctor found his pulse gone. After giving him a little wine and water, Dr. W – told him his pulse beat stronger. "Oh, yes, doctor, I have a charming pulse," expressing at the same time his conviction that his life was nearly ended, and his thankfulness that he was to pass away free from sickness or pain. He at last consented to be placed upright in bed, so that he might continue reading. He died thus without attracting the notice of his attendants, like a man who becomes drowsy and falls asleep, sitting in the same posture, with the book under his chin. Here is also the tomb of Governor Cranston, and the gray stone slab with typical skull and cross-bones, on which is graven the name of William Jefferay, said to have been one of Charles Stuart's judges. Among other specimens of grave-yard literature is the inscription to Christopher Ellery: "The Human Form respected for its honesty, and known for fifty-three years by the appellation of Christopher Ellery, began to dissolve in the month of February, 1789."

There is not so much quaintness in the epitaphs here as in the old Puritan grave-yards of Boston and Salem; less even of stateliness, of pomp, and of human pride than is usual. I missed the Latin, the blazonry, and the sounding detail of public service so often seen spread over every inch of crumbling old tombstones. The grotesque emblems of skull, cross-bones, and hour-glass – bugbears to frighten children – change in a generation or two to weeping-willows, urns, and winged cherubs. These are in turn discarded for sculptured types of angels, lambs, doves, and lilies; of broken columns and chaplets. This departure from the horrible for the beautiful is not matter for regret. In these symbols we get all the religion of the place, and Death is robbed of half his repulsiveness.

On a grassy knoll in Rhode Island Cemetery the visitor sees the granite obelisk, erected by the State to the memory of the victorious young captain who, at twenty-seven, gained imperishable renown. Ardent, chivalrous, and brave, Perry showed the true inspiration of battle in taking his flag to a ship still able to fight. His laconic dispatch, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours," is modestly exultant. The marble tablet of the monument's east face has the words,

OLIVER HAZARD PERRYAt the Age of Twenty-seven Years,He AchievedThe Victory of Lake Erie,September 10, 1813

Within the neat iron fence that surrounds the monument are also the graves of Perry's widow, Elizabeth Champlin, and of his eldest son, Christopher Grant Perry, with the fresher one of Rev. Francis Vinton, whose wife was a daughter of the naval hero. From this spot the bay and all ancient Newport are visible. Another monument in the cemetery is in memory of General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, "dead on the field of honor."

A prevailing ingredient of Newport society in the olden days was, doubtless, the Quaker element. As the religious asylum of New England, it alike received Jew and Gentile, Quaker and Anabaptist, followers of the Church of England and of Rome. Its complexion at the beginning of the eighteenth century might be in harmony with religious freedom, though little homogeneous; and although there was plenty of toleration, its religious character has been vaunted overmuch. It commands a passing thought that all these human components intermingling and assimilating in the active duties of life, separate in death. Their burial must be distinct.

The Quaker-meeting has contributed to our vocabulary a synonym for dullness. Old England and New were in accord in persecuting the sect. It is related of a number under sentence of banishment to America, that soldiers from the Tower carried them on board the ships, the Friends refusing to walk and the sailors to hoist them on board. In the year 1662 Hannah Wright came from Long Island, several hundred miles to the "bloody town of Boston," into the court, and warned the magistrates to spill no more innocent blood. They were at first abashed by the solemn fervor of their accuser, until Rawson, the secretary, exclaimed, "What! Shall we be baffled by such a one as this? Come, let us drink a dram."

The sufferings of the Friends in New England were heightened, no doubt, by the zeal of some to embrace martyrdom, who, in giving way to the promptings of religious fanaticism, outraged public decency, and shamed the name of modesty in woman. Deborah Wilson went through the streets of Salem naked as she came into the world, for which she was well whipped. Two other Quaker women, says Mather, were whipped in Boston, "who came as stark naked as ever they were born into our public assemblies." This exhibition was meant to be a sign of religious nakedness in others; but the Puritans preferred to consider it an offense against good morals, and not a Godiva-like penance for the general sinfulness.290

The Society of Friends is the youngest of the four surviving societies which date from the Reformation, and is, without doubt, the sternest protest against the ceremonial religion of Rome. George Fox, who preached at Newport,291 was the son of a Leicestershire weaver, beginning his public assertion of religious sentiments at the age of twenty-two. The pillory sometimes served him for a pulpit. He once preached with such power to the populace that they rescued him "in a tumultuous manner," setting a clergy-man who had been instrumental in his punishment upon the same pillory.

Pagan superstition having originated most of the names bestowed by custom on the days and months, the Friends ignore them, substituting in their place "first day" and "first month," "second day" and "second month" for those occurring at the beginning of our calendar. The Society does not sanction appeals by its members to courts of law, but refers disputes to arbitration, a practice well worthy imitation.

George Fox mentions in his "Journal" his interview in England with Simon Bradstreet and Rev. John Norton, the agents whom Massachusetts had sent over in answer to the command of Charles II. Says Fox, "We had several discourses with them concerning their murdering our friends, but they were ashamed to stand to their bloody actions. I asked Simon Bradstreet, one of the New England magistrates, whether he had not an hand in putting to death these four whom they hanged for being Quakers? He confessed he had. I then demanded of him and his associates then present if they acknowledged themselves subject to the laws of England? They said they did. I then said by what law do you put our friends to death? They answered, By the same law as the Jesuits were put to death in England. I then asked if those Friends were Jesuits? They said nay. Then, said I, ye have murdered them."292

The first Quakers came to Rhode Island in 1656. Roger Williams, in his "George Fox digged out of his Burrowes," shows that tolerance did not go so far with him as the Quaker fashion of wearing the hair long and flowing. Speaking of one he met who accosted him with the salutation, "Fear the Lord God," Williams says he retorted, "What God dost thou mean – a ruffian's God?" Through Fox's preaching some of Cromwell's soldiers became converted, and would not fight. He lies in the old London burying-ground of Bunhill Fields, among the Dissenters.

The objection of the sect to sepulchral stones leaves little to be remarked of the Quaker burying-ground in Newport.293 Notwithstanding the non-resistant principles of the Friends, it stands in strong light that Nathaniel Greene, a Quaker, and Oliver Hazard Perry, the descendant of a Quaker, were conspicuous figures in two of our wars. Few innovations have appeared in the manners, customs, or dress of the followers of George Fox.294 Their broad-brims, sober garb, and sedate carriage, their "thee" and "thou," may still occasionally be seen and heard in Newport streets.

Newport contains several widely scattered burial-places, some of them hardly more in appearance than family groups of graves. Not all exhibit the care bestowed upon such as are more prominently before the public eye. The little Clifton cemetery, at the head of Golden Hill Street, was in a wretched plight. A crazy wooden paling afforded little or no protection from intrusion. But there was no incentive to linger among its few corroded monuments and accumulated rubbish. Here are buried the Wantons, of whom Edward, the ancestor of the name in Newport, fled from Scituate, Massachusetts, during the Quaker persecutions.

When Washington was at Cambridge, besieging Boston, he sent Charles Lee to look after "those of Rhode Island" who were still for King George. Lee administered to the Tories who would take it an oath as whimsical as characteristic. He knew the fondness of these old royalists for old wine, good dinners, and fine raiment. They were required to swear fidelity to the Whig cause "by their hope of present ease and comfort, as well as the dread hereafter." Colonel Wanton refused the oath, and was, I presume, of those whom Lee had taken to Providence with the threat of forwarding them to the American camp.

Another isolated field of graves is that usually called the Coddington burial-ground, containing the remains of Governor Coddington and kindred. A stone erected on the second centennial anniversary of the settlement of Newport, compresses in a few lines the chief events of his history:

"To the memory of William Coddington, Esq., that illustrious man who first purchased this island from the Narraganset sachems, Canonicus and Miantonimo, for and on account of himself and seventeen others, his associates in the purchase and settlement. He presided many years as Chief Magistrate of the Island and Colony of Rhode Island, and died, much respected and lamented, November 1st, 1678, aged 78 years."295

Lechford, in his "Plain Dealing," relates a circumstance that has caused some inquiry into the ecclesiastical polity of Coddington and his associates. "There lately," he says, "they whipt one master Gorton, a grave man, for denying their power, and abusing some of their magistrates with uncivill tearmes; the governor, master Coddington, saying in court, 'You that are for the king, lay hold on Gorton;' and he again, on the other side, called forth, 'All you that are for the king, lay hold on Coddington.' Whereupon Gorton was banished the island." Gorton was the founder of Warwick, Rhode Island.

There is a little inclosure at the upper end of Thames Street in which is a granite obelisk to the memory of John Coggeshall, president of the plantations under their first patent. The name was originally Coxehall. It is the same John Coggeshall briefly met with in the trial scene, to whom a lineal descendant has raised this monument.

Other burial-places may be enumerated, but that lying in the shadow of Trinity Church is probably first to challenge the attention of such as seek to read the annals of the past on memorial stones. The church steeple, with gilded crown on the pinnacle – how these churchmen love the old emblems! – was in full view from my window, slender and graceful, the gilded vane flashing in the morning sun, itself a monument of its ancient flock below.

Here are the names of Hunter, of Kay, of Honyman, and of Malbone: all are to be met with in Newport streets or annals. The presence of foreign armies on the isle is emphasized by the burial of French and British officers in this church-yard. A few family escutcheons designate the ancient adherence to the dogma that all men were not created politically free and equal. One of the unaccustomed objects the stranger sees in peering through the railings of these old church-yards is the blazonry of which the possessors were once so proud, and which is now carried with them to their graves. In cavities where leaden coats of arms have once been imbedded are little basins to catch the rain, where careless sparrows drink and take their morning baths, twittering and chirruping among the homesteads of the dead.

Stuart, who was fond of rambling through the old grave-yards, reading the inscriptions, went to Trinity. He mentions his pew, and the sweetness of the organ, the gift of Berkeley. The painter had a Scotsman's inordinate fondness for snuff, and would be most naturally drawn with palette in one hand and a huge pinch of snuff in the other. A resident of the same street once told me that when Stuart's table-cloth was shaken out at the window the whole street sneezed. He was a good talker and listener, though crabbed and eccentric to a degree.

I venture to contribute to the already portentous number the following anecdote of Stuart: Dining one day at the house of Josiah Quincy, his attention was attracted by an engraving of West's "Battle of the Boyne." "Ah!" said Stuart, "I was studying with West when he was at work on that picture, and had to lie for hours on the floor, dressed in armor, for him to paint me in the foreground as the Duke of Schomberg. At last West said, 'Are you dead, Stuart?' 'Only half, sir,' was my reply; and my answer was true; for the stiffness of the armor almost deprived me of sensation. Then I had to sit for hours on a horse belonging to King George, to represent King William. After the painting was finished, an Irishman who saw it observed to West, 'You have the battle-ground there correct enough, but where is the monument? I was in Ireland the other day and saw it.' He expected to see a memorial of the battle in a representation of its commencement."296

In the yard of the Congregational Church in Spring Street is a slate grave-stone to the memory of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, settled as pastor of the First Congregational Church of Newport, in 1770. At first his sentiments were so little pleasing to his people that it was voted by the church not to give him a call; but the doctor preached a farewell sermon of such beauty and impressiveness that the vote was recalled, and Hopkins consented to remain. The salient points of his character have furnished the hero for Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing." The First Congregational Church of Newport was established in 1720.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TO MOUNT HOPE, AND BEYOND

"La mattina al monte, e la sera al fonte." —Italian Proverb

Mohammed, it is said, on viewing the delicious and alluring situation of Damascus, would not enter that city, but turned away with the exclamation, "There is but one paradise for man, and I am determined to have mine in the other world."

I started on my morning walk up the island just as the clocks were striking eight. Spring comes in Newport very early and very verdant. The bloom of orchard and of lilac greeted me. At every step I crushed the perfume out of violets blossoming in the strip of greensward that bordered the broad band of road. I often looked back upon the fortunate city, mounting the green slopes and scattering itself among the quiet fields. The last point of land was visible even down to Point Judith. A faint roll of drums reached me from the fort. Good-bye to a pleasant place! I felt, in turning away, that if Damascus had been like Newport, I should have entered Damascus.

Distant about a mile from Newport is "Tonomy," or more properly Miantonimo Hill. It is the highest elevation in the southern part of the island, receiving its name as the seat of a sachem. Some remains of field-works are seen on its slopes.297

Near the southern foot of Miantonimo Hill is the old Malbone place, the site of a colonial mansion celebrated in its day as the finest in Newport. It was destroyed by fire rather more than a century ago. Tradition avers that Colonel Godfrey Malbone, seeing his house in flames, ordered the table removed to the lawn, and coolly finished his dinner there. It was a two-story stone-built house, which had cost the owner a hundred thousand dollars.

Many are the dark, vague, and mysterious hints let fall from time to time relative to the life of Malbone. As a merchant his ventures are said to have been lawless even for his lawless age. His corsairs preyed upon the commerce of Frenchman or Spaniard without regard for treaties. Rum and slaves were the commodities in which the Newport of his time trafficked largely. Smuggling was hardly deemed dishonorable in a merchant. As confirming this easy condition of commercial virtue, a writer mentions having seen in Malbone's garden the entrance of one of those subterranean passages leading to the shore I have so often unearthed.

During the French war of George II., Newport, from its beginning to the year 1744, had armed and sent to sea more than a score of privateers. It was called the nursery of corsairs. It was also called rich; and the French, in planning its capture, facilitated by the information of a resident French merchant, a spy, calculated on levying a heavy contribution. "Perhaps we had better burn it, as a pernicious hole, from the number of privateers there fitted out, as dangerous in peace as in war; being a sort of freebooter, who confiscates à tord et à travers," say they. These harsh expressions sound strangely unfamiliar when contrasted with French panegyric of the next generation.

Edward G. Malbone, a natural son, belonged to a collateral branch of the family.298 Newport was the birthplace of this exquisite miniature painter and most refined of men. This refinement appears in his works, which are full of artistic grace and dainty delicacy. Little of his life was passed here, though that little is much prized by all who know his worth as a man. Allston and Malbone are said to have worked together in Newport as pupils of Samuel King, beginning thus the friendship that so long subsisted between them.

About midway of the island, on the eastern shore, is The Glen, once more frequented than at present. A line carried across the island from this point would pass near the old farmstead, which was the quarters of the British general, Prescott. It is on the west road leading by the most direct route from Newport to Bristol Ferry.

Colonel Barton, whose station was at Tiverton, conceived the idea of releasing General Lee, then a prisoner, by securing General Prescott. Having matured his plans, he crossed over to Warwick Neck, where he was detained two days by a violent storm. With him were forty volunteers, who manned five whale-boats. The enemy were then in possession of both Canonicut and Prudence islands, with some shipping lying under the little isle, called Hope, which is between Prudence and the western shore of the bay.

On the night of the 9th of July, 1711, every thing being favorable, Barton informed his men for the first time where they were going. His party embarked in their boats, rowing between Patience and Prudence in order to elude the enemy's guard-boats. Meeting with no obstacle, they coasted the west shore of Prudence, passed around the southern end, and landed on Rhode Island. They then pushed on for Overing's house, where they knew General Prescott was to be found.