Newport Historical Society

John Austen Stevens, image from the NHS collections.

John Austin Stevens (1827-1910), of Rhode Island Avenue, was a prominent historian, author, editor and served as librarian of the New-York Historical Society and secretary of the New York Chamber of Commerce. In 1875 he founded The Society of the Sons of the Revolution, a hereditary organization for descendents of Revolutionary Officers, who could not qualify for membership in the older and more exclusive Society of the Cincinnati. In 1904 Stevens and the Sons of the Revolution purchased Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan and established a museum which celebrates George Washington’s farewell banquet for his troops at the end of the War. Stevens spent his final days in Newport and his papers are part of the Society’s extensive library holdings.

The Newport Historical Society's white lilac shrub.

The large and fragrant white lilacs that grace the west side of the NHS headquarters building on Touro Street is in full bloom. Legend has it that this shrub, towering to the second story of the building, is descended from lilacs that the French brought to Newport in 1780 when they came to aid the patriot cause during the American Revolution. Throughout history, lilacs have been known as “the poor man’s flower” for their ease of transporting and transplanting.

Lilacs can be found throughout Newport; while we do not know if the legend is true, this ancient “Newport Historical” specimen is particularly lovely.

A photograph of Seaview Terrace from the NHS collections.

We recently noted the passing of Jonathon Frid, who played the vampire Barnabas Collins in the 1970s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. Images of SEAVIEW TERRACE on Ruggles Avenue were used in the opening and closing credits of the series, which was filmed on a sound stage in NYC. A later “reincarnation” of Dark Shadows featured actress Joanna Going, whose family owned THE ISAAC BELL HOUSE on Bellevue Avenue.

Seaview Terrace was remodeled by Edson Bradley in 1925 to accommodate the finished rooms he imported from his Washington DC residence. It has served as a summer cottage and as a variety of schools.

Article written by Cholly Knickerbocker from the NHS Collections

Before the days of e-news and Extra, Exra, Americans needed to wait for their weekly newspaper to find out the latest reports on society and celebrity happenings. One of the most enduring gossip columnists of the early 20th century was “Cholly Knickerbocker” of the New York American newspaper. The first Cholly was Maury Henry Biddle Paul (1890-1942) who wielded great power as a “make or break” reporter of social behavior status. In 1919 he reengineered Mrs. Astor’s and Ward McAllister’s original 400 list into a term he coined “Café Society.” It was an updated stratification of society based on public appearances, celebrity affiliations and a faster lifestyle. Inclusion in Paul’s gossip column was both sought after and feared by the old guard and the new rich. Edith Munroe of “Rockry Hall” on Bellevue Avenue succeeded in capturing his attention and provided a photo of herself.

Letter written by Cholly Knickerbocker from the NHS Collections

Postcard labeled "Beechwood/Residence of John Jacob Astor" from the NHS collections

John Jacob Astor of Beechwood, Bellevue Avenue. Wife survived six months pregnant and gave birth to JJ Astor 5th who lived until 1992.

Margaret Tobin Brown, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” of Colorado. Rented Meunchinger-King cottage on Redwood Street and Bellevue Avenue. Suffrage partner of Alva Vanderbilt at Marble House rally. Click here to read more from a previous History Bytes.

William Earnest Carter and family all survived. Lived at Quarterfoil on Narragansett Avenue.

William C. Dulles perished. Lived next to Carters.

Margaret B. Hayes survived and married Dr. Charles Easton. Buried at St. Mary’s in Portsmouth, RI.

James Clinch Smith and family perished, lived at corner of Harrison and Halidon Avenues.

George D. Widener of Philadelphia. Wife survived and built Miramar on Bellevue Avenue in 1914. She remarried Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice.

Karl Howel Behr, visitor tennis champion.

Clarence Bloomfield Moore, visitor Horse Show participant.

Richard Norris Williams, visitor tennis champion.

The back of the card is postmarked April 9, 1912, just days before the Titanic sank. From the NHS collections.

A detail of the brownstone above a window at the 1739 Colony House, which is currently being restored.

Godfrey Malbone was a prominent merchant from Virginia, best known for financing the construction of Trinity Church in 1725 and erecting the original Malbone estate on Malbone Road. Godfrey and his son Col. Godfrey, Jr. also had interests in Brooklyn, Connecticut, near Pomfret, where he erected another Trinity Church in 1770. His vast Connecticut land holdings also included large deposits of brown sandstone, which he quarried and imported to Newport for building material that was durable and easier to cut than slate or granite. Some of the places that feature Malbone’s stone include:

• The Colony House window trim and sidesteps
• Trinity Church
• Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House
• Brick Market
• The foundation of the Masonic Hall on School Street, started by Peter Harrison in 1756
• Numerous private house foundations and steps
• Gravestones in the Common Burying Ground

The Barney Street Cemetery. The NHS headquarters (the red brick building) can be seen in the background.

The first Irish Catholic parish in Newport was established in 1828 and occupied the old Eleazer Trevett schoolhouse near the corner of Barney and Mt. Vernon Streets. As the parish grew, it replaced the old schoolhouse with a new chapel, which was used until the construction of St. Mary’s Church on Spring Street in 1852. The old chapel building was dismantled and moved, leaving an abandoned and neglected cemetery of early immigrant worshippers. The site was later restored and the 24 surviving gravestones were gathered together and placed on the side of the chapel building, highlighted by a large stone Celtic cross. Subsequent preservation efforts were made by the Museum of Newport Irish History and interested neighbors.

The oldest gravestones date back to 1834, many years before the Great Famine of the 1840s. The inscriptions reveal the precise town and county of birth in Ireland, a fact often ignored by record keepers in state and local government.

Newport has long been a destination for U.S. presidents, past and future. The following is a list of presidents whose visits have been documented by the press and historians. Many past and future presidents have been house guests and dinner guests in private homes without knowledge of the press or public.

There are many items in the NHS collections with presidential connections. One example is this photograph which shows former President Theodore Roosevelt (Colonel Theodore Roosevelt) meeting with Captain Edward H. Campbell, Commandant, which took place at the Naval Training Station in Newport on October 17, 1918.

George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

James Monroe

John Quincy Adams

Andrew Jackson

Martin VanBuren

John Tyler

James Polk

Millard Fillmore

James Buchanan

Ulysses Grant

Rutherford Hayes

Chester Arthur

Grover Cleveland

Benjamin Harrison

Theodore Roosevelt

William Howard Taft

Franklin Roosevelt

Dwight Eisenhower

John Kennedy

Richard Nixon

Gerald Ford

Ronald Reagan

George H. W. Bush

William Clinton

George W. Bush

Lottery tickets printed in 1785, probably on the Franklin Press and signed by Samuel Vernon III. They were issued by the Second Congregational Church on Clarke Street to raise funds toward the restoration of the church and parsonage which “were in a great measure destroyed” by their use as a British army hospital during the occupation.

In the recent press about the Newport Gardner letter purchased by the NHS, much has been made of the report that he “won the lottery” and bought his freedom. In the colonial and early federal period, lotteries were used to raise money for all kinds of public and private works: building a school or church, laying a road, opening a mine. Tickets were sold to anyone who had the cash, and in fact apprentices, servants and enslaved individuals, here in Newport and elsewhere, bought chances for all the reasons that folks do today.

While the information currently available to us is contradictory about whether Gardner bought his freedom or was freely manumitted, it does seem clear that he, and three associates, won the proceeds of a lottery in 1791. The award is mentioned in several letters and reminiscences from the early 19^th century, and here is a confirming newspaper report:     

From the “Salem Gazette,” May 10, 1791.

No. 17221, which drew 2000 dollars in the Semi-annual State lottery, was paid on Friday laſt, by Meſſrs. Leach and Foſdick, in Boſton. The proprietors were four Africans belonging to Newport.

Most important to note, however, is the fact the Gardner was actively assembling money by hiring himself out during his free time while still enslaved. This practice was not uncommon in urban New England during the period of slavery. If he bought his freedom, and that of his family, it was not because of a single stroke of luck, but rather because of years of hard and continual work.

A Valentine from the NHS Collections

Embossed, paper lace Valentine greeting cards first appeared in England around 1803 and became more popular with advances in printing and manufacturing. By the 1840s, giving Valentine cards was a widespread practice in America.

At the forefront of Valentine manufacturing was Esther Allen Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, MA, who started mass producing cards in 1847, shortly after her graduation from Mount Holyoke College. The daughter of a Plymouth sea captain and bookbinder, Esther’s business flourished through the 1880s when she sold her interests to the George C. Whitney Company who produced her card designs until 1941. Esther was a direct descendant of John Howland of the Mayflower and shared family ties with many Newporters including Catherine Howland, the wife of architect Richard Morris Hunt.