Collections: Artifact
The artifact collections are exhibited in four historic properties concentrated within a four-block area of Newport’s colonial city. Three of those properties are owned by the Society:
- NHS Headquarters at 82 Touro Street, including the Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House (built in 1730 and enlarged in 1905 and 1915);
- The Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House (built ca. 1696 and restored by the Society in the 1920s); and
- The Great Friends Meeting House (built in 1699 with several subsequent additions, and restored in the late 1960s).
The fourth property, the 1762 Brick Market designed by Peter Harrison, is owned by the City of Newport and maintained by the Historical Society as the Museum of Newport History, its principal exhibition space. Of the Society’s 10,000 objects, the vast majority–over 95 percent–are in storage.
Guidelines for Research at the Newport Historical Society
The major categories of Artifact Collections at the Newport Historical Society are as follows:
- Fine and Decorative Arts
- Furniture
- Musical Instruments
- Textiles and Clothing
- Artifacts of Everyday Life
- Architectural Fragments
- Antiquities
Fine & Decorative Arts
Furniture
Textiles & Clothing
Architectural Fragments
