Volume 72, Number 248, Spring 2003

A New England Chair Design of 1730-1760 and Attributions to the Job Townsends of Newport, Rhode Island
Milo M. Naeve

Relatively recent interest in American furniture as a humanist discipline is revealed by shifting intellectual foundations for attributions. Changes typically are evident in opinions about a rare form of New England side chair. It dates from about 1730 to about 1760 and lacks documentation for origin. The design is unique in Anglo-American furniture. It holds dynamic appeal among connoisseurs for the remarkably successful interaction of curves.
Judgments about the source of the side chairs have shifted over the last century from “American” to “Job Townsend, father or son, of Newport in the Rhode Island colony” and, recently, to “Boston in the Massachusetts Bay colony.” These attributions are assessed in this article and the chairs reassigned to “Coastal New England.” This shift from the general to the specific and back to the general is a common sequence within the greater depth and wider scope of research over the twentieth century.
The new attribution rests on more than new interpretations of existing documentation. It significantly relies on analysis of design and construction for eighteen of the unusual chairs. They originally were part of ten sets and made in eight shops. Before this study, students of American furniture assumed that all examples of the type were identical in basic features.
Fabrication of the eighteen recorded examples by at least eight mid-eighteenth century shops reveals their appeal, then as now. The unsolved riddle of shops responsible for the chairs is beyond antiquarian interests. Students of New England culture would be gratified to know, for example, if patrons throughout New England commissioned chairs locally or in Boston and whether or not craftsmen only in Boston or throughout New England had mastered a remarkable and complex variant of a new movement in English furniture. One chair is identified as a potential attribution to Job Townsend of Newport or his son and namesake with documentation that the younger cabinetmaker very occasionally made chairs.

Kate Field in Newport
Gary Scharnhorst
Though she is virtually unknown today, Kate Field (1838-1896) was “one of the best-known women in America” during her lifetime, according to her obituary in the New York Tribune. A member of the expatriate community in Florence in the late 1850s, she befriended the Brownings, the Trollopes, Walter Savage Landor, and the painter Elihu Vedder while she was still in short dresses. One of the first women to contribute to the Atlantic Monthly, she was also a popular lecturer and prolific travel writer for a number of papers during the 1860s and 1870s. Between 1890 and 1895, she published a weekly newspaper, Kate Field’s Washington. In all, she published an estimated three thousand newspaper and magazine articles during her career. She was, in her heyday, the most prominent American woman journalist of the period, an unorthodox feminist, and the model for the character of Henrietta Stackpole in Henry James’s novel The Portrait of a Lady. More to the point, she was also a familiar figure in Newport over a period of nearly forty years.
Until the age of thirty-five, Field was often a summer resident of the town. In the winter of 1855, at the age of only sixteen, she left her home in St. Louis to enter Lasell Seminary in Auburndale, Mass., to finish her education. Though she boarded at the school, for the next three years she also spent holidays and summers in Newport with her aunt and uncle, Cordelia Riddle Sanford and Milton H. Sanford. With the exception of 1871, Field spent at least part of every summer between 1863 and 1873 there. She freely socialized with the habitués, and she was welcome in their homes. For example, she invited Vedder to visit her in Newport in the fall of 1863 and introduced him to some of the people who would soon become his patrons. She also met both Henry James and William D. Howells in Newport in the summer of 1868.
In 1869-70, the architect William Ralph Emerson built a summerhouse for Milton H. Sanford on the Point. Located at 72 Washington Street and now a popular bed-and-breakfast called the Sanford-Covell Villa Marina, this large wooden house in the popular Modern Gothic or “Stick Style” of the era became a periodic focus of Kate’s visits to Newport. Nicknamed Edna Villa after Milton’s mother, this was a showcase, one of the most expensive and luxurious homes in Newport at the time.
After the death of her uncle Milton in 1883 and that of her aunt Cordelia in 1894, Kate found herself virtually cut out of the will by the manipulations of an aunt and two nieces. She contested the will in the case of “Kate Field et al. vs. Probate Court of Newport” that was tried in Newport between April 28-May 4, 1895. The trial ended in a hung jury and Field, embittered, gave up on the cause, leaving Newport behind.

Volume 71, Part 2, 2002

John Chandler Bancroft and Art in Newport and New England in the 1860s
William B. Sieger

Before Newport became a fashionable summer resort, it was a gathering place for scientists, intellectuals, and artists, including a group of progressive New England landscape painters, including William Morris Hunt and John La Forge. Lesser known within this group was John Chandler Bancroft, who maintained his summer residence at "Roseclyffe" in Newport. As an artist, John Chandler Bancroft's application of scientific theories of color and light to his painting helped influence a generation of artists, including La Farge, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Eakins. Perhaps frustrated with his inability to translate effectively his theories to his own painting, Bancroft turned to business and became wealthy through his investments in the Calumet and Helca mines in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was also one of the first collectors of Japanese prints, amassing a large collection that now resides in the Worcester Art Museum. Despite these accomplishments, he is barely remembered today.
In his article "John Chandler Bancroft and Art in Newport and New England in the 1860s," William B. Sieger attempts to correct this oversite. Sieger is a Lecturer in Art History at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, and served in a similar capacity at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, and Depaul University in Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998. He has written other articles about the life and career of John Chandler Bancroft, including "Whistler and John Chandler Bancroft," for The Burlington Magazine (October 1994)

The Rhode Island Settlers of Monmouth County, New Jersey
Bertram Lippincott III

In the 1660s, a group of about eighty first and second generation Rhode Island settlers pulled up stakes and moved to the marshes and plains of East Jersey. The reasons for this are tied to the mobility of early settlers of Rhode Island and their persistent desire to seek land, economic opportunity, and freedom of worship. The Monmouth patent guaranteed rights to its new settlers, including "libery of conscience," a reminder that the ability to practice faith according to one's own beliefs was an important idea in the shaping of early America. Barely twenty-five years after the establishment of this principle in Rhode Island, it was being spread successfully by its adherents.

Volume 71, Part 1, 2000

A Rhode Island Patriot in Newport Jail:
The Diary of Benjamin Underwood of Jamestown,
10 February-5 March 1783
Virginia Steele Wood, Editor

In February 1783, the infuriated prisoner blurted out his unmitigated contempt for that "Miserable impertinent Rascally Ignorant Mule headed puppy...who put me to Jail and offered to let me out if I would procure him Sucurety [security] for the Money which I told the sheriff I should not." Who was this indignant prisoner, why was he confined to Newport jail, who were the people he mentioned, did he ever regain his liberty?
Assuming the role of detective, the editor of this intriguing, unsigned diary examined scores of contemporary records in Newport, Jamestown, Pawtucket, and Providence to find the answers. She made startling "finds" among dozens of tri-fold legal documents lying undisturbed for over 200 years, now safely housed in the Rhode Island Judicial Archives, Superior Court Judicial Center. On discovering the diarist to be Benjamin Underwood, a former town clerk and militia captain of Jamestown, she set about piecing together his engrossing story.
We find poignant moments when Underwood's young son Robinson drops by for after- school visits; when daughter Damy and her husband visit to show off their baby; when friends stop by with news and sometimes gifts of food. One of the most remarkable things to emerge is just how Underwood coped with his confinement to avoid falling into a lassitude that would have stifled his initiative and jeopardized his survival.
Although peace was imminent, conflict still reigned during those waning days of the American Revolution. The diary yields startling glimpses of the turmoil and sporadic melees that erupted in and around the jail–refugee traders purloining whatever they could find, incarcerated shackled Tories, prisoners escaping, privateers eagerly capturing British vessels. This is a remarkable record that gives us a new perspective on life in Newport during the final days of what Underwood called that "unnatural Cruel war between Great Britain & the Colonies."

Newport Schools in the News
M. Joan Youngken

Since the advent of photography in newspaper journalism, the Newport Daily News has kept the community apprized of progress, difficulties, and activities at the many Newport city schools through the use of pictures. Hundreds of such images comprise an important segment of the Daily News Collection at the Newport Historical Society. The photographs below, which were included in an exhibit at Newport Historical Society in 1999-2000, are only a small number of that collection, which totals more than 20,000 photos taken between 1900 and 1980.
The intent of the exhibit was not to describe the full history of the city schools, its buildings, or activities. Such an effort was beyond the limits of available space. Its intent was, rather, to present an assortment of images illustrating a variety of locales, grades, and activities, curricular and extracurricular, within the city school system.

I hope these photographs will inform and entertain people of all ages, especially today’s students who can most appreciate those things about attending school that have changed, and those that do not alter over time.

Volume 70, Part 4, Number 245, 2000

"A Grand Landscape in Miniature:"
Great Rock, Paradise Farm, and the Barkers of Middletown
James L. Yarnall and Natalie N. Nicholson

The highest geological point on Aquidneck Island is the top of a ridge just north of Second Beach in Middletown. The promontory, called "Great Rock" in early records, has been associated since the eighteenth century with the local Barker family, who then owned most of the surrounding farmland. Great Rock became the site of one of the most colorful episodes in the history of the American Revolution when, during the occupation of the island by the British in 1779, Isaac Barker volunteered his services to the rebel cause by spying on the British and associated Hessian troops occupying his farm. Isaac devised a method for sending signals via crossed fence posts from Great Rock to the rebel camps stationed across the Sakonnet River in Little Compton. For this activity, and for a related system of passing messages secretly across the river using a rocky islet known as Castle Rock, Isaac became a local hero. He was recognized near the end of his life with a commendation and pension for his services.
During the Civil War, Great Rock and the Barkers once again played a role in local history when the aspiring American artist John La Farge began renting lodgings from one of Isaac's grandsons. La Farge lived for a while in Isaac Barker's former farmhouse, and later with other Barker descendants on the family lands around Great Rock that were then known as "Paradise Farm." La Farge immortalized Great Rock in his works of art, preserving for posterity its monumental form. Great Rock's days were numbered, however, since by the late 19th century a quarry had been established by the local Peckham brothers in its north flank. After over a century of constant drilling to produce the blue gravel beloved by Newport estate owners for use in walks and driveways, Great Rock has been greatly reduced in length. Indeed, its former high point recently has disappeared in the process.

From the Collection...

"Anthony Afterwrit," an Honest Tradesman
The Rhode-Island Gazette, January 25, 1733
Ron M. Potvin

What began as a transcription of an item "From the Collection" of the Newport Historical Society–the occasionally humorous January 25, 1733, issue of the Rhode-Island Gazette–ended up revealing the complex and intricate relationship between James Franklin, publisher of the Gazette, and his younger brother, Benjamin. Featured in this issue of the short-lived Rhode-Island Gazette is a satirical examination of husband and wife relations, written by Benjamin for the Pennsylvania Gazette, and reprinted by James in his Newport newspaper. This cooperation is perhaps evidence of a broader mending-of-fences that occurred after the brothers’ tense parting of ways in Boston ten years earlier. The transcription also reveals the nature of the newspaper business in the 1730s and the type of news and information considered important and relevant.

Volume 70, Part 3, Number 244, 2000

Weathering Changes:
Notable Storms in 18th and 19th Century Newport & New England
Ingrid M. Hattendorf & Ron M. Potvin

Weather has always held a strong position in the consciousness of New Englanders. Its cycles were the key to cultivation of crops, safe travel, the building of houses, and the conducting of war. It was measured with crude–though sometimes beautiful–thermometers and barometers, and people called upon the stars and planets to predict its whims. Its daily changes were recorded by countless diarists throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Mark Twain once noted, its greatest predictability lay in its unpredictability. "One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it," he said during a speech in 1876. Twain claimed to have counted "one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather" during a typical spring day in New England.
Despite the uncertainty of the weather, there seemed to be a cadence to its actions: spring rains, summer heat, fall coolness, winter sleet and snow. There was enough regularity in the weather to inspire a touch of confidence in the ability of mere mortals to predict it. However, a few times each century, this confidence was shattered by storms and weather of extraordinary strength and unpredictability.
This article examines four of these weather events: The "Hessian Storm" of 1778; the Great Gale of 1815; the Year Without a Summer in 1816; and the hail storm of 1894.

The Court-Martial of Lieutenant J. B. Carey
Frank M. Snyder

In February 1997, Newport's Victorian Military Society reenacted the court-martial of J. B. Carey, a lieutenant in the British Army, who was serving in Zululand during the Zulu war. At the original trial in 1879, Carey had been found guilty of "Misbehaviour Before The Enemy" for failing to prevent the death of Louis, Prince of France, when their survey party was ambushed by Zulus. Members of the Victorian Military Society, heard testimony similar to that given at the original trial, and likewise rendered a verdict of "guilty." The record of the original trial was reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief in Zululand and sent to London to be approved, but Queen Victoria withheld her approval, so Carey was subsequently released to continue to serve in the British Army.
The Victorian Military Society had reenacted the trial because it had been a celebrated case, and had occurred during Victoria's reign. But unknown to those who played the parts of witnesses and members of the court, the initials of Carey's name--J. B.--stood for "Jahleel Brenton," the name of both his maternal grandfather and great- grandfather. Lieutenant Carey's grandfather owned Hammersmith Farm in Newport, where he lived until the start of the American Revolutionary War, at which time he departed for England, taking his young son with him. Both Jahleel Brentons became officers in the Royal Navy, and retired as flag officers.
The reenactment took place at the armory of the Newport Artillery Company, that had been founded in 1741, after eighteen prominent citizens of Newport had petitioned for its creation. The name at the head of the petitioners was "Jahleel Brenton" the father of Carey's great-grandfather, and the first commanding officer of the Artillery Company.