March 29, 2024

Old Rehoboth, a Remarkable Town

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“Many things happened in early Rehoboth that could not have occurred in any other town.” So wrote Richard LeBaron Bowen in a local history that I’ve been reading lately. In researching the fascinating story of early Rehoboth’s counterfeiter Mary Peck Butterworth for the news from the Carpenter Museum this month, I was immediately grabbed by the first paragraph in the chapter on “Rehoboth Counterfeiting” in the book “Early Rehoboth”. This is a four-volume set published in the 1940’s by Rehoboth historian Bowen.

“In the early days Rehoboth was a remarkable town, totally different from any other town in either Plymouth Colony or the Province of Massachusetts Bay, with an independence of thought and action that was matched in no other place in either colony,” he wrote. “When first settled, Seekonk (Rehoboth) people considered themselves independent of either colony, and in the succeeding years really never lost that viewpoint.”

Well, that explains a lot about Rehoboth. Perhaps we should have a statue of an Independent Man ourselves. However, I can’t quite picture something as large and imposing as the one on top of the Rhode Island statehouse perched on our dilapidated town office building, which would probably collapse under the weight. Also, I don’t think Mr. Bowen meant to imply that running a criminal enterprise, such as Mary did in those days, was a good way to assert one’s independence.

Bowen’s history is a great source of intriguing tidbits from the past, a “quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”, to borrow a phrase from Poe. It also contains some really interesting footnotes, such as this one: “Friday 19 July 1723 was a gala day at Newport. Twenty-six pirates were hung at Bull’s [Gravelly] Point opposite the town, the largest mass pirate hanging ever to take place in New England. The people were bitter against pirates who for years had ravaged the coast and many had relatives or friends who had sailed on merchant vessels and being captured by pirates had never returned.”
“In Newport, the people swarmed to see the executions. Many probably came from Rehoboth, 35 miles away. The only Rehoboth persons known to have been in Newport on the day of the hangings were Arthur Noble and three unnamed young women. Noble, to be on time, rode over Thursday the 18th on horseback, probably borrowing one of John Butterworth’s horses. Apparently Mary [Butterworth] supplied him with counterfeit money, for Friday the 19th he met and treated the three young Rehoboth women, passing a counterfeit 5-pound bill … to Elizabeth Wair, probably at a tavern. He was arrested and put in the same jail recently vacated by the pirates.”

Scenes like this show how Rhode Island earned its reputation as Rogue’s Island. We can wonder who the three young ladies from Rehoboth were and also ponder how much that 5-pound note would be worth in today’s money. Another footnote a few pages later notes that among the inventory in the will of the late Philip Tillinghast of Providence in 1732 was “a negro boy” and “a negro woman”, each worth 100 pounds. Ah, the good old days of rampant piracy, public hangings, and slavery, even in the north. How times change, thank heavens.

Speaking of Rhode Island, we recently spent a lovely fall afternoon in Wickford. Eating lunch next to us on a restaurant patio by the cove was a couple from Wickford, England, who had been enjoying a real New England vacation (er, I mean holiday). They had traveled all the way up to Bar Harbor and to both the White and Green Mountains and back. Fortunately for them, the leaves up north had already started to turn and the British visitors thought the autumn scenery was just stunning.

We shared our stories of visiting England this summer, though since we did not go to Essex in the east of England this time, we weren’t familiar with the original Wickford. I’ve always thought it would be fun to do a photo essay comparing New England towns and cities with their English namesakes, but since there is no way I can drive over there, such a project is beyond me.

While in Wickford, RI, we noticed that some of the owners of historic houses along Main Street exhibited a sly sense of humor about their homes’ colonial-era history. One federal-style house bore the “historic” plaque that read “Increase Heartburn 1971”. By the way, I’ve seen a bumper sticker that reads “I Never Leave RI”. This seems a bit self-limiting.

We didn’t get to the Gilbert Stuart House in Saunderstown because it was closing up for the season. Nor have we been to Smith’s Castle, though I’ve always meant to visit. It’s something to put on the list. You don’t have to come all the way from old England to find great places to explore in New England. Many of them are not far from home and all have remarkable histories of their own.

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