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From Early Turnpikes to the Stagecoaches
6 years ago

From Early Turnpikes to the Stagecoaches

Most public bus routes that crisscross Rhode Island today overlay track beds that once supported-electric trolleys and horsecars. Before the railways, the rickety omnibus and its rough and tumble predecessor, …
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A Letter from Gull Rock, Little Compton: A Story of the Hurricane of 1938
6 years ago

A Letter from Gull Rock, Little Compton: A Story of the Hurricane of 1938

In the summer of 2012, I took on the task of organizing and arranging the library and archive at the Western Rhode Island Civic Historical Society, located in the …
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The First Deaths Among the Seventh Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War
6 years ago

The First Deaths Among the Seventh Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War

“The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat the soldier’s last tattoo.”[1]

Today the death of an American service member initiates a long process beginning with the terrible knock …
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Rhode Island Celebrates 125th Anniversary of Its First Labor Day Parade
6 years ago

Rhode Island Celebrates 125th Anniversary of Its First Labor Day Parade

Two thousand workers marched in to history 125 years ago when they participated in the state’s first Labor Day parade in 1893 in Providence, while a crowd of ten thousand …
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African Americans in Rhode Island Who Used Food to Achieve Independence
6 years ago

African Americans in Rhode Island Who Used Food to Achieve Independence

Among the gifts that immigrants have brought to the United States are their native cuisines. Indeed, opening a restaurant or food-related business was—and still is—a traditional recipe for financial …
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“Strange Mismanagement:” The Capture Of The HMS Syren
6 years ago

“Strange Mismanagement:” The Capture Of The HMS Syren

After a British fleet of seventy-one warships and transports entered Narragansett Bay on December 7, 1776, and the next day landed soldiers that occupied Newport, Rhode Island, as well as …
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An Enemy Creeps In
6 years ago

An Enemy Creeps In

By the late summer of 1918, the World War had achieved the nadir of state authorized mayhem. Millions were dead, diseased, and wounded. Homeless, starving men, women, and children stalked …
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Beavertail Lighthouse on Conanicut Island, 1712-1793
6 years ago

Beavertail Lighthouse on Conanicut Island, 1712-1793

The present Beavertail Light Station, with its 1856 granite light tower and two almost identical white painted brick keeper’s houses is located on Rhode Island’s Conanicut Island in the middle …
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God, War, and Providence Book Review
6 years ago

God, War, and Providence
Book Review

God War, and Providence: The Epic Struggle of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians against the Puritans of New England, by James A. Warren (Scribner, 2018).

In God, War, and …
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Two Selves in One Skull: Ansel Bourne’s Strange Interlude
6 years ago

Two Selves in One Skull: Ansel Bourne’s Strange Interlude

On the morning of January 20, 1887, Isabelle Bourne, who lived in the village of Greene in Coventry, told the police that her husband, Ansel, a clergyman, had been missing …
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