7 years ago
Narrative of an Ashaway Teenager’s Role in the Underground Railroad Rediscovered
During the period when slavery was lawful in America, it is claimed that the underground railroad assisted more than 100,000 African-American slaves reach freedom. (The underground railroad was not a …
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7 years ago
Heritage Harbor Foundation Announces Grants for 2019 Totaling $86,155
On February 6, 2019, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, president of the Heritage Harbor Foundation, announced that the Foundation has awarded $86,155 in grant money for 2019 to twelve local organizations. …
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7 years ago
Newport’s William Mayes Founds a Pirate Republic in Madagascar
Contrary to the popular image of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow character as an amiable buffoon, pirates in their day were usually cruel thugs, petty criminals, and international terrorists. Pirates had …
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7 years ago
The First Catholic Mass in Rhode Island—Newport, 1780
The sixteenth, seventeenth and the first part of the eighteenth centuries were times of great turmoil in Europe. They were characterized by a number of wars, such as the Thirty …
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7 years ago
The Story Behind Rhode Island’s Most Important Legal Case: Trevett v. Weeden in 1786
[Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from an address Patrick T. Conley gave at the Old Colony House in Newport on May 3, 1976]
I have chosen to examine an …
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7 years ago
Providence’s First Trolley in 1892
The pioneering Union (Horse) Railroad Company, Rhode Island’s largest mass transit carrier, survived several competitive scares in the late 1880s. The town of Woonsocket had hosted the first regular electric …
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7 years ago
The Providence East Side Cable Tramway Becomes a Reality
Building of the Providence Cable Tramway in 1889 fascinated Rhode Islanders. A power house on South Angell Street, near the Seekonk River, pulled 17,000 feet of cable more than an …
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7 years ago
The First Rhode Island Electric Trolleys: Woonsocket and Newport
The character and deportment of the Union Railroad’s drivers and conductors won the carrier legions of patrons. The horsecar enterprise, however, was an urban system that operated within a few …
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7 years ago
Horsecar Drivers & Customers
Passengers and carmen enjoyed a close, personal rapport during the horsecar period. Despite a company prohibition against “unnecessary conversation with passengers,” both drivers and conductors cultivated a clientele almost like …
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7 years ago
Rhode Island’s Two Greatest Wartime Love Letters, by Sullivan Ballou … and George H.W. Bush
The letter penned by Sullivan Ballou, a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment hailing from Smithfield, one week before he fought at the first Battle of Bull Run, …
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