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Rhode Island – General

Pookie the Dog: A Life of Leisure and Regality
10 years ago

Pookie the Dog: A Life of Leisure and Regality

Nobody seemed to know exactly where and when she died, but on a chilly Saturday, April 12, 1952, a day before Easter Sunday, the death was officially announced by the …
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Early Accounts of Kent County by Travelers Near and from Afar
10 years ago

Early Accounts of Kent County by Travelers Near and from Afar

Early accounts of travel in what would become Kent County attest to the wildness of the areas in the colony away from the water, where the economy was centered. While …
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A Colonial-Era Masterwork by Peter Harrison in Newport: The Touro Synagogue
10 years ago

A Colonial-Era Masterwork by Peter Harrison in Newport: The Touro Synagogue

Newport, Rhode Island, is graced with some of the finest works of America architecture, from the colonial period to the spectacular Gilded Age. Among the jewels of eighteenth-century architecture in …
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Captain Daniel Fones, Colonial Naval Hero
10 years ago

Captain Daniel Fones, Colonial Naval Hero

The name of North Kingstown’s own Captain Daniel Fones might be spoken in the same breath with as Thomas Tew, William Kidd, and Blackbeard. Fones’s skills as a sailor, his …
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“So Neare As We May Judge:” Jury Duty in Early Rhode Island
10 years ago

“So Neare As We May Judge:” Jury Duty in Early Rhode Island

The early court system of Providence was established in its first code of law in 1640, with a body of “five desposers” to ”meete upon gennerall ocations” and look after …
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The Narragansett Pacer: Where and How It Evolved, Flourished, and Died Out
10 years ago

The Narragansett Pacer: Where and How It Evolved, Flourished, and Died Out

One of the founding breeds of the Standardbred, the Narragansett Pacer has been extinct since the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Yet the Pacer was ubiquitous in colonial North …
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How Curious! A Coal Mine in Cranston
10 years ago

How Curious! A Coal Mine in Cranston

I wonder if the strollers and shoppers at Garden City Center are aware that beneath those trendy shops and eateries there was once an active coal mine. Granted, the coal …
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Dirty Work, Clean Money: The Life of Whaling Ship Captain John Deblois and his Wife Henrietta
10 years ago

Dirty Work, Clean Money: The Life of Whaling Ship Captain John Deblois and his Wife Henrietta

Whaling “is a wretched life [of] privations and hardship deprived of friends and society,” John Scott Deblois (1816-1885) wrote in an 1844 letter to his family in Newport. [1] Voyages …
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Vampires in Exeter? The Gruesome Tale of Mercy L. and Edwin A. Brown
10 years ago

Vampires in Exeter? The Gruesome Tale of Mercy L. and Edwin A. Brown

No doubt about it, at this time of year, South County’s most famous brother and sister have to be Mercy and Edwin Brown. One hundred and twenty-three years after their …
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Unfortunate Ends: Gleanings from the Death Notices of Early Rhode Island Newspapers
10 years ago

Unfortunate Ends: Gleanings from the Death Notices of Early Rhode Island Newspapers

Death notices began to appear in America with the first newspapers. A community-wide extension of the early notices on tavern and meeting house doors, these first notices were sparse, containing …
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