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Mayor Thomas P. McCoy (the “Prince of Pawtucket”)  and the Building of McCoy Stadium (“McCoy’s Folly”)
10 years ago

Mayor Thomas P. McCoy (the “Prince of Pawtucket”) and the Building of McCoy Stadium (“McCoy’s Folly”)

By  •  Sports

[Editor’s Note:  The following article is excerpted from Dan Barry’s Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game (Harper Collins, 2011).  This book focuses on the Pawtucket Red …
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Top 10 Early Rhode Island History Books
10 years ago

Top 10 Early Rhode Island History Books

Rhode Island history books have surrounded me for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Warwick, I remember reading battered copies of such classics as Trumpets in Jericho, …
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Gertrude Johnson and Mary Wales: Two Trailblazers in Rhode Island Education
10 years ago

Gertrude Johnson and Mary Wales: Two Trailblazers in Rhode Island Education

The story of Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales and the founding of Johnson & Wales University is truly an American success story. Given the times in which they …
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Silas Cooke’s War: the Sufferings of a Civilian on the Front Lines
10 years ago

Silas Cooke’s War: the Sufferings of a Civilian on the Front Lines

In any war, some of the people who suffer most are almost entirely overlooked by the subsequent histories: the people who happened to live where the fighting occurred or near …
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Tom Dorr: Up Close and Personal
10 years ago

Tom Dorr: Up Close and Personal

Back in the late 1970s, while exercising shared custody of my four oldest children in the wake of a failed first marriage, my Sundays were a time for visits …
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The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored) During the Civil War
10 years ago

The Fourteenth Regiment Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored) During the Civil War

By  •  Civil War

After years of obscurity, the courage and sacrifice of African-American soldiers who fought in the Civil War has been rediscovered by a new generation of Americans. The uncommon valor of …
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From Saints to Bootleggers: The Struggle for Temperance and Prohibition in Kent County, 1805-1937.  Part II: Prohibition and the Gangster Carl Rettich, 1920-1937
10 years ago

From Saints to Bootleggers: The Struggle for Temperance and Prohibition in Kent County, 1805-1937. Part II: Prohibition and the Gangster Carl Rettich, 1920-1937

In Kent County, after more than a century of temperance supporters promoting laws banning the sale of alcohol, and the sometimes, violent opposition to such efforts, those in the temperance …
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From Saints to Bootleggers:  The Struggle for Temperance and Prohibition in Kent County, 1805-1937 Part I:  The Struggle for Temperance, 1805-1889
10 years ago

From Saints to Bootleggers: The Struggle for Temperance and Prohibition in Kent County, 1805-1937 Part I: The Struggle for Temperance, 1805-1889

Early ministers in Rhode Island, traveling from place to place to preach, often spoke out against various vices. For example, in his 1754 journal, the Reverend Jacob Bailey of Massachusetts …
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Providence’s Merchants Influence the State to Ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1790
10 years ago

Providence’s Merchants Influence the State to Ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1790

There is perhaps no better known expression from the American Revolutionary period than “no taxation without representation.” In July 1768, Silas Downer, a member of the Providence Sons of Liberty, …
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Arnold Buffum and Elizabeth Buffum Chace
10 years ago

Arnold Buffum and Elizabeth Buffum Chace

Arnold Buffum, one of Rhode Island’s leading abolitionists, was the second son among the eight children of William Buffum and Lydia Arnold.  He was born on December 13, 1782 …
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