Latest Posts

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House ranks as one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on the American continent. Fought from May 9 to 21, 1864, in central Virginia, it …
Read More

For Westerly, selecting and installing a mural for the Westerly Post Office during the term of the New Deal Program from 1934 to 1943 to install art in public areas …
Read More

[Editor’s Note: I have started to try to determine when the last slave auction was held at Newport involving captives purchased from Africa and brought directly to Newport. In colonial …
Read More

[Editor’s Note: This excerpt (from an 1880 report) explains how some big businesses tried to control the manner in which their employees voted in the presidential election year of 1876 …
Read More

One of the oldest quarry districts in New England can be found in Westerly, where stone commonly known as Westerly White and Westerly Blue became the United States Bureau of …
Read More

In Rhode Island history, little is said (or known) about the Native American defenses against the colonial settlers in southern New England. Human beings had learned, early on in their …
Read More

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the victor in a tight, four-way race for president. The country was bitterly at odds—more divided than an any point of its history. …
Read More

I believe that one of the most remarkable (and fortuitous) events in American history was Abraham Lincoln’s nomination as the presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 1860. Early in …
Read More

[The following is perhaps the earliest official report on slavery in Rhode Island and the colony’s ties to the African slave trade. Historians and students of history of Rhode Island …
Read More

The classic novel Spartina by John Casey was published thirty-five years ago, in 1989, by Alfred A. Knopf. It won the 1989 National Book Award. It was reprinted by Vintage …
Read More