Newport, Rhode Island Informations

Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, located approximately 33 miles (53 km) southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, 20 miles (32 km) south of Fall River, Massachusetts, 73 miles (117 km) south of Boston, and 180 miles (290 km) northeast of New York City. It is known as a New England summer resort and is famous for its historic mansions and its rich sailing history. It was the location of the first U.S. Open tournaments in both tennis and golf, as well as every challenge to the America's Cup between 1930 and 1983. It is also the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport, which houses the United States Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and an important Navy training center. It was a major 18th-century port city and also contains a high number of buildings from the Colonial era.

The city is the county seat of Newport County, which has no governmental functions other than court administrative and sheriff corrections boundaries. It was known for being the location of the "Summer White Houses" during the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. The population was 24,027 as of 2013.

Newport was founded in 1639 on Aquidneck Island, which was called Rhode Island at the time. Its eight founders and first officers were Nicholas Easton, William Coddington, John Clarke, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull. Many of these people had been part of the settlement at Portsmouth, along with Anne Hutchinson and her followers. They separated within a year of that settlement, however, and Coddington and others began the settlement of Newport on the southern side of the island.

Newport grew to be the largest of the four original settlements which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which also included Providence Plantations and Shawomett. Many of the first colonists in Newport became Baptists, and the second Baptist congregation in Rhode Island was formed in 1640 under the leadership of John Clarke. In 1658, a group of Jews were welcomed to settle in Newport; they were fleeing the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal but had not been permitted to settle elsewhere. The Newport congregation is now referred to as Congregation Jeshuat Israel and is the second-oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. It meets in Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the United States.

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations received its royal charter in 1663, and Benedict Arnold was elected as its first governor at Newport. The Old Colony House served as a seat of Rhode Island's government upon its completion in 1741 at the head of Washington Square, until the current Rhode Island State House in Providence was completed in 1904 and Providence became the state's sole capital city. Newport became the most important port in colonial Rhode Island, and a public school was established in 1640.

The commercial activity which raised Newport to its fame as a rich port was begun by a second wave of Portuguese Jews who settled there around the middle of the 18th century. They had been practicing Judaism in secret for 300 years in Portugal, and they were attracted to Rhode Island because of the freedom of worship there. They brought with them commercial experience and connections, capital, and a spirit of enterprise. Most prominent among those were Jacob Rodrigues Rivera, who arrived in 1745 (died 1789) and Aaron Lopez, who came in 1752 (died May 28, 1782). Rivera introduced the manufacture of sperm oil which became one of Newport's leading industries and made the town rich. Newport developed 17 manufactories of oil and candles and enjoyed a practical monopoly of this trade until the American Revolution.

Aaron Lopez is credited with making Newport an important center of trade. He encouraged 40 Portuguese Jewish families to settle there, and Newport had 150 vessels engaged in trade within 14 years of his activity. He was involved in the slave trade and manufactured spermaceti candles, ships, barrels, rum, chocolate, textiles, clothes, shoes, hats, and bottles. He became the wealthiest man in Newport but was denied citizenship on religious grounds, even though British law protected the rights of Jews to become citizens. He appealed to the Rhode Island legislature for redress and was refused with this ruling: "Inasmuch as the said Aaron Lopez hath declared himself by religion a Jew, this Assembly doth not admit himself nor any other of that religion to the full freedom of this Colony. So that the said Aaron Lopez nor any other of said religion is not liable to be chosen into any office in this colony nor allowed to give vote as a free man in choosing others." Lopez persisted by applying for citizenship in Massachusetts, where it was granted.

From the mid-17th century, the religious tolerance in Newport attracted numbers of Quakers, known also as the Society of Friends. The Great Friends Meeting House in Newport (1699) is the oldest existing structure of worship in Rhode Island.

In 1727, James Franklin (brother of Benjamin) printed the Rhode-Island Almanack in Newport. In 1732, he published the first newspaper, the Rhode Island Gazette. In 1758, his son James founded the weekly newspaper Mercury. The famous 18th century Goddard and Townsend furniture was also made in Newport.

Throughout the 18th century, Newport suffered from an imbalance of trade with the largest colonial ports. As a result, Newport merchants were forced to develop alternatives to conventional exports. In the 1720s, Colonial leaders arrested many pirates, acting under pressure from the British government. Many were hanged in Newport and were buried on Goat Island.

Newport was a major center of the slave trade in colonial and early America, active in the "triangle trade" in which slave-produced sugar and molasses from the Caribbean were carried to Rhode Island and distilled into rum, which was then carried to West Africa and exchanged for captives. In 1764, Rhode Island had about 30 rum distilleries, 22 in Newport alone. The Common Burial Ground on Farewell Street was where most of the slaves were buried.

Sixty percent of slave-trading voyages launched from North America issued from tiny Rhode Island, in some years more than 90%, and many from Newport. Almost half were trafficked illegally, breaking a 1787 state law prohibiting residents of the state from trading in slaves. Slave traders were also breaking federal statutes of 1794 and 1800 barring Americans from carrying slaves to ports outside the United States, as well as the 1807 Congressional act abolishing the transatlantic slave trade. A few Rhode Island families made substantial fortunes in the trade. William and Samuel Vernon were Newport merchants who later played an important role in financing the creation of the United States Navy; they sponsored 30 African slaving ventures. However, it was the DeWolfs of Bristol, Rhode Island, and most notably James De Wolf, who were the largest slave-trading family in all of North America, mounting more than 80 transatlantic voyages, most of them illegal. The Rhode Island slave trade was broadly based. Seven hundred Rhode Islanders owned or captained slave ships, including most substantial merchants, and many ordinary shopkeepers and tradesmen who purchased shares in slaving voyages.

In addition to being one of America's most active slave ports, Newport was also home to a small community of abolitionists and free blacks. Reverend Samuel Hopkins, minister at Newport's First Congregational Church, has been called "America's first abolitionist". Among subscribers to Hopkins' writings were 17 free black subscribers, most of whom lived in Newport. This community of free blacks, including Newport Gardner, founded the Free African Union Society in 1780, the first African mutual aid society in America.

Newport was the scene of much activity during the American Revolution. William Ellery came from Newport, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He later served on the Naval Committee.

In the winter of 1775 and 1776, the Rhode Island Legislature put militia General William West in charge of rooting out loyalists in Newport, and several notable individuals were exiled to the northern part of the state, such as Joseph Wanton and Thomas Vernon. In the fall of 1776, the British saw that Newport could be used as a naval base to attack New York (which they had recently occupied), so they took over the city. The population of Newport had divided loyalties; many pro–independence Patriots left town, while loyalist Tories remained. Newport was a British stronghold for the next three years.

In the summer of 1778, the Americans began the campaign known as the Battle of Rhode Island. This was the first joint operation between the Americans and the French after the signing of the Treaty of Alliance. The Americans based in Tiverton planned a formal siege of the town. However, the French refused to take part in it, wanting a frontal assault. This weakened the American position, and the British were able to expel the Americans from the island. The following year, the British abandoned Newport, wanting to concentrate their forces in New York.

On July 10, 1780, a French expedition arrived in Narragansett Bay off Newport with an army of 450 officers and 5,300 men, sent by King Louis XVI and commanded by Rochambeau. For the rest of the war, Newport was the base of the French forces in the United States. In July 1781, Rochambeau was finally able to leave Newport for Providence to begin the decisive march to Yorktown, Virginia, along with General George Washington. The first Roman Catholic mass in Rhode Island was said in Newport during this time. The Rochambeau Monument in Kings Park on Wellington Avenue along Newport Harbor commemorates Rochambeau's contributions to the Revolutionary War and to Newport's history.

Newport's population had fallen from over 9,000 (according to the census of 1774) to fewer than 4,000 by the time that the war ended (1783). Over 200 abandoned buildings were torn down in the 1780s. Also, the war destroyed Newport's economic wealth, as years of military occupation closed the city to any form of trade. The Newport merchants moved away, some to Providence, others to Boston and New York.

It was in Newport that the Rhode Island General Assembly voted to ratify the Constitution in 1790 and become the 13th state, acting under pressure from the merchant community of Providence.

The city was the last residence of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and the birthplace of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the Reverend William Ellery Channing.

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