Interesting Bits

Young architect Charles McKim was introduced to Newport’s colonial architecture in the 1870’s. He was smitten with the elegant simplicity and marveled at shingle work that blended into the topography.

A noted example is Whitehall’s “cat slide roof.” The photo was published in the December 1874 issue of Sketchbook, a short-lived architectural publication he edited. McKim, it is claimed, kept a copy of this photograph above his office desk.

A large Ebenezer  stone turned up in the Whitehall Garden in 1987 bearing the name Samuel Hubbard.  Who is Samuel Hubbard and what is his tombstone doing in the garden?

It turns out that George Berkeley was not the only cleric attracted to this pastoral setting.

Samuel Hubbard (1610-1689) was a Seventh Day Baptist minister who traveled and lived in several settlements throughout New England seeking answers to his own considerable questions of philosophy and faith.  He and his family settled in a tolerant Aquidneck Island community on a 25 acre farm. ( now known as Whitehall)

Family plots on Rhode Island farms are not unusual but where are all the others? Surely this is not a whole plot for one person?

Ezra Stiles’ diary solves this part of the mystery.  Stiles, a well-known Congregational minister lived and preached in Newport.  He went out to Whitehall from Newport in about 1763  while the stones were still in existence  and transcribed the inscription. from Samuel Hubbard’s stone:

Here was layd the body of Samuel Hubbard who lived 91 years and 7 days ( D) yed 20 day of October 1698

 According to Stiles, when Collector Robinson bought the lease about 1765, he  demolished the gravestones to  put them into a wall, the ultimate act of New England frugality and practicality.  Stiles goes onto write that “all was lost”. He believed the stone was probably erected by Samuel to honor his wife and offspring .  The inscription is from Psalm 145:4 which reads One generation shall praise they works to another “

Once Upon a Time in Rhode Island by Katherine Pyle  and illustrated by Helen B. Mason is one of the over-looked treasures in the Samuel Hopkins House  library. Katherine, born in 1863 and died in 1938, was a member of the Philadelphia Pyle family known for their artistic talents.  Howard Pyle, her brother was an illustrator.

Katherine wrote over 30 books and illustrated many others. Her talents were recognized early but in her Quaker household excessive praise was considered unseemly. She was educated at the Philadelphia Women’s Industrial School and at Drexel Institute.  Her first published works were poems in the children’s magazine  St. Nicolas and in Harpers Bazaar.  In 1892 she moved to New York and enrolled in the Art Students League.

Helen B. Mason(Grose) was born in Providence and attended RISD. An accomplished illustrator in her own right her work  Once Upon a Time in Rhode Island  sold at a  Bonham’s auction for $ 999 in 2006.

The publication of this book in 1914 was part of a larger national project by the Dames to promote civic education and history.

Lyra Brown Nickerson,  inherited a fortune at the young age of 20  to  become one of the youngest Dames and one of the  most generous philanthropists in Rhode Island.    In 1916 her gift of  20,000  dollars  built the first community health center in Providence, Nickerson House, which exists today. She built the first indoor tennis court in East Providence as well as supporting the arts, aviation, RISD and the Providence Public Library. While on an extensive trip, Lyra and her friend Katherine Schermerhorn ( also a Dame) were arrested in Germany as Russian spies.  They returned safely to Providence. Lyra died prematurely of typhoid.