In Which I Visit the Browns Again

I'm back in time visiting the Browns in the 1780s just after their beautiful mansion on the hill was built. It was the first grand mansion up on the hill now known as Benefit Street. John Brown could see his ships coming in to Providence Cove from all over the world. He liked to be able to see them from his house. The Browns were not at home when I called but the housekeeper allowed me to show you around. For a full tour visit http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaOGbNi5ZtVF9w

 This is John Brown, the owner of the house. He was a prominent businessman in Rhode Island.

 

This is Mr. Mason! Remember him?

This is Sally, John Brown's middle daughter. I met her too.

 Mrs. Brown

 This is what a world map looks like in the 1780s! John Brown's ships sail all over the world.

 This is what Providence looks like in John Brown's day.

You can just make out the steeple of the white church in the background.

 This is the elegant dining room where they held many dinner parties. They dined on delicacies like turtle soup.

 

This is the informal parlor where Mr. Brown did his business, Mrs. Brown took tea and daughter Sally played the forte piano. The desk behind me is the famous rare nine shell desk by a local furniture maker. The squirrels on the wallpaper represent industriousness.

This is Mrs. Brown's bedroom

 This room belonged to Sally and her children while her husband was away on business. The baby walker supports the baby's torso but his legs don't touch the ground. It keeps the baby from falling in the fire. The current baby is John Brown Francis, son of eldest daughter Abby.

 This is the sick room where the sick and invalids stayed. It looks like there was lots of childhood illness in this house. The toys look like fun to play with.

John Brown was involved in the slave trade. It was one of many businesses he was involved in. Here in Rhode Island they made rum and sent it to Africa to get slaves and sent slaves to the West Indies to harvest sugar cane and make molasses to turn into rum. When the Brown brothers had an ill-fated voyage with many dead slaves, brother Moses had a change of heart. He sued his brother to give up the slave trade and John refused. He did give up one of his ships though. This exhibit reminds us of the forgotten history of some of the people who lived in this house.

Women's History Month

Women's History Month

Hi everyone, March was Women's History Month. I like to learn about Rhode Island women and their achievements. It's always hard to choose but this year I picked Catherine Littlefield Greene.

Caty, as she was known, became famous for accompanying her husband General Nathanael Greene during the Revolutionary War and later for (possibly) coming up with the idea for the cotton gin and/or financing the project.

Caty or Kitty was born on Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island in 1755. Her mother died when Caty was only one year older than me (10). Caty's dad sent her to the mainland to live with her Aunt Catherine. Aunt Catherine taught Caty all about the womanly arts like flirting and dancing. It was the way women could share their opinions with men and tell men what to do in a way that was acceptable at the time. Caty has a reputation for being ditzy and flirty but she was only doing what women were supposed to do back then. She also loved to read and learn about politics. Her uncle was a politician and Governor of Rhode Island. He was friends with Benjamin Franklin and a Quaker merchant named Nathanael Greene.

Nathanael Greene began courting Caty when she was only 17. They married two years later in 1774. Caty was a fierce supporter of American Independence. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Caty was not content to stay at their home in Coventry, Rhode Island. She insisted on joining her husband or staying near him when he was away fighting.

During the winter at Valley Forge, Caty stayed there with many of the other wives of officers in the Patriot Army. She took tea with Lucy Knox and Martha Washington, among others. The ladies had their own social club and organzied balls to support their men and keep everyone happy. Caty danced, flirted, played card and parlor games and all the men fell in love with her.

During the Southern campaign, Nathanel Greene paid for his troops food, clothing and equipment out of his own pocket. He was supposed to get paid back by Congress but they didn't have any money. Instead, they gave him and his family a former Loyalist plantation in South Carolina, known as Mulberry Grove, as a reward for "saving the south."

Sadly, General Greene died of sunstroke in 1786, leaving Caty alone with five children to support. She worked hard to get back the money owed her husband. She wrote a petition to Congress, spoke to President Washington and appeared before Alexander Hamilton and the officials of the Treasury Departmen. She had the support of all her famous friends and finally, in 1792, she was granted  $23,500 and a promissory note for another $23,500 payable by Congress within three years.

Finally, she could run her plantation and care for her children. She married the children's former tutor and plantation manager, Phinneas Miller in 1796. A neighbor's tutor, Eli Whitney, came to stay and work on some inventions. While staying at Mulberry Grove, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. Some people saty it was Caty's idea and other people say she put money into the invention.

Supposedly she told Eli Whitney all about cotton planting and harvesting and how difficult it was and that gave him the idea. Since women were not allowed to hold patents, no one knows for sure. If she had applied for a patent herself, it “would have exposed her to the ridicule” of friends and “a loss of position in society,” which did not like to hear of women’s involvement in any "outside industry."  The story came from an 1883 pamphlet entitled “Woman as Inventor” by Matilda Joslyn Gage. The pamphlet says Caty gave Whitney the tools and Caty suggested using wire instead of wood and so history was made. The National Archives officially says Caty's “support, both moral and financial were critical” to the invention of the cotton gin.

Caty ended up losing money again and could not stay at Mulberry Grove. She moved her family to Cumberland Island, Georgia where she built a manor house, calling it Dungeness. She died there in 1814.

 

Caty was an important colonial era woman. She's not well known outside of Rhode Island and South Carolina but if you're a kid like me and want to know a bit more about the Greene family, Ann Rinaldi's fictional biography, The Family Greene,   is a good place to start. Grown-up people can look up Caty in books and online. You can read my guardian's blog post about Nathanel Greene and his house. She went there without me! (It was raining that day). Next time I will go and report back on what it must have been like to be Martha or Cornelia Greene. 

~ Susanna

In Which I Visit the Browns in 1800

In Which I Visit the Browns in 1800

Imagine it's October, a beautiful Indian summer Saturday in Providence 1800. The Brown family is at home. John Brown, thee family patriarch is a wealthy businessman, merchant and politician. He is currently in Philadelphia in Congress and his son is not home, but the ladies are at home. Besides Mr. Brown, here lives Mrs. Brown. Quaker raised and progressive in her ideas on educating her daughters. Mrs. Brown's unmarried sister stays here too along with the three Brown daughters. Abby, the eldest, is widowed and I'll have to share the toys with her son. Alice, the youngest, is newly married to Mr. Mason. Their baby Abby was born one day after their wedding! The Masons are waiting for their new house to be built. Sally, the middle Brown daughter is hoping her father will finally give his blessing to marry her suitor Mr. Charles Hereshoff. He is from Prussia originally and is in need of occupation. Tradesmen are coming in and out and I heard there is a mantua maker showing off the latest fashions from Paris and a fortune teller with the grown-up ladies telling fortunes. 

I will show you around the house and grounds. (Friend Caroline, take notice.) 

If you want to read a more detailed grown-up account of our visit, go look at my guardian's super boring blog post. 

First, I head downstairs. I peek inside one of the bedrooms - no one here...

I hear the Masons across the hall and the mantua maker showing off fancy Parisian fashions. I'll just sneak behind her and slip downstairs... I hop down the mahogany staircase with beautiful carved railings.

Staircase details.

These posts were turned on a lathe. This is the very latest fashionable design in the 1780s when the house was built.

Here you can see what the house looks like in 1800. It was added on later in the Victorian era and modernized inside in the 1930s. 

I take a peek in the parlor - no fortune teller in here right now but later she told my guardian she could tell my guardian's "character" from her face. The lady said my guardian is independent and something of a free spirit. 

Example of detailed carving found in the house

Ball and claw Chippendale style furniture. This is just a sample. The real thing is amazing! I want a special chair with lion feet!

The grown-up children are experimenting with electricity. Electric parties where people play with static electricity and shock each other are all the rage in Providence. Ouch! It tingles. 

Like Caroline's Papa, Mr. Brown owns ships. His ships were the first from Providence to travel to China in 1787. He brought back some of this beautiful porcelain dishware.

Here are some paintings of the types of ships seen in Providence in the early 19th century.

Some nautical equipment. Caroline isn't the only seafaring American Girl. I'm a New Englander and when I'm time traveling, my life is tied to the sea. 

I stop and grab a snack of ginger cookies. Mmm just like Caroline's grandmother bakes. 

Then I head outside into the sunshine and play with my hoop for a little while.

This is John Brown's chariot. I'm going to take it and drive to New York and sail off to visit Caroline. I hope you enjoyed my adventure in 1800. 

                                       

Oops I didn't make it very far into the future - only another generation.

Guess that means I'll see you in the 1840s next? Bye for now!

Boston, Massachusetts

The Freedom Trail

Good day followers! On Saturday I had the pleasure of visiting Boston, Massachusetts. I traveled along the Freedom Trail visiting sites of Revolutionary War history. Alas the clouds kept spitting rain and the crowds prevented me from getting as many pictures as usual, but here's a little taste of what I saw.

We started our tour on the Boston Common, America's oldest public park, founded in 1634. It has a Rhode Island connection (we found a bunch of those in Boston) - the land was originally owned by William Blackstone (or Blaxton as they said it back then). He was a bit of a recluse so when the Puritans moved to Boston, he sold his land and went to... not exactly Rhode Island but what's NOW Rhode Island! First to my neighborhood (Rehoboth) and then to what's now Cumberland. Another Rhode Island connection at the Boston Common is the famous painter Gilbert Stuart, who painted the portrait of George Washington on the $1 bill, is buried on the Boston Common. Apparently his family forgot where they buried him so he couldn't be moved back here to his birthplace. I will go find out and try to change history!

Moving along on the tour, we stopped for a time at the Granary Burying ground to look at the old grave stones. It was established in 1660 and many famous people are buried here like Paul Revere, John hancock, Sam Adams, victims of the Boston Massacre and Benjamin Franklin's parents. (Another Rhode Island connection - Benjamin's brother James and his wife Ann lived in Rhode Island. Ann was the first female newspaper editor in America!)

The Granary was once part of the Boston Common and the grass was kept neat by grazing livestock. In the 19th century, the stones were moved into neat rows to make way for the lawnmower. I don't think I like that idea. How do I know where my ancestors are actually buried? 

Puritans didn't believe in graven images but used tombstones as an artistic expression of their attitudes towards death. Many of the gravestones feature skulls with wings that represented the soul flying to heaven.

uritan churches did not believe in religious icons or imagery, so the people of Boston used tombstones as an outlet for artistic expression of their beliefs about the afterlife. One of the most popular motifs was the "Soul Effigy," a skull or "death’s head" with a wing on each side that was a representation of the soul flying to heaven after death. Elaborate scroll work, poetic epitaphs, and depictions of the Grim Reaper and Father Time also adorn many headstones. - See more at: http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/freedom-trail/granary-burying-ground.shtml#sthash.lnxH4uJB.dpuf

Here I am in front of the grave of the great patriot Sam Adams. He did not invent beer but he was a politician and a lawyer and a leader of the rebellion against Britain. In my travels I have encountered him as a hot headed revolutionary, something like a terrorist leader, at least from the Loyalist point-of-view. He became a member of the Continental Congress and a governor  

Here I am with another Franklin monument - this one to Benjamin Franklin at the Boston Latin School, the first public school in America (founded 1635). It was only for boys - boo! Benjamin Franklin did go here but he dropped out! Sam Adams and John Hancock, signers of the Declaration of Independence went here, as did Charles Bullfinch, designer of the Massachusetts State House. 

 Moving on, we stop at the site of the Boston Massacre. On the 5th of March 1770, British troops were trying to occupy Boston and prevent rebellion but ended up starting one instead when a soldier hit a Bostonian with his musket for insulting an officer. An angry mob of Bostonians confronted the soldiers and they fought. In the confusion, some soldiers fired and 5 men were killed or wounded. The Bostonians, influenced by an engraving by Paul Revere, saw this as a bloody massacre but John Adams, who defended the soldiers in court, argued they fired in self-defense. 

This ring of stones is the first commemorative site of the Boston Massacre where the men fell. 

This ring is the new monument, showing where the soldiers stood.

This sign inside the Old State House Museum shows the spot of the Boston Massacre then and now.

We traveled on and I stopped for a photo with this gentleman in front of the Green Dragon, named after a famous colonial tavern where the revolutionary leaders met in the back room. 

Our final stop is in front of Paul Revere's house.Paul Revere was of French-Protestant origins, an engraver, printer and silversmith who is most famous for his "midnight ride" as told by Henry Wardsworth Longfellow.  

Longfellow got some facts wrong, but Paul Revere did ride out to warn the countryside the British were coming. He got captured but other men escaped and helped warn the farmers the British were coming. That led to the Battle of Lexington and Concord. (See my previous post about the Concord Museum).

This is the oldest house in Boston, built in 1680 on the site of the childhood home of my guardian's cousin, Cotton Mather, a famous Puritan minister. The house was originally a large and fashionable place built for  a wealthy merchant. Paul Revere moved here in 1770 when the house was no longer fashionable. It was large enough to hold his family (first wife Sara, their five children and his mother; later his second wife Rachel and their children! A total of 8 children lived here at one time.) 

I want to visit his daughters, but we must return home soon. I have other photos of me on the Freedom Trail in my Visitors album!

I finished the day weary from so much walking and traveling through time. Felicity's cook prepared me some special cornbread and buttermilk as a late night snack before bed. (from Pippaloo on Etsy).

I hope you liked my tour. Come back next week when I will be visiting early 19th century Providence!