Old Tower at Newport. Its former Appearance. Attempt to destroy it. Obscurity of its Origin niches, in depth about half the thickness of the wall, designed, apparently, to receive floortimbers. In several places within, as well as upon the inner surface of some of the columns. are patches of stucco, which, like the mortar, is made of coarse sand and shell lime, and as hard as the stones it covers. Governor Gibbs remembers the appearance of the tower more than forty years ago, when it was partially covered with the same hard stucco upon its exterior surface. Doubtless it was originally covered within and without with plaster, and the now rough columns, with mere indications of capitals and bases of the Doric form, were handsomely wrought, the whole structure exhibiting taste and beauty. During the possession of Rhode Island by the British, in the Revolution, the tower was more perfect than now, having a roof, and the walls were three or four feet higher than at present.' The British used it for an ammunition magazine, and when they evacuated the island, they attempted to demolish the old "mill" by igniting a keg of powder within it! But the strong walls resisted the Vandals, and the only damage the edifice sustained was the loss of its roof and two or three feet of its upper masonry. Such is the Old Tower at Newport at the present time. Its early history is yet unwritten, and may forever remain so." 1 Governor Gibbs showed me a Continental bill of the denomination of five dollars (not signed), which his son found in a crevice in the tower. 2 There has been much patient investigation, with a great deal of speculation, concerning this ancient edifice, but no satisfactory conclusion has yet been obtained. Of its existence prior to the English emigration to America there is now but little doubt; and it is asserted that the Indians, of whom Mr. Coddington and other early settlers upon Aquitneck (now Rhode Island) solicited information concerning the structure, had no tradition respecting its origin. Because it was called a "mill" in some old documents, some have argued, or, rather, have flippantly asserted, that it was built by the early English settlers for a wind-mill. Thus Mr. Cooper disposes of the matter in his preface to Red Rover. A little patient inquiry would have given him a different conclusion; and if the structure is really ante-colonial, and perhaps ante-Columbian, its history surely is worthy of investigation. That it was converted into and used for a wind-mill by some of the early settlers of Newport, there is no doubt, for it was easily convertible to such use, although not by a favorable arrangement. The English settlement upon the island was commenced in 1636, at the north end, and in 1639 the first house was erected on the site of Newport, by Nicholas Easton. Mention is made in the colonial records of the erection of a wind-mill by Peter Easton, in 1663, twenty-five years after the founding of Newport; and this was evidently the first mill erected there, from the fact that it was consid ered of sufficient importance to the colony to induce the General Court to reward Mr. Easton for his enterprise, by a grant of a tract of fine land, a mile in length, lying along what is still known as Easton's First Wind-mill at Newport. Inquiries respecting the Tower. "Antiquitates Americana." Inscription on Dighton Rock. The rain ceased at ten o'clock, and a westerly wind dispersed the clouds, but made the day unpleasant by its blustering breath. I sketched the house on the corner of Spring and PeckBeach. That mill was a wooden structure, and stood upon the land now occupied by the North Buryingground, in the upper suburbs of Newport. The land on which the Old Tower stands once belonged to Governor Benedict Arnold, and in his will, bearing the date of 1678, forty years after the settlement, he mentions the "stone mill," the tower having evidently been used for that purpose. Its form, its great soidity, and its construction upon columns, forbid the idea that it was originally erected for a mill; and certainly, if a common wind-mill, made of timber, was so highly esteemed by the people, as we have seen, the construction of such an edifice, so superior to any dwelling or church in the colony, would have received special attention from the magistrates, and the historians of the day. And wherefore, for such a purpose, were the foundation-stones wrought into spheres, and the whole structure stuccoed within and without? When, in 1837, the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen published the result of their ten years' investigations concerning the discovery of America by the Northmen in the tenth century, in a volume entitled "Antiquitates Americana," the old "mill" at Newport, the rock inscription at Dighton, in Massachusetts, and the discovery of skeletons, evidently of a race different from the Indians,* elicited the earnest attention of inquirers, as subjects in some way connected with those early discoveries. Dr. Webb (whom I have mentioned as extending to me his friendly services at the rooms of the Historical Society of Massachusetts), who was then a resident of Providence, and secretary to the Rhode Island Historical Society, opened a correspondence with Charles C. Rafn, the secretary to the Royal Society of Copenhagen. Dr. Webb employed Mr. Catherwood to make drawings of the “mill,” and these, with a particular account of the structure, he transmitted to Professor Rafn. Here was opened for the society a new field of inquiry, the products of which were published, with engravings from Mr. Catherwood's drawings. According to Professor Rafn, the architecture of this building is in the ante-Gothic style, which was common in the north and west of Europe from the eighth to the twelfth century. "The circular form, the low columns, their thickness in proportion to their distance from each other, and the entire want of ornament," he says, "all point out this epoch." He imagines that it was used for a baptistry, and accounts for the absence of buildings of a similar character by the abundance of wood in America. The brevity of the sojourn of the Northmen here was doubtless another, and perhaps principal reason, why similar structures were not erected. The fact that the navigators of Sweden, Norway, and Iceland visited and explored the American coast as far as the shores of Connecticut, and probably more southerly, during the tenth and eleventh centuries (five hundred years before the voyages of Columbus), appears to be too well attested to need further notice here. For the proofs, the reader is referred to the interesting work alluded to, "Antiquitates Americana.” The inscription upon the rock at Dighton has given rise to much speculation and to many theories. The rock lies upon the east side of Taunton River, between high and low water marks, so that it is covered and exposed at every ebb and flow of the tide. It is an insulated mass of fine-grained granite, or grunstein, lying northwest and southeast on the sands of the river. Its length is eleven feet, and its height four and a half feet. It has a regular surface and nearly smooth, whereon the inscription is carved. The inscription presents four parts or divisions, and evidently refers to a combat. On the left is a figure armed with a bow and arrow, and may represent an Indian. Next to it is an inscription composed of Runic or Phoenician characters, doubtless a history of the event there partially pictured. Further to the right is a vessel, and on the extreme right are two figures, differing from the one on the left, without bows and arrows, and evidently connected with the vessel. These and the vessel doubtless indicate them as voyagers from a distant land.† Between the figures and the boat are Runic or Phonician characters. The question arises, By whom was the inscription made? The Phoenician characters seem to be proof that those ancient navigators visited the American coast and made this record of combat INSCRIPTION ON DIGHTON ROCK. * Dr. J. C. V. Smith, of Boston, has written an account of a remarkable stone cemetery, discovered about fifty years ago on Rainsford Island, in Boston Bay, which contained a skeleton and sword-hilt of iron. Dr. Webb has also published an interesting account of a skeleton discovered at Fall River, in Massachusetts, on or near which were found a bronze breast-plate, bronze tubes belonging to a belt, &c., none of which appear to be of Indian, or of comparatively modern European manufacture. Drs. Smith and Webb both concluded that these skeletons were those of Scandinavian voyagers. + Kendall, in his Travels, published in 1809, describes this rock and the inscription, and gives the following Indian tradition: "Some ages past, a number of white men arrived in the river in a bird [sailing vessel], when the white men took Indians into the bird as hostages. They took fresh water for their consumption at a neighboring spring, and while procuring it, the Indians fell upon and murdered some of them. During the affray, thunder and lightning issued from the bird, and frightened the Indians away. Their hostages, however, escaped." The thunder and lightning spoken of evidently refers to fire-arms, and, if the tradition is true, the occurrence must have taken place as late as the latter part of the fourteenth century, for gunpowder, for warlike purposes, was not used in Europe previous to 1350. In a representation of the battle of Cressy (which was fought in 1343) upon a manuscript Froissart, there are no pictures of fire-arms, and probably they were not in common use at that time; yet there is a piece of ordnance at Amberg, in Germany, on which is inscribed the year 1303. Roger Bacon, who died in 1292, was acquainted with gunpowder, and the Chinese and other Eastern nations were familiar with it long before that time. PERRY'S MONUMENT. placing the old grave stones out their half PRESCOTT'S HEAD-QUARTERS. effaced inscriptions, and in beautifying the grounds in various ways. There, beneath a broad slab of slate, repose the bodies of John and William Cranston, father and son, who were governors of Rhode Island the former in 1679, the latter from 1698 to 1726. Near by is the tomb of William Jefferay, who, tradition says, was one of the judges of Charles I. It is covered by a large slab of graywacke, ornamented, or, rather, disfigured, at the head, by a representation of a skull and cross-bones, below which is a poetic epitaph. He died January 2d, 1675. On the top of the slope on which a portion of the cemetery lies, is a granite obelisk, erected to the memory of Commodore Perry, by the State of Rhode Island, at a cost of three thousand dollars. It is formed of a single stone, twentythree feet in height, standing upon a square pedestal ten feet high, with the Indians; and hence some reject the opinion of others that the rock was inscribed by the hand of a Scandinavian. When we remember that the Phoenicians were for many ages in the undisputed possession of the traffic of the Baltic, around which clustered the Scandinavian nations, and that Runic, or ancient German inscriptions, in Phoenician characters, have been discovered in abundance in all the countries formerly occupied by these nations, the inference is plainly correct, that the Scandinavians received their alphabet from the Phoenicians. In the Journal des Debats of Paris, a letter was published, dated Copenhagen, February 5, 1850, in which it is mentioned that Dr. Pierre André Munch, professor at the University of Christina, then in Copenhagen, had just presented to the Society of Northern Antiquaries an extremely curious manuscript, in a state of excellent preservation, which he discovered and obtained during his voyage, in 1849, to the Orkney Isles. This manuscript, which the professor refers to the ninth and tenth centuries, contains several episodes, in the Latin language, on the history of Norway, presenting some important facts, heretofore entirely unknown, which illustrate the obscure ages that in Norway preceded the introduction of Christianity. Dr. Munch also presented to the society several fac-similes of Runic inscriptions, which he discovered in the Orkney Isles and in the north of Scotland. It is probable these discoveries may cast some light upon the obscure subject under consideration. In the record of the voyages to America of the Northmen, a severe combat with the natives (skrellings) is mentioned, and various circumstances show that in the vicinity of this inscription the battle occurred. Is it not reasonable to infer that those Scandinavians, acquainted with the Phoenician alphabet, made a record of the battle upon the rock, by a mingling of alphabetical characters and pictorial hieroglyphics? And may not the same people have reared the Old Tower at Newport, in the vicinity, for a baptistry, with a view of erecting a church, and making a permanent settlement there? for it must be remembered that at that time those Northern nations were nominal Christians. The records of their voyages were compiled by Bishop Thorlack, of Iceland, a grandson of Snorre,† son of Gudrida, who was born in Wineland, or Massachusetts, in 1008. The subject is one of great interest, and worthy of further and more minute inquiries than have yet been made. On this point consult Schlegel's fourth lecture on The History of Literature. The late Bertel Thorwalsden, the greatest sculptor of our time, was a lineal descendant of Snorre. 'Tonomy Hill. having white marble tablets. pearance.1 Hubbard's House and Mill. Inscription on Perry's Monument It is inclosed by an iron railing, and has an imposing ap About a mile and a half northward of Newport rises a bold, rocky eminence, called " 'Tonomy Hill" (the first word being an abbreviation of Miantonōmoh), celebrated as the seat of the Narraganset sachem of that name, and the commanding site of a small fort or redoubt during the war of the Revolution. Thitherward I made my way from the old cem etery, passing several wind-mills that were working' merrily in the stiff breeze which swept over the island from the west. The absence of streams of sufficient strength to turn water-wheels is the cause of the retention of these ancient mills, which give Rhode Island an Old England appearance. One of them, standing near the junction of the main road and the lane leading up to ""Tonomy Hill," is a patriarch among the others, for its sails revolved when the Gaspee lorded over the waters of the Narraganset. It is invested with associations of considerable interest. The mill and the old house near by were owned by a man named Hubbard. When the British took possession HUBBARD'S HOUSE AND MILL.3 The inscriptions upon the monument are as follows: EAST SIDE. "Oliver Hazard Perry. At the age of 27 years he achieved the victory of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813." NORTH SIDE.- -"Born in South Kingston, R. I., August 23d, 1785. Died at Port Spain, Trinidad, August 23d, 1819, aged 34 years." WEST SIDE.- "His remains were conveyed to his native land in a ship of war, according to a resolution of Congress, and were here interred, December 4, 1826." SOUTH SIDE." Erected by the State of Rhode Island." This view is from the north side of the hill, looking south. The wall appearance is a steep precipice of huge masses of pudding-stone, composed of pebbles and larger smooth stones, ranging in size from a pea to a man's head. It is a very singular geological formation. In some places the face is smooth, the stones and pebbles appearing as if they had been cut with a knife while in a pasty or semi-fluid state. On the top of this mound are traces of the breast-works that were thrown up, not high, for the rocks formed a natural rampart, on all sides but one, against an enemy. Here Miantonōmoh had his fort, and here his councils were held when he planned his expeditions against the Mohegans. The observatory is a strong frame, covered with lattice-work. On the right is seen the city of Newport in the distance. 3 The house and the mill are covered with shingles instead of clap-boards. This view is from the lane, looking east. The ocean is seen in the distance, on the left. Oppression of the Whigs by Prescott. View from "Tonomy Hill. Mrs. Hutchinson and Sir Henry Vane. of Rhode Island, Prescott turned many of the families of the Whigs (and there were but few others) out of their houses, to take shelter in barns and other coverts, while his soldiers orcupied their comfortable dwellings. Mr. Hubbard and his family were thus driven from their house, and compelled to live for nearly two years in their mill, while insolent soldiery, ignorant and vile, occupied their rooms. The family of Mr. Hubbard took possession of the house on the evening after the evacuation, but all was desolation, the enemy having broken or carried away every article the family had left there. 'Tonomy Hill is said to be the highest land upon the island, except Quaker Hill, toward the northern end. On its southern slope is the mansion of Mr. Hazzard, where families from a distance have a pleasant home during the warm season, while the younger fashionables are sporting at the Ocean House on the shore. On the top of the hill Mr. Hazzard has erected an observatory, seventy feet high, over a cellar which was dug by the Indians, and in which is a living spring of water. The hill is two hundred and seventy feet above the bay, and the top of the observatory commands one of the most beautiful panoramic views in the world. Stretching away northward was seen Narraganset Bay, broken by islands and pierced by headlands, and at its remote extremity the spires of Providence were glittering in the sun. On its western shore were glimpses of Warwick, Greenwich, and Wickford, and on the east were seen Warren and Bristol, and the top of Mount Hope, the throne of King Philip. On the south and west were the city and harbor of Newport, the island of Canonicut with its ruined fort, and the smaller islands in the harbor, with the remains of fortifications. Beyond the city, looking oceanward with a spy-glass over the ramparts of Fort Adams, was seen the dim outline of Block Island, like a mist lying upon the waters There rolled the dark and boundless Atlantic, with no limit but the blue horizon, no object but a few sails. Turning the glass a little more eastward, there was a faint apparition of Gayhead, on Martha's Vineyard, and of some of the islands in Buzzard's Bay. The culti vated fields of more than one half of Rhode Island, upon which I stood, were spread out like a map around me, rich in Nature's bounties and historical associations. From our lofty observatory, let us take a field survey with the open chronicle before us. We have seen Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts because of alleged heresy. The rulers of that colony had scarcely recovered their equanimity, before similar difficulties arose from an unexpected quarter. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a Lincolnshire lady of good birth, education, and great energy of character, had been leavened by the tolerant principles of Williams before he left, and assumed the right to discuss religious dogmas and to detect the errors of the clergy. A privilege had been granted to hearers, at the end of sermons, to ask questions "wisely and sparingly." Mrs. Hutchinson put so many searching questions upon abstruse points in theology, in a manner which convinced the ministers that she well understood the subject, that they were greatly annoyed. She held conferences at her own house every Sabbath evening, which were fully attended, and her brother-in-law, a minister named Wheelwright, who was of the same mind with her, drew crowds to his chapel every Sunday. Henry Vane, a young man of splendid talents, heir to a princely fortune, and son to Charles the First's chief secretary, had just arrived in the colony, and took up his residence with the Reverend Mr. Cotton, who treated Mrs. Hutchinson's views with gentleness, if not with favor. Vane (afterward Sir Henry Vane) was elected governor the following year, and being imbued with the spirit of toleration, was on terms of intimacy with Mrs. Hutchinson. The ministers were alarmed; their churches were thinned, while the chapel of Mr.Wheelwright could not contain the hundreds that flocked to hear him. A clamor was raised by the old party of ministers and their friends, and the next year Mr. Winthrop was elected governor, and Vane soon afterward returned to England. 1637. A general synod of ministers now assembled at Salem, consisting of the preachers, deputies from the congregations, and magistrates, and after a session of three weeks, marked by stormy debates, unanimously passed sentence of censure against Mr.Wheelwright, Mrs. Hutchinson, and their adherents. Continuing to hold her conferences, Mrs. Hutchinson was ordered to leave the colony within six months; and a similar command was |