Editor’s Note

In this issue of Newport History, both articles focus on the accomplishments of a handful of privileged individuals who left their mark on the cultural life of Aquidneck Island during the Gilded Age. These men and women of means were quite different from the better-known Vanderbilts, Astors, and Belmonts, who enlisted grand architecture and social pageantry to promote aristocratic status. Rather, the subjects of this issue of the journal pursued distinctive intellectual and personal interests, and embraced architectural styles that mirrored a lifestyle centered on quiet self-fulfillment. In the lead article, Peter Colt Josephs draws upon a large collection of family papers and photographs in exploring an unusual residence originally called Louisiana, built during the early 1880s on Easton’s Point in Middletown. Peter Colt Josephs is the youngest grandchild of the patrons of the house, Alice V. Wilson Josephs and Lyman Colt Josephs. Four of Newport’s Renaissance men—Alexander Agassiz, Raphael Pumpelly, Theodore Montgomery Davis, and William Fitzhugh Whitehouse—are the subjects of an article by Dr. Evelyn M. Cherpak, Head of the Naval Historical Collection at the Naval War College in Newport since 1974. Her intriguing discussion of the lives and careers of these men not only reveals the accomplishments of four adventurous and genial personalities of Gilded Age Newport but also paints a picture of the cultural context surrounding those not caught up in the familiar rituals of New York society

Editor’s Note

The lead article is this issue of Newport History is by John F. Quinn and provides a new perspective on the integration of Roman Catholicism into Newport’s religious climate. The second article in this issue is by Sarah Vickery. For her internship project, Ms. Vickery was curator of Handwritten History: Correspondence of Great Americans, an exhibition held in the fall of 2010 at the Colony House on Washington Square and in early 2011 at the nearby BankNewport. This article adapts the wall text and images from this exhibition

Editor’s Note

This issue of Newport History traverses the entire history of Newport. Elaine Robinson focuses on the Great Friends Meeting House, examining its evolution over the course of over three centuries and the complexities of its restoration in the twentieth century. Paul Hazard Harpin explores the exclusive Hazard’s and Gooseberry Beaches, documenting their ownership, usage, destruction, and rebirth amidst the ravages of coastal exposur

Editor\u27s Note

The French Naval presence in Newport at the time of the Revolutionary War was the subject of a special double issue of Newport History in 2003. Caroline Frank now revisits this topic with a fresh slant, examining the social and cultural implications of the relationship between a French officer and the daughter of a local Quaker family. Bertram Lippincott turns his attention to the philanthropic Mason sisters and their unusual Rhode Island Avenue cottage, designed in 1901 by architect Irving Gill in a Spanish Renaissance Revival style derived from California Missions. Paul F. Miller offers a second and last installment (see also the Fall 2005 issue) of an article derived from his exhibition Lost Houses of Newport, displayed at The Elms during the summer and fall of 2005

Editor\u27s Note

Since the time of the Newport Historical Society\u27s first bulletin in 1912, diversity has been the hallmark of its publications. Articles have addressed every class of Newporter-from socialites to slaves, from the aged to children, from the working class to the leisure class, from the military to the clergy. Writers have approached topics from wide ranging disciplines: architectural history, science, military history, art history, literature, social history, religion, and oral history. Styles of writing have ranged from the scholarly to the humorous to stream-of-consciousness. The formula-or the lack of one-has worked well. Newport History serves the broadest possible audience, offering something for every potential reader. This issue of Newport History fits this formula. Milo M. Naeve provides a furniture specialist\u27s exploration of a specific type of 18th-century New England chair. Gary Scharnhorst takes the reader on a romp through the literary times of a 19th-century feminist. The topics could not be more different, and yet there is a common thread uniting both articles: meticulous research that sheds important new insight

Editor\u27s Note

This special double issue of Newport History, produced to honor the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, presents seven texts previously published and all related to the French presence in Newport from 1778 to 1781. Editorial commentaries appear in the footnotes for each anthology text set off by square brackets and the tag -ed. Brief biographies of authors also appear in this format at the start of the notes for individual articles. The name authority at the rear of this issue provides consistent information on the most commonly accepted spellings and life dates for individuals, along with brief indication of nationality, profession, and importance. To simplify captions, full illustration credits appear near the end of the volume along. This special issue comes with an inde

Editor\u27s Note

In November 1663, John Clarke arrived in Newport with a new Charter for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Granted by King Charles II four months earlier, the Charter was groundbreaking in containing for the first time a monarch’s guarantee of freedom of religion. In 2013, organizations throughout the state of Rhode Island plan to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the granting of the Charter with a host of commemorative ceremonies. In this issue of Newport History, Tracy Jonsson provides a detailed analysis of the Charter and its impact. In 1663, the Charter arrived in Newport on the threshold of explosive growth fueled by maritime commerce. During Newport’s subsequent “Golden Age” leading up to the Revolution, merchant wealth and civic pride fostered a flowering of sophisticated architecture inspired by English styles of the Georgian era—the period from 1714 to 1830 when four monarchs named George occupied the British throne. The second article in this issue of Newport History is a photographic essay on Georgian architecture in Newport prepared by the Editor in collaboration with Jennifer L. Robinson

Editor\u27s Note

In this issue of Newport History, the focus is on several aspects of 18th-century Newport culture. Dr. Marian Mathison Desrosiers utilizes the record books of a wealthy merchant to explore aspects of daily life and consumerism in pre-Revolutionary Newport. Don N. Hagist delves into the intrigues and misfortunes of a marriage that took place at Newport’s Trinity Church during the Revolutionary War. Adams Taylor shifts the focus to writing desks as they related to the evolution of Newport material culture, particularly as the form flourished during the last half of the 18th century

Editor’s Note

This issue of Newport History includes three articles by local authors with diverse interests and backgrounds. They write respectively about a not-so-famous Newport architect, the now-defunct Jamestown Bridge, and a long-lost Newport estate with intriguing connections to ancient Egypt. The little-recognized Newport architect John Dixon Johnston is the subject of Ronald J. Onorato article. The pictorial essay devoted to the recently demolished Jamestown Bridge is written by Sue Madden, Rosemary Enright and Matt Kierstead. The last article is on the Newport estate of Theodore M. Davis by Jane Carey

Editor’s Note

The rich artistic heritage of Newport owes as much to recondite personalities as to well-known artists. This issue of Newport History investigates a number of these lesser-known figures, starting with James Nicholson, a master carpenter who worked on some of the most important Bellevue Avenue mansions of the late 1880s and early 1890s. Caroline McGuckian assembled the details of Nicholson’s life, along with examples of his work as a photographer and painter. A century has elapsed since over a hundred largely now-forgotten artists, art teachers, and patrons founded the Art Association of Newport, today known as the Newport Art Museum. In this issue of the journal, Ms. Grinnell adapts portions of the checklist and wall text of a recent exhibition that she curated at the Newport Art Museum: Remembering the Ladies: Women and the Art Association of Newport. This important study of the early decades of the institution resurrects the reputations of the women artists, art instructors, and patrons responsible for its flourishing during the early twentieth century