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XVI

THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF NARRAGANSETT.

The State of Rhode Island-Narragansett Bay-Point JudithAquidneck - Conanicut Island-Jamestown - Beaver Tail Light-Patience, Hope and Despair Islands-The Starved Goat -Durfee Hill-Narragansett Indians-Canonicus-Miantonomoh-The Narragansett Fort Fight-Uncas-NorwichSachem's Plain - Nanunteno-Yantic Falls-Narragansett Pier-Commodore Perry-Stuart the Artist —WickfordClams-Rocky Point-Blackstone River-Seeconk RiverVinland-Roger Williams-What Cheer Rock--Providence -General Burnside-Malbone's Masterpiece-Brown Univer sity-Pawtucket-Samuel Slater-Central and Valley FallsWilliam Blackstone-Study Hill-Woonsocket-WorcesterGeorge Bancroft-Lake Quinsigamond-Ware-Mount Hope Bay-The Vikings-Taunton Great River-Bristol NeckTaunton-Dighton Rock-The Skeleton in Armor-Bristol -Mount Hope-King Philip-Last of the WampanoagsMassasoit-Death of Philip-Fall River-Watuppa PondsNewport-Brenton's Point-Fort Adams-William Codding ton-Bishop Berkeley-The Cliff Walk-Newport CottagesThe Casino-Bellevue Avenue-Judah Touro-Touro ParkThe Old Stone Mill-Buzzard's Bay-Acushnet River-New Bedford-The Whale Fishery-Clark's Point-Fort TaberNonquitt-Vineyard Sound - Bartholomew Gosnold — No Man's Land-Elizabeth Islands-Cuttyhunk-Sakonnet Point -Hen and Chickens-Sow and Pigs-Gay Head-NaushonPenikese-Nashawena-Pasque Island-James BowdoinWood's Holl-Martha's Vineyard - Vineyard Haven Thomas Mayhew-Cottage City-Edgartown-Chappaquaddick Island-Cape Poge-Nantucket-Manshope-Thomas Macy-Wesco-Whaling - Nantucket Sound - Nantucket Shoals-Nantucket Town-Siasconset-Wrecks.

THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.

NARRAGANSETT BAY is one of the finest harbors on the New England coast. It stretches thirty miles inland, the rivers emptying into it making the waterpower for the numerous and extensive textile factories of Rhode Island, which embraces the shores surrounding and the islands within the bay. It opens broadly, having beautiful shores, lined with pleasant beaches which dissolve into low cliffs and water-worn crags; for the character of the coast gradually changes from the sandy borders of Long Island Sound to the rocks of New England. Its western boundary, stretching far out into the sea, is the famous Point Judith, a long, low, narrow and protruding sandspit thrust into the Atlantic, a headland dreaded by the traveller, to whom "rounding Point Judith" and its brilliant flashing beacon, thus changing the course over the long ocean swells, when voyaging upon a Sound steamer, means a great deal in the way of tribute to Neptune. This headland was always feared by the mariner, and we are romantically told that in the colonial days a stormtossed vessel was driven in towards this shore, her anxious skipper at the wheel, when suddenly his bright-eyed daughter, Judith, called out, "Land, father, I see the land!" His dim vision not discerning it, he shouted, "Where away? Point, Judith, point!" She pointed; he was warned; and quickly

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changing the course, escaped disaster. This story was often repeated, so that in time the sailors gave her name to the headland. It is an interesting tale, but there are people, more prosaic, who insist that the Point was really named after Judith Quincy, wife of John Hull, the coiner of the ancient "pine-tree shillings," who bought the land there from the Indians. But, however named, and whoever the sponsor, Judith is usually well-remembered by those circumnavigating the dreaded Point.

Within Narragansett Bay, the chief island is Aquidneck, or Rhode Island, about fifteen miles long and of much fertility, having the best farm land in New England, and at the southern end the noted. watering-place of Newport. This island furnishes the first half of the long official title of the little State "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations." The memory of the old Narragansett chieftain, Canonicus, is preserved in Conanicut Island, west of Rhode Island, and seven miles long, there being between the two islands the capacious anchorageground of Newport Harbor. This island in 1678 was named Jamestown in honor of King James, and at its southern end, near the ruins of an old British. fort, is the famous Beaver Tail Light, the guide into Newport harbor, the oldest lighthouse in America, dating from 1667. Roger Williams, who founded the "Providence Plantations," distributed various names to the other islands, several of them now

popular resorts, among these titles, which represent the varying phases of his early emotions, being Prudence, Patience, Hope and Despair, while some later colonists with different ideas, evidently named Dutch Island, Hog Island, and the Starved Goat. Rhode Island is the smallest State in the Union, though among the first in manufactures, and in wealth proportionately to population. It has barely twelve hundred square miles of surface, of which more than one-eighth is water, and the highest land, Durfee Hill, is elevated only eight hundred feet.

THE LAND OF THE NARRAGANSETTS.

The region back of Point Judith and around Narragansett Bay was the home of the Narragansett Indians, who were early made, by Roger Williams, the friends of the white man. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, there were said to be thirty thousand of them, but they were afterwards wasted by pestilence, and when Williams fled to Providence and was received by them, he said they had twelve towns within twenty miles, and five thousand warriors. They fought the Pequots, to the westward, but were friendly with the tribes of Massachusetts, to which they really gave the name, for, living in a comparatively flat country, they described these tribes as belonging "near the great hills or mountains," which is the literal meaning of the word, they telling Williams it meant the many hills of that State, including

the "blue hills of Milton." Canonicus and Mianionomoh were the great chiefs of the Narragansetts, described by the early colonists as wise, brave and magnanimous. The former made the grant of the lands at Providence to Roger Williams, and was his firm friend. The latter, the nephew and successor of Canonicus, joined the Puritans under Mason at Pequot Hill in the attack and defeat of the Pequots. In their original theology they looked forward to a mystic realm in the far southwest where the gods. and pure spirits dwelt, while the souls of murderers, thieves and liars were doomed forever to wander abroad. Their friendship with the whites ended in 1675, however, when King Philip incited them to join in his war, and the colonists attacked them on a hill in a pine and cedar swamp near Kingston, west of Narragansett Bay, where scanty remains still exist of their fortifications. It was in December, amid the winter snows, and after a furious struggle their wigwams were fired, and in the most blinding confusion a band of warriors dashed out and covered the retreat of fully three thousand of their people, leaving the whites in possession. Both sides. had heavy losses, but the result was the scattering and final annihilation of the tribe. This was the famous "Fort Fight in Narragansett," of which the memorial of the Connecticut Legislature says, "The bitter cold, the tarled swamp, the tedious march, the strong fort, the numerous and stubborn enemy they

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