Random Stories
North Battery, Newport
In early 1776, the residents of the Point neighborhood in Newport awoke to see the British frigate HMS Scarborough anchored just offshore. With the threat of war suddenly looming, the town hastily threw up a semi-circular earthwork fort at the…
The Stephen Hopkins House
This home of Declaration-signer Stephen Hopkins (1707 – 1785) is among the oldest still standing in Rhode Island and the oldest in Providence. Hopkins lived here with his family and their slaves, in eight rooms that are now chock-full of antiques,…
Tomaquag Museum
Eleanor Dove’s recipe for Raccoon Pot Pie was so beloved, so well-known, that it is now preserved in the Congressional Book of Records, according to her great-granddaughter. Eleanor and her husband Ferris Dove, both members of the Narragansett…
Vernal Pool at Pardon Gray Preserve
Vernal pools are temporary wetlands that annually fill with water in the winter and early spring and then become dry when the weather turns warmer, although some pools may not completely evaporate in a wet summer. When pools periodically dry,…
Elizabeth G. Pattee and her Ecology of Design
Upon entering the nineteenth-century stable that is now 48 Crestwood Road during the Great Depression, a visitor to the old Waterhouse estate ‘on the hill’ which lies between Warwick and East Greenwich would have found a gloomy, cavernous space.…
The Newport Colony House and Amistad
Amistad is based on the 1839 story of Sierra Leone tribesmen, kidnapped as slaves, who staged a mutiny. The mutineers ordered the crew to return them to Africa, but the navigator instead sailed to New England. Importing slaves had been illegal since…
Take a Tour
Taverns to Temperance - A Spirited Tour of Old Barrington Village
5 Locations ~ Curated by Stephen Venuti, Board Member-Barrington Preservation SocietyMemorable Beaches
5 Locations ~ Curated by Janie Merrick on behalf of the Rhode Island Historical SocietySmith Hill Neighborhood
10 Locations ~ Curated by Jennifer Wilson, Assistant Director of the Goff Center of Education at the Rhode Island Historical SocietyRhode Island's Black Heritage
8 Locations ~ Curated by Brown University students in "Methods in Public Humanities," Spring 2014Featured Stories
The Battle of Rhode Island
During August 1778, Tiverton was the fulcrum on which the American Revolution teetered. From all over New England militiamen marched along dusty roads to rendezvous at the fort on Tiverton Heights.
From Gloucester, Newburyport, and Marblehead…
The Celebrity Club: Best Jazz in Providence
On November 18, 1949, at 56 Randall Street, in the mostly poor, mostly black, Randall Square neighborhood, local African Americans crowded into the new Celebrity Club bar. It wasn’t quite finished, but the crowd didn’t pay much attention to the…
Old Traditions in a New Home: Immigration in Reservoir Triangle
In 1880, about 104,000 people lived in Providence. Thirty years later, the city’s population had more than doubled, reaching over 223,000 people. Most of this population increase was due to immigration; among those attracted to the city’s numerous…
Rhode Tour
A project by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, the Rhode Island Historical Society and the Rhode Island Council for the HumanitiesRhode Tour is a statewide mobile historical smartphone application. Captivating places, intriguing people, and exciting events fill Rhode Island's history. Rhode Tour offers a new way to interact with these untold tales of the state's past. Using stories, sounds, and images, history comes alive on Rhode Tour.
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