While the Dorr Rebellion is of course centered in Rhode Island, the conflict became national news, and leaders across the country took sides. One such leader, Connecticut Governor Chauncey Cleveland, a Democrat, was a known supporter of Thomas Wilson Dorr.

When Dorr fled Rhode Island through Connecticut, he was granted safe passage, even when Rhode Island Governor Samuel Ward King demanded the return of fugitive Dorr. Despite the fact that women would not achieve their own suffrage until the next century, many were vocal, active supporters of political causes, Dorr’s among them. Six Dorrite women, Mary Hidden, Eliza Shaw, Sarah A Davis, Mary Stiness, Ann Buffington, and Maria L. Gardiner, believed so strongly in Dorr’s innocence that they wrote a collaborative letter of thanks to the Connecticut governor:

“It is impossible for us to find language sufficiently strong to express our heartfelt gratitude for your many manifestations of kindness and generous devotion to that man, whose name will ever be held in grateful remembrance by every lover of freedom; we mean Sir, Thomas Wilson Dorr . . . We have to the best of our ability endeavored to impress upon you the minds of those over whom we have been able to exert our influence, the sentiments of that Champion of American Freedom (Lafayette). Nothing shall deter me from the exercise of this right of a free man, to fulfill the duty of a citizen; neither the momentary errors of opinion; for what are opinions when they depart from principles? None say respect for the representatives of the people for I respect still more the people whose sovereign will it is to have a Constitution.”

These writers invoked the Marquis de Lafayette not simply for his apt description of the Dorrite ideal, ignoring public opinion for the good of the state and the sanctity of the Constitution. Since the colonists’ victory during the Revolutionary War, Lafayette had been lauded as a national hero. Four decades after the Treaty of Paris, Americans still wished to express their gratitude for the beloved French general: in 1824 Lafayette embarked on a tour of 24 states across the U.S. where he received accolades and the dedication of countless monuments, parks, and street names. During his visit to Providence, Lafayette was deeply impressed by a spectacle of female supporters, who lined the path to the State House to welcome him. The Providence Patriot reported: “The poplar avenue . . . was lined on each side with nearly two hundred misses arrayed in white, protected by a file of soldiers on each side, and holding in their hands bunches of flowers, which (as the General proceeded up the avenue . . .) they strewed in his path, at the same time waving their white handkerchiefs.”

Unlike the very public display of gratitude for Lafayette in Providence, the six women who wrote the letter to Gov. Cleveland expressed a clear support for Dorr, but were nonetheless concerned about their privacy. It appears that as strong as their convictions were, they did not wish that their families or neighbors discover where their alliances lay. A postscript written in the bottom lefthand corner of the letter indicates a wish to remain invisible: “P.S. Keep our names from the public.”

151 North Main Street was along the route of Marquis de Lafayette's parade when he visited Rhode Island.

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While Samuel Ward King, as Rhode Island’s other governor, was Dorr’s most obvious rival, his opponents were many. One of these opponents, John Brown Francis, had himself served as governor of Rhode Island a decade before King and Dorr. Francis, like Dorr, had been born to an illustrious family. His grandfather, John Brown, had been a merchant of immense wealth, and Francis’ father, John Francis, had gone into the profitable family business when he married Francis’ mother, Abigail. Unlike Dorr, however, Francis supported the status quo as codified by Rhode Island’s state charter.

Francis was part of the three-man delegation sent by Samuel Ward King to D.C. in April 1842 to meet with President Tyler. King had charged this select group--Francis and Elisha Potter, Jr., conservative rural Democrats, and Whig attorney John Whipple--to seek the President’s support for the Charterite cause. Tyler assured the group that he would not hesitate to send military assistance should the need arise from a Dorr-led insurrection. 

The two opposing parties indeed appeared headed for conflict when they both attempted to take what each believed to be their rightful seat as the governing body of Rhode Island. On May 3, 1842, Dorr and the officials in his new administration paraded through the streets of Providence, from Hoyle’s Tavern eastward to the State House on North Main Street. Unfortunately, the Charterites had thoughtfully locked the building, barring Dorr and his followers from assuming power there. Instead, they had to convene in an unfinished building on Eddy Street.

In a move to quell growing frustrations on both sides, moderates from both parties began to push for a new constitution that would serve as a compromise. Conservative John Brown Francis had come around, too, in the face of potentially more violent conflicts. Francis declared: ‘We must have free suffrage or civil war.”

This site at 150 Benefit Street is the location of the Old State House.

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“While there is life, let us act. Let not the damning sin of his murder rest upon us . . . Rhode Islanders, Americans! Have you thought of this? Are you prepared for this? Will you permit this?”

This rallying cry graced the windows of a bookstore adjacent to a coffee shop in Providence’s Market Square, thanks to a fierce Dorr supporter and bookstore owner, Abraham Herman Stillwell. A boyhood friend of Dorr’s, Stilwell was a descendant of the first English families to settle Providence and, like Dorr, a member of the elite class. From 1831 to 1867, Stillwell operated his shop, and during the Dorr Rebellion, he promoted his friend’s cause by pasting handbills in the store windows. As his granddaughter, Margaret Bingham Stillwell, later describes, “Businessmen walking down College Hill to their offices were startled to see that the southern facade of the bookshop had been turned into a bulletin board. They hurried to see what it meant. At times, they stood almost shoulder to shoulder as they read the handbills pasted on the windowpanes. Grandfather studied their faces, as for the first time they read a statement by Thomas Wilson Dorr that had not been distorted or deliberately garbled by the charter-controlled press. He had forced leading citizens to face facts.” For supporting Dorr, Stillwell apparently lost many customers but did not recant. His appeal to the authorities to release Dorr from prison in 1844 demonstrates the fervor that propelled the People’s Party:

“I appeal to you, in the name of a heart-bleeding father! -- in the name of a heart-broken mother! -- in the name of a crushed and suffering people! -- in the name of him who surrendered his liberty that others might be free! --in the name of Justice! -- and in the name of God! -- Pause not, faint not, rest not, until right is established. Undo the work of darkness. Break the bonds of Tyranny. Open the prison doors. You may do this without other than the force of Truth, without other than the force of Right, Without other than the force of Law! -- If we cannot do this, we are SLAVES.”

Later in life, when posing for a portrait, Stillwell’s likeness could not be captured in a pleasing way until the artist made mention of the Dorr War. At this reference, the painter’s “subject’s blood pressure went up, his face suffused with color, a new look of determination came into his eyes. Noticing this personality change, [the artist] kept [Stillwell] discussing politics all through the sittings, with the result that in the portrait he appears as rosy and rugged as an English country squire."

This location at 17 Canal Walk is the former location of Stillwell's bookstore.

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“We claim . . . that to deprive the colored people of this State of the immunities of citizenship, on account of the color of the skin, (a matter over which they have no control), is anti-republican; and against such a procedure we enter our solemn protest.” This strongly worded missive reached Thomas Wilson Dorr and made clear the position of Providence’s Black community. When word had spread that the Dorrites were qualifying their call to abolish unfair requirements for suffrage and excluding Black voters, they responded swiftly.

The petition, Dorr was told, was written by Alexander Crummell (1819-1898), the minister of Christ Church during the Dorr Rebellion. A native of New York, Crummell had been born free and received an excellent education. While in New York, he had been involved in an effort to strike down the property requirement for suffrage, though the attempt was unsuccessful. In Providence, Crummell quickly became an influential figure in Providence’s Black community.

Crummell’s petition anticipates the arguments against suffrage for Black men and refutes them, drawing attention to inconsistencies in the People’s Party’s calls for so-called universal suffrage.

Black citizens decried the use of the word “white” to define universal suffrage in the People’s Constitution. The petition argued: “We are mostly native born citizens. We have lent our best strength in the cultivation of the soil, have aided in the development of its resources, and have contributed our part to its wealth and importance."

Crummell aligned the cause of his fellow Black citizens to that of the colonists fighting to gain their freedom from Great Britain. “We appeal to that great written charter of American liberty--the declaration of independence--in support of our protestation. We believe that ‘all men are created free and equal’; and we affirm, that no tinge of the skin can possibly invalidate that cardinal doctrine of our country’s liberty, or make nugatory or partial the political privileges which, as deductions, may proceed from it."

This site at 400 Benefit Street was the former site of St. Stephen’s Church. Crummell’s congregation, Christ Church, was eventually absorbed by St. Stephen’s in the 1850s.

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A strange-smelling package arrived at the residence where Thomas Wilson Dorr was staying during his exile in 1842. He opened the box to find the following: “one prime codfish weighing 15 lbs., 2 mackerell [sic], 1 peck of clams, and a few oysters.” Since Dorr would have been well aware that his female supporters organized massive clambakes to support his cause, perhaps he would not have been surprised to discover the leftover seafood. Through their thoughtfulness, the clambake organizers ensured that Dorr did not miss out on the flavor (or, presumably, the odor) of the day’s festivities. 

The clambake in question had occurred here on Acote’s Hill, Chepachet, on September 28, 1842, and drew crowds upward of 5,000-8,000 people from Rhode Island and Massachusetts, according to different reports. Rhode Island women organized several clambakes during the summer months of 1842, which served both as rallies and fundraisers. Although universal suffrage did not extend voting rights for Rhode Island women, they nonetheless participated fully and ardently in Dorr’s cause, as these clambakes suggest. These massive political events garnered statewide attention and support for the Dorrites and raised funds for “needy Suffrage families.”

Women addressed the crowds at the clambakes, often extemporaneously, like Providence-native Ann Parlin, whose husband, a physician, had been imprisoned in June following the failed capture of the Providence arsenal by Dorr’s forces. Making it clear that she had maintained an appropriately modest role in public, Parlin wrote to Dorr that she had given a “brief speech on impulse” at a clambake in August. Parlin emphasized that she had not spoken for long, and that it had been unplanned. If Parlin was brief in her remarks in Rhode Island, she was not in New York two months later. She addressed a crowd of Dorr supporters at the Shakespeare Hotel in New York City, and her speech was later printed by the New York Daily Plebeian. Parlin told the crowd: 

"After untoward events, too recent to require a recital, had destroyed their hopes of immediate emancipation from aristocratic thralldom, the patriots who had not fled were thrown into prison, and there dealt with as felons.  A band of ruthless aristocrats strode over their State, spreading terror throughout the land.  Informers, spies, denunciators crowded the cities, the hamlets, and the isolated abodes of husbandmen, violating everywhere the sanctities of private life—vengeance, and all the resentments of individual hatred mingling all the while their vile worship to the despotic measures of the victorious party." Parlin speaks at length about the so-called patriotic cause of the Dorrites, making it eminently clear that it is Governor King’s Law and Order Party who are the true villains in the conflict.

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“The public mind was awake” in Rhode Island, wrote Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895), “and one class of its people at least was ready to work with us to the extent of seeking to defeat the proposed constitution,” which would disenfranchise Black men. When news broke that the People’s Party had voted to exclude Black men from the vote, much to the chagrin of Thomas Wilson Dorr, abolitionists like Douglass and Abby Kelley flocked to Rhode Island to protest. 

The road to Rhode Island proved challenging for Douglass, as travel posed a particular set of dangers for African Americans. He remembers being dragged out of his seat several times for “the crime of being colored.” And, he was forced to sleep on the deck of the ship, while his fellow white abolitionists were welcomed in the cabin below. 

The abolitionists quickly discovered their task would be a difficult one. Douglass writes that “the contest was intensely bitter and exciting. We were as usual denounced as intermeddlers . . . and were told to mind our own business, and the like, a mode of defense common to men when called to account for mean and discreditable conduct.” But Douglass and his compatriots were not so easily dismissed. “We cared nothing for the Dorr party on the one hand, or the ‘law and order party’ on the other. What we wanted, and what we labored to obtain, was a constitution free from the narrow, selfish, and senseless limitation of the word white.”

The new constitution adopted in 1843, which included suffrage for Black men, was a victory for abolitionists like Douglass. Reflecting on their impact, Douglass wrote in 1881 that “our labors in Rhode Island during this Dorr excitement did more to abolitionize the State than any previous or subsequent work.”

This site in Woonsocket hosted the Anti-Slavery Convention in the fall of 1841.

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“Infantry! To the Rescue!” shouted a lieutenant as the militia prepared to overtake the rebels at a tavern in Chepachet, wrote William M. Rodman in 1842. Rodman (1814-1868), a merchant tailor with a shop on Westminster Street, served as Master Clerk of Providence Marine Corps during the Dorr Rebellion. The Providence Marine Corps was one of the militias mobilized to counter the perceived threat posed by Dorr’s return to Rhode Island in June 1842. Rodman, who later became mayor Providence, recorded his account of the events that transpired:

The Infantry immediately started at double quick time from the rear of the column, and were instantly joined by our Company, which with its Guns and Ammunition Cart, rushed into the Village -- The two Companies instantly surrounded the Tavern, where the assailing rebels had taken refuge, and after the passing of one or two pistol shots, (the exact account of which seems to be difficult) the prisoners were secured save one who took flight across a field. He was ordered to stand, but refused to do so, whereupon Lieut. Tower ordered his platoon to fire, which order was promptly obeyed, but the prisoner was not taken, he having succeeded in secreting himself in the dense foliage of a tangled bracken; this scene over, the Col. ordered the remains of the column march into the village. A national salute was then fired by our Company, from the brass pieces, which made the hills and valleys echo with the glad notes of joy -- joy for the triumph of law over misrule, and mobocracy -- joy, for the victory of truth over error--joy, for the safety of our institutions, our lives, our privileges, our kindred and our homes.