As the population of the East Side grew in the 18th century, residences sprang up quickly along Benefit Street. Intended for “the common benefit of all,” Benefit Street encouraged the construction of homes higher on the ridge of modern-day College Hill while still remaining within existing property limits. This was possible because of the very narrow, but long, plots that Roger Williams designated for the new community of Providence in 1636. These plots began at the edge of the Great Salt River and Cove, and extended up the hill. Colonists typically used the higher land to plant fruit orchards and graze livestock. Unlike many other New England towns, the Providence settlement faced the waterway, rather than surrounding a meeting house. The emphasis on religious liberty explains this choice: since colonial authorities in Rhode Island could not force men and women to worship, the Church did not serve as the center of the community, literally or figuratively.

This unique orientation of the settlement did not mean, however, that Providence townspeople did not worship. Most did so, and they first used private homes before a meeting house was constructed to better serve the religious needs of the community. Roger Williams founded the first Baptist congregation in the U.S. in 1638. In 1775, while Providence enjoyed economic success, the Baptists made a new and bold move in erecting this magnificent building, the First Baptist Church. The largest surviving wooden structure from Colonial America, it combines the simple hall of a traditional New England meeting house with the most fashionable English architectural features, such as the steeple, modeled after a version of the one at St. Martin in the Fields (1724), on Trafalgar Square in London, by architect James Gibbs. Brown University, founded as a Baptist college, has held its annual commencement in the church every year since 1776.

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A visionary and independent thinker, Roger Williams (c. 1603 – 1683) was warned by the Puritan authorities in Massachusetts Bay Colony to refrain from spreading his “new and dangerous opinions.” Williams’s “opinions” did not sit well with many of his neighbors for several reasons. First, he believed that “Natives are the true owners” of the land in the New World. Williams had made a point to learn Native languages and cultivate strong relationships with the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit and the Narragansett sachem Canonicus, and he accused colonists of making unfair deals with the Wampanoags and Narragansetts in order to acquire their lands. Second, Williams took issue with the Puritans’ insistence on forcing community members to worship. He believed that a person’s faith should not be a matter of the state and that he/she should not be persecuted for it. When Williams refused to back down, the authorities in Massachusetts Bay ordered him to leave the colony.

Banished and alone in the dead of winter, Williams made his way through Plymouth Colony and, in 1636, he eventually settled on land given to him by the Natives he had befriended. Grateful for his good fortune, he named the place “Providence”, believing that God’s providence had led him to this spot. There, joined by a group of followers from Massachusetts Bay, Williams founded a community where all could think, worship, and act in accordance with their own conscience without fear of persecution by the government. This spiritual and intellectual haven to some was considered a hotbed of heresy to others.

Congress authorized the creation of the National Memorial on the site in 1965, and the 4.5-acre park opened to the public in the 1980s.

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Canonicus was the Narragansett sachem who offered refuge to Roger Williams and his party in 1636, but before this place was named that in a fit of Colonial Revival fervor, it was popularly called Hoyle Square. In 1953, Rhody Photo News said the district was “our 20^th century version of the Streets of Bagdad,” where you could find “a derelict headed for a mission soup kitchen brushing up against a well-to-do housewife on a bargain hunt.” Cranston and Westminster were both busy highways in the early 18^th century, providing access to western towns and Connecticut. Rochambeau marched his armies down Cranston Street in June 1781 to meet Washington and defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown. Back then, those soldiers marched past the Hoyle Tavern, where the Citizens Bank stands now. The tavern, built in 1739, became a focal point for gatherings and entertainment as the city grew. The tavern was demolished in the late 19^th century and the bank constructed in 1921. Redevelopment projects of the 1960s have drastically altered the life of the square. The north side of Westminster suggests the busy commercial area that once thrived here. 

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