Rhode Tour

Provider of Sweet Freedom: Mary J. "Polly" Johnson

2021-01-27T19:34:51+00:00

Confectioner and abolitionist Polly Johnson (1784-1871) specialized in sweets and provided safe lodging to freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad at her 21 Seventh Street home in New Bedford. She and her husband Nathan helped several formerly enslaved people on their journeys to freedom, including renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna. As a businesswoman with confectionery and catering businesses, Polly worked hard so that freedom seekers could find “sweet freedom” in New Bedford.

Polly’s early wages as a domestic worker were likely used toward the purchase of four properties on Seventh and Spring Streets, including her and Nathan’s confectionery and catering business. By 1836, New Bedford’s wealthy families regularly purchased Polly’s confections and cakes for parties and weddings. Her confectionery shop at 23 Seventh Street sold such items as ginger snaps, candy sticks, Jackson Balls, John Brown’s Bullets, and spruce gum. Polly specialized in candy, cakes, and ice cream. In 1844, the abolitionist Caroline Weston, then teaching in New Bedford, tried to persuade her cousin, the antislavery orator Wendell Phillips, to speak in the city by promising that “Polly Johnson shall freeze her best ice & ice her best cakes'' if he came. Ever conscious of social justice, Polly’s confectionery shop sold “free labor candy” made from sugar grown on sugar plantations that employed free workers instead of the enslaved.

In 1849, Nathan left New Bedford for the California Gold Rush leaving the properties, valued at more than half a million dollars today, in Polly’s name. Polly ran the business by herself until her death in 1871. Nathan never returned during those 22 years. Polly used her work ethic and business sense to continue the confectionery, paying off her home’s loan, having an addition made to the home, and furthering her abolitionist efforts. Polly was well-read on the social issues of the time and regularly attended antislavery meetings. She provided safe lodging to several other freedom seekers while Nathan was away. New Bedford was a welcoming place for freedom seekers due in part to its tolerance of diversity and a spirit of equality in its maritime trades. It is estimated that during the 1850s, the population of black freedom seekers in New Bedford ranged from 300 to 700.

Polly was well known not only for her cakes and sweets, but also for the care she and Nathan provided to freedom seekers along the Underground Railroad. People arrived in New Bedford looking for the home of the Johnsons. A passionate abolitionist and a successful businesswoman, Polly helped New Bedford become known as a city of tolerance and diversity. She stands as an inspiration for current generations who seek to affect change for a cause important to them.

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John Brown & The John Brown House Museum: Slave Trader, Privateer, Trade Merchant and Patriot

2018-04-24T15:40:59+00:00

Grand and distinct, the John Brown House’s imposing federalist façade befits Providence’s most influential family. This 1788 mansion belonged to the wealthiest and most successful entrepreneur of his age: John Brown. A China trade merchant, slave trader, privateer, and Son of Liberty, John Brown Is also well known for his role as an instigator in the 1772 sinking of the Gaspee. John Brown (1736-1803) was one of six children born to James Brown II and Hope Power, of whom only four lived to adulthood: John, Nicholas, Moses, and Joseph.

Known for seeking enterprise anywhere he could, John Brown made his fortune as a slave trader, China trade merchant, real-estate speculator, shipbuilder, and privateer. The subject of slavery came to be a source of great turmoil within the Brown family. Seeking profit among the hundreds of Africa-bound slave ships leaving Rhode Island, the Brown family contracted the Sally in 1764. Captained by Esek Hopkins, the Sally’s voyage was crippled by delays, violent uprisings, and sickness among those held captive. The venture ended in disaster and the experience dissuaded John’s brothers from ever again directly involving themselves in the trade, though John went on to finance at least four additional voyages. He later was the first American to be tried and convicted for continuing his involvement in the slave trade, in violation of the Slave Trade Act passed by Congress in 1794.

A fierce individualist, John Brown helped found and lead the Sons of Liberty in Rhode Island. During the American Revolution, John Brown supplied the newly established Continental Navy with its very first ship, the USS Providence. Elected to 5th United States Congress in 1799, John Brown served as Rhode Island’s representative from 1799 to 1801.

Commanding an indomitable view upon College Hill at 52 Power Street, John Brown’s house now serves as a national historic landmark and house-museum. Above all, John Brown’s intended his home to communicate his status to other early American elites. From its grand wrap-around stairways, to its finely crafted ornamental archways, to its gilded and painted wallpaper, the home is a testament to the sheer material wealth and status that was to be expected of Rhode Island’s founding merchant dynasty.

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Safety First: Zachariah Allen & Allendale Mill: A Rhode Island Entrepreneur

2018-04-24T14:49:50+00:00

Built in 1822, the Allendale Mill on Woonasquatucket Avenue currently serves as apartment housing for the North Providence community. Although the building’s existing structure provides hints of its historic past, most simply ignore it as just another defunct mill, unaware that both its design and operation served as a model for later textile mills.

The man behind its construction was Providence luminary and civic leader, Zachariah Allen, born 1795. He was a founder of the Providence Athenaeum and the Rhode Island Historical Society, as well as a trustee of Butler Hospital. A successful legal professional and respected author, Allen constructed Allendale Mill out of a desire to return to his family’s roots in manufacturing woolen textiles.

Allen was as much innovator and inventor as academic and businessman. Learning from the failures and deficiencies of past and present textile mills, Allen’s design for Allendale was way ahead of its time.

The entire structure was designed from the ground up around a single key element: fire safety. Allendale’s double-thick floors, complex staggered-framing, general floorplan and original slate shingles all contributed to the plan for the “slow-burning mill,” a term attributed to Allendale and later applied to other mills that used such a design.

In addition to its safer construction, Allendale was at the forefront in terms of practical and accessible fire protection for workers. Among Allendale’s signature hallmarks was its own hydrant and sprinkler system, which complemented industrial-grade pumps and water-hoses situated at ‘hot-spot’ locations throughout the mill.

Allen believed that his commitment to providing a safer work environment would constitute lower insurance premiums for his mills, but his insurers disagreed. Thus, Allen decided he would need to form his own insurance company. Together with other like-minded business owners, Allen collaborated with the Boston Mutual Insurance Company to form the Allendale Insurance Company. This new firm would deal only with manufacturers that held their facilities to the highest standards in construction, maintenance, and quality, and would use the Mill at Allendale as a benchmark for further industry standards that would help to shape the development of modern workplace fire codes and regulations that continue to safeguard workers today.

Allen’s insurance enterprise continues to operate as FM Global, headquartered in Johnston, RI.

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Lyon Fabrics

2016-06-01T15:47:47+00:00

P: ¿Cuál fue la ciudad pequeña de Rhode Island que eligió a un alcalde latino de veintisiete años de edad en el año 2013?

R: Central Falls, donde el sesenta por ciento de los residentes son latinos, y la mayoría Colombianos.

P: ¿Porque hay tantos Colombianos en una ciudad tan pequeña?

Todo comenzó en el principio de los años 60, cuando Jay Giuttari, el hijo del dueño de una fábrica en Central Falls, estudiaba en el Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts, donde se hizo amistades con el hijo del dueño Colombiano de una fábrica. Después de graduarse, Jay consiguió empleo en Colombia por un tiempo. El descubrió que los tejedores locales usaban maquinaria idéntica a las de la fábrica de su padre, y que eran expertos en reparar las tejedoras viejas. Mientras tanto en Central Falls, su padre se encontraba en dificultades reemplazando a sus empleados retirados; cuyos hijos ahora se integraban a la universidad, convirtiéndose en maestros, abogados y doctores en vez de trabajar en la fábrica.

La solución de Giuttari: dar empleo a los Colombianos, y los primeros tres llegaron en un dia frio del mes de Marzo en el 1965. Lyon Fabrics cerró las puertas en los años 90, pero por más de 20 años la fábrica contrató Colombianos expertos en tejer que trabajaban las maquinarias. Ellos se convirtieron en el componente principal de la comunidad Colombiana de Central Falls.

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Lyon Fabrics

2016-05-31T15:43:04+00:00

Q. Which small Rhode Island city elected a 27-year-old Latino mayor in 2013?

A. Central Falls, where 60 percent of residents are Latino, most of them Colombians.

Q. Why are so many Colombians in one city that measures one square mile?

It all started in the early 1960s when Jay Giuttari, son of a Central Falls mill owner, was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he became friendly with the son of a Colombian mill owner. After graduation, Jay worked in Colombia for a while. He discovered that local weavers were using machinery similar to that in his father's mill and that they were very skilled at repairing the old looms. Meanwhile back in Central Falls, his father was finding it difficult to replace retiring workers; their children were going to college, becoming teachers and lawyers and doctors, rather than going into the mills.
Giuttari 's solution: hire Colombians, and the first three arrived on a cold March day in 1965. Lyon Fabrics closed in the 1990s, but for over 20 years the mill welcomed skilled Colombia weavers to work the machines. They became the nucleus of the Colombian community in Central Falls.
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Del's: Stop at the Sign of the Lemon

2016-05-09T19:24:39+00:00

“Stop at the sign of the lemon!” declares the Del’s soft frozen lemonade slogan. The Del’s symbol, a frost-covered lemon, can be seen everywhere during summer in the Ocean State. Made from crushed ice, lemons, and sugar, Del’s sells their signature product at their franchises, trucks, stands, and at the grocery store. The company dates its production back to 1840 in Naples, Italy, when its founder’s great grandfather made a mixture of sugar, lemon juice, and snow, which he sold at the local market. The founder’s grandfather, Franco DeLucia, brought the recipe to the United States at the turn of the century. After developing a machine to produce the frozen lemonade, Angelo DeLucia created Del’s Frozen Lemonade in 1948. He first opened a small stand in Cranston and later began serving his product from mobile carts, or Del’s Trucks, which spread his business throughout the state. A sign of summer, Del’s carts begin cropping up across the state as the months get warmer. An iconic Rhode Island beverage, Del’s unfortunately lost the competition to become the official state beverage to coffee milk, but their shared southern Italian origins and continued popularity signal an abiding influence of Italian foodways in Rhode Island.
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Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining, Jazz & Blues: Eggrolls and Jazz

2016-05-09T19:22:56+00:00

“Chow mein” and “chop suey"—both American appropriations of Cantonese words—have been part of the American English vocabulary since the late 19th century. With the end of mining and railway building as viable industries, Chinese food service establishments, along with hand laundries, became the major economic opportunity available to Chinese immigrants, as well as a crucial site of cultural exchange. Americanized Chinese food became an important part of the food landscape.

Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining, Jazz & Blues first opened in Woonsocket in 1905 as the New Shanghai Restaurant. A Chinese-American restaurant, Chan’s continues to offer variations on chop suey, chow mein, and fried rice.

In 1965, Ben F. Chan purchased the space, refurbished the dining area, and changed the name to Chan’s Fine Oriental Dining. In 1986, the restaurant doubled in size and added jazz, blues, folk, cabaret, and comedy performances. The space hosts acclaimed musicians while also providing familiar food options for locals.

A notable regional specialty is the chow mein sandwich, an amalgam of French Canadian, Italian, and Chinese cultures. Popularized in the predominantly Catholic towns of Fall River, New Bedford, and Woonsocket, Chinese restaurants and food trucks offered meatless sandwiches on Fridays in observance of religious strictures. The chow mein sandwich is served on a hamburger bun with noodles and a brown gravy made with onions, celery, and bean sprouts. An affordable and filling lunch option for textile mill workers, the chow mein sandwich also appeared in school cafeterias and on lunch counter menus. The sandwich signals the adaptation of traditional Cantonese cuisine to the tastes of Anglo-Americans.
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Culinary Arts Museum: Kick It Up a Notch

2016-05-09T19:18:51+00:00

BAM! While Chef Emeril Lagasse’s catchphrase may not have started at Johnson & Wales University’s College of Culinary Arts, Lagasse did graduate in 1978 from J&W and go on to become a professional chef and television host. The Portuguese and French-Canadian restauranteur was born in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts, but launched his career in New Orleans, where he mastered his signature Creole and Cajun cuisine. The culinary arts program had only recently started when Emeril attended. While the university was founded in 1914 as a business school, what is now known as the College of Culinary Arts opened in 1973 and became more formally established in 1992. The Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University is a teaching museum that preserves and interprets culinary and hospitality heritage. Connected to the university, the museum features work and materials by and for students attending the College of Culinary Arts while also operating exhibits for regular museum visitors. In 1979, Johnson & Wales accepted industrialist Paul Fritzsche’s donation of 7,500 rare historical cookbooks, followed a decade later by a donation from educator and restaurateur Louis Szathmary of 64,000 items, including books, artifacts, menus, silver, matchbooks, pots, pans, appliances, artwork, correspondence, autographs, antiques, and advertisements spanning five hundred years. These two collections led the university to create the Culinary Archives & Museum in 1989 to highlight culinary history and culture. More recently, Zack Hanle of Bon Appetit magazine donated over 4,000 menus from around the world, and the museum has also accepted donations from Earle MacAusland of Gourmet Magazine, New York Times columnist and cookbook author Jean Hewitt, McCalls editor Mary Norton, and author and chef Julia Child, who received an honorary doctorate degree from the university in 1995. The renamed Culinary Arts Museum tells stories about food trends, traditions, and innovations, including the significant impact of the College of Culinary Arts on the Rhode Island food scene. The College of Culinary Arts has served as a catalyst for the culinary arts in the state, especially in Providence. Johnson & Wales alumni have established numerous restaurants in Rhode Island and significantly shape local food culture and the culinary arts. As Emeril would say, “Feel the love.”
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God’s Little Acre: Newport's Common Burying Ground

2014-06-11T23:34:12+00:00

“In Memory of Duchess Quamino, A free black of distinguished excellence: Intelligent, Industrious, Affectionate, Honest, and of Exemplary Piety, Who deceased June 4, 1804, aged 65.”
Quamino’s weather-worn marker, along with nearly 300 others, comprise a section of Newport’s Common Burial Ground known as “God’s Little Acre,” one of the oldest and largest colonial African burial grounds in the United States. Dating from the late 1600s, “God’s Little Acre” offers insight into the lives of enslaved and free Africans such as Quamino through the commemorative words and images etched into stone.
Although described as a “free black” on her marker, Quamino was enslaved in the home of William Channing until she bought her freedom. Quamino also lived in her master’s house, which was customary in urban seaports where slaves worked in trades and crafts rather than on plantations. Many of the slaves brought to Newport were young children who worked alongside their masters to learn skills like rum making, rope braiding, stone carving, candle making, and chocolate grinding. Quamino used her culinary skills to run a catering business out of her master’s house. Her entrepreneurial success allowed her to purchase her freedom and earned her the title “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island.”
Quamino’s inscription praises her “Exemplary Piety” and includes a hymnal verse: “Blessed thy slumbers in this house of clay, And bright thy rising to eternal day.” With these words, William Ellery Channing, the founder of the Unitarian Church and the author of the epitaph, recognized Quamino’s involvement in the religious community of Newport. Quamino’s husband John was also a devout Christian. After gaining his freedom, he studied alongside a minister at Princeton in preparation for missionary work in Africa, but their plans dissolved when John was killed aboard a privateer ship during the American Revolution.
Like many slaves in colonial Newport, the Quaminos experienced the wave of Christian revival known as the Great Awakening during which Protestant America sought to convert the African population. In Newport, some slaves were provided religious education, converted to their master’s religion, and worshipped with the family in the home and at church. The burial ground reflects the breadth of religious diversity present in the city through carvings of angels, Biblical verses, and acknowledgements of those who lived with virtue and piousness.
The markers also tell about the origins of the deceased through the traditions of names. The prevalence of Anglicized or phonetically spelled versions of names from the African Gold Coast revealed the homeland of many Newport slaves to be Ghana. Upholding the naming tradition of the Akan people, the Africans often had names that identified the day of the week and order in which they were born. The name “Quamino” is given to boys born on a Saturday. In Duchess’ case, “Quamino” was her married name after her husband.
Walking through “God’s Little Acre,” the leaning, faded colonial stones are joined by the new markers of their descendants, a tribute to the resilience and preservation of African heritage in Rhode Island.
In November 2025, Duchess Quamino played a prominent role in “Life After Life,” a live performance developed through research and performed by 50 community members in Newport Common Burying Ground in November 2025. Actress Rebekah Acquah embodied Duchess, a transformative experience that gave her profound insight into Duchess’s character: “[This play] allowed me to honor not just [who the characters] were in the books, but also who the person was. It gave me the ability to give life to the dead.” As Rebekah noted, Duchess sparked opportunities for generations to come through her entrepreneurship, determination, and drive: “[Duchess] purchased her freedom and her children’s freedom and then bought a home next to the people who enslaved her. That’s a boss…If it wasn’t for someone like Duchess Quamino and so many others, I wouldn’t have been free to express [myself], to be sitting in this room right now.” You can see Rebekah portray Duchess in the Image Gallery below, and can learn more about “Life After Life” here: centeraquidneck.com/life-after-life-about
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The Celebrity Club: Best Jazz in Providence: The Celebrity Club

2014-06-11T18:56:43+00:00

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 details of interior decoration as it took in, according to historian Jason McGill, “the sounds of the first of innumerable jam sessions featuring some of Providence’s finest jazz talent.” White jazz lovers also came in to sit at the bar, enjoy the beer, and hear the best music in Providence.
The Celebrity Club was founded by Paul Filippi, an Italian American who loved jazz, and was eager to make a difference in a segregated city. It was the first interracial club in New England, welcoming black and white musicians and audiences. Before it opened, African Americans in Providence who wanted to listen to live jazz, or even just go out for dinner, had to cram into narrow, crowded black neighborhood clubs or travel to other cities.
The club was an immediate success. It tripled in size to accommodate over 300 guests. In its heyday, from 1949 to 1960, famous black and white jazz artists played the club, including Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams, and Erroll Garner. It attracted African American community members and Providence’s white elite. The local black newspaper wrote about Nat King Cole’s 1951 appearance:
"People from all over New England have poured this way into this Randall street house of big name bands. … Judge Dooley and a party of six complimented Paul Filippi on his ability to bring nationally known entertainment to Providence. Other community leaders in the business and professional field are phoning in for reservations."
In addition to providing blacks and whites a chance to enjoy the best jazz music in Providence, the Celebrity Club worked for racial equality. It maintained, notes historian McGill, “a solid stance of openness and equality,” by providing its performers what one of them called “a musician’s paradise” and paying its African American employees top union wages.
But not everyone was happy to see a successful interracial club. The Providence police raided it regularly, harassing black club-goers. Filippi sold the Celebrity Club in 1958, and it closed in 1960. A commemorative plaque was erected in 2013 and can be viewed on the east side of the Marriott Hotel where Charles and Ashburton Streets merge.
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