The Roger Williams National Memorial, at 282 North Main St., is home to a spring that was donated to the city of Providence by Judge J. Jerome Hahn in 1932- in memory of his father, Isaac Hahn (1845-1909), a businessman and textile manufacturer,  who became the first Jewish resident of Providence to be elected to public office.   Judge Hahn believed that the spring was a historic and almost sacred place, as it was there that Roger Williams and his followers first found fresh water in the settlement that would become Providence.   Isaac Hahn’s parents came to the United States from Germany in the mid-19th century and made their home in New York City, where Isaac was born and raised. They later moved upstate, where Isaac married Rose Stern. In 1870, Isaac brought his wife and young son to establish a new life for their growing family in Providence. Isaac owned a dry goods store on Westminster Street, and later invested in  banking, factories and real estate. In 1884, he became the first Jewish state representative from Providence in the Rhode Island General Assembly, in which he served one term. Isaac was also deeply involved in the Jewish community, helping to build a new  synagogue for the Congregation of the Sons of Israel and David (founded in 1854, this congregation survives today as Temple Beth-El).

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“Flying Horses, Swings, Elevated Railroads, ‘Chutes,’ and other forms of attractions abound; there is a large hotel on the grounds, and the dining halls for shore dinners are the most extensive on the bay.” --Official Souvenir of the Exposition of the New England Association of Arts and Crafts

Crescent Park drew in a large crowd each summer, boasting of its “famous” clam bakes and novel amusement rides. The story of Crescent Park begins just before the turn of the century, with Rhode Island in the midst of an industrial upheaval. George Boyden bought land and later a hotel in the late 1880s, which became a beloved oceanfront park with amusement park rides and social events.

The lucrative rides at Crescent Park had names like the Spanish Fandango and the Russian Toboggan. But no other ride at Crescent Park is as well known as the 1895 Looff Carousel. Charles Looff’s (later owner of the park) carousel at Crescent Park had over 50 unique horses and is famed for its decorations and features. Charles Looff’s work also appears at Rocky Point with the Ferris wheel. During its peak, Crescent Park played host to different events such as concerts, regular clam bakes with all sorts of sides, ice skating, and the Exposition of the New England Association of Arts and Crafts. It truly was the, “Coney Island of the East.” This Exposition especially is a salient example of the industrialization happening around Crescent Park in the late 19th/ early 20th centuries. A 1902 souvenir booklet of the exhibition even acknowledged this explicitly, stating, “The aim of this souvenir is to present in a graphic form some of the Industrial Features of the State in the shape of accounts of particular businesses and industries, and at the same time to picture forth the beauties of the Sea and Shore on Narragansett Bay in the vicinity of the Exposition.” Just as the Exhibition combined industrial themes with seaside beauty, Crescent Park’s modern rides blended with its natural oceanside location to create a space for both amusement and relaxation.

Economic difficulties and hurricanes hit the park hard, and the park suffered up through the 20th century until eventually in 1979 Crescent Park had to close. While Crescent Park may no longer be a fully-fledged amusement park, it can still be visited. The area where the amusement park once stood is now a public park on the shore with a gazebo, waterfront area, a clam shack, a boat landing, and the Looff Carousel, still in operation. As of 1976, the National Register of Historic Sites and Places included the Looff Carousel. The carousel has undergone significant restoration this year (2018) at the New England Carousel Museum in Connecticut, and has returned home to Riverside. This Carousel serves as a reminder of Crescent Park’s great history: George Boyden, its backdrop of industrialization, and the restoration and carousel rides of today.

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Rocky Point Park is still on many Rhode Islanders’ minds. The park, shut down in 1995, was a beloved part of Rhode Island since the 1850s. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, the park grew to its final mammoth size, and continued to renovate and update its attractions. Not only did Rocky Point Park remain an important place to the Rhode Island community even after it closed, but many Rhode Islanders celebrate the park’s history through various blogs, books, and the well-known documentary on the park.

Rocky Point Park is in Warwick, Rhode Island, right on the shore. It started small, as a favorite day trip location in the mid 1800s of Captain William Winslow. Like many beaches, a hotel was built near the beach in order to sustain the influx of tourists. As years passed, Rocky Point began to grow into a large-scale amusement park. Its rides included various roller coasters and the Ferris wheel created by Charles Looff, the same man responsible for the carousel at Crescent Park. Steamships traveled to the shore to make it easy for people to visit Rocky Point.

Other attractions at the park included bowling, the dance hall, and shore dinners. Rocky Point was best known for its clambakes, and the park even served these clams to President Hayes when he came to visit in 1877.

The park ran into its own difficulties throughout the years. The hotel was rebuilt after it burned down in 1883, the 1938 hurricane did damage to many rides at Rocky Point, and the park had to close in 1995 due to its financial struggles. Many of the most well-known rides that were still in use in ‘95 were sold to other parks all around the world when Rocky Point closed.

Even though Rocky Point closed, it still is a very important part of Rhode Island heritage and many efforts have been made to memorialize and celebrate its past. The 2007 film, You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park, made by a Rhode Island filmmaker David Bettencourt, tells the story of the park through interviews with former park employees, Rhode Islanders who favorited the park, and even Rhode Island politicians including the infamous Buddy Cianci, former Providence mayor. The small-scale documentary makes clear how beloved Rocky Point Park is, and the importance of collective memory in remembering the park. A quick Google search will show you the number of independent websites devoted to Rocky Point Park and fundraising initiatives to attempt to bring the park back.

While it seems unlikely that Rocky Point Park will be an amusement park again, in 2014 Rocky Point Park became a state park. Visitors today can see remains of the former amusement park, such as the arch, scattered signs, and some demolished ruins, and can enjoy the beautiful shore area for hikes.

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As part of a nationwide “City Beautiful” movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Providence’s civic leaders envisioned the creation of numerous parks through the city as a means to provide refuge and beauty for its citizens as a counterweight to overcrowding conditions. The population of Providence had doubled between 1880 to 1910, and with the accompanying building boom came the construction of  nearly 30,000 dwellings. The congestion of the city meant that parks were no longer considered “luxuries,” but instead were recognized by the 1906 Board of Trade Journal as “necessities for the health and wellbeing of every community.”   In its report presented to the City Council of Providence in 1906, the Metropolitan Park Commission urged the “building of a parkway from Promenade Street, running along the easterly side of Davis Park, then running in a westerly direction through Pleasant Valley, and extending to Academy Avenue.” This area, a natural valley amidst Providence’s hills, was named “Pleasant Valley Parkway.” The intent of the new boulevard was two-fold: first, it would provide a welcoming, green destination, especially for drivers as automobiles were recent luxuries for the wealthy; second, the park would also increase the real estate value of surrounding homes. Pleasant Valley Parkway’s geographical layout -- running north from Promenade Street to Davis Park, then angularly veering west to run parallel with Chalkstone Avenue, until briefly heading north again to connect to Academy Avenue  -- was a response to the area at the beginning of the twentieth century. The stretch from Promenade Street to Davis Park had, over time, become a communal dumping ground for the residents of Smith Hill. (Open dumping grounds were a common occurrence during this time period as this was the first time that city-dwellers outnumbered those in rural areas on average in the nation. Cities were filling faster with people than municipal demands could generally keep up with.) Pleasant Valley Parkway was planned to rehabilitate this unslighty dumping ground, turning it into a more sanitary, usable location. Added onto this section, the east-west turn of the Parkway continued, following the course of a natural brook, which was incorporated as the scenic center of the boulevard. Apparently, after its completion in 1909, response to the new green thoroughfare was poor. The Metropolitan Park Commission noted that “the Pleasant Valley Parkway will in time prove to be a good public investment although it now begins dismally at Promenade Street, and ends unfortunately, before it gets much of anywhere.” Despite this negative response, the Commission was hopeful that the changing waterfronts of downtown Providence would lead to changes in the streetscapes, and thus in the appeal of Pleasant Valley Parkway. Over that past century, some scenes along the Parkway have changed,  like the building of the Roger Williams Medical Center or Nathanael Greene Middle School, but a good portion of Pleasant Valley Parkway is still residential and scenic -- either overlooking parks or the green space of the boulevard. One can get a sense of how the area looked and felt over a century ago when it was first created. Moving to the  southernmost section, closest to Promenade Street and the Woonasquatucket River, is urban and industrialized, with a number of businesses and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company Plant.

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Thomas Davis, the namesake of Davis Park, was born in Ireland in 1806, and came to the United States in 1817. Unlike most of the Irish immigrants who would come to Providence, Davis was not Catholic, but instead a member of the Westminster Unitarian Church. Both his religion and financial success allowed him to move into the powerful elite of the state despite his foreign birth. Davis served as a member of the Rhode Island Senate from 1845 to 1853 and then a single term in the U.S. House from 1853 to 1855. In 1869, Davis and his second wife, Paulina, a prominent social activist in her own right, moved into a mansion with extensive grounds totaling thirty-four acres at the corner of Chalkstone Avenue and Raymond Street.

As one of the nineteenth century centers of the Industrial Revolution, by 1880, Providence was a city of over 100,000 people. During this time, a national movement arose for the preservation of green space for recreation. The Providence Parks Commission was founded in the 1880s with the original purpose of preserving the Cove Basin – the original tidal basin of the Providence River that the railroad companies wanted to pave over. The Commission advocated urban green space, specifically “a chain or system of smaller parks” throughout the city.  Many particularly believed that a park was needed in the Tenth Ward, a populous and geographically large area.

Meanwhile, Thomas Davis’ fortunes had taken an extreme turn for the worse. His wife Paulina died in 1876.  His businesses failed completely. In 1880, he even lost his right to vote because he could no longer meet the requirement to own $134 of property that naturalized voters such as himself were required to possess. Davis decided in 1890 to sell his mansion and grounds to the city for $75,000, enough to restore his financial security but considered a bargain price for the city. Davis died on July 26, 1895.

The new park was named Davis Park in honor of the former owner and became home to baseball games, children’s pageants, and scenic strolls for local residents.  After World War II, the city government made the controversial decision to donate all the land to the federal government for use as a Veterans Administration hospital.  Those that opposed said that construction of a hospital in Davis Park “means taking away from thousands of growing youngsters their only available recreational ground.” The city and the VA attempted to allay this concern by setting aside a small section of the old park that would include a baseball diamond and tennis courts. This plan immediately proved to be fraught with problems though and was abandoned. Children were instructed to use nearby O’Brien Park (at the corner of River and Regent Avenues) instead.

Eventually, the VA allowed neighborhood children the use of a playground, and in 1953, ceded eight acres back to the city, which would then include a larger park with baseball and softball fields and a basketball court.  Davis Park has remained a major center of recreation for the people of Providence.  As Valley and Smith Hill are now home to a large Hispanic population, a statue of César Chávez has been added to the park.  The installation of wrought iron fencing, the creation of a walking track, and the planting of community gardens that have further beautified the area.  Although most of those who use the park are probably not familiar with early social advocates Thomas and Paulina Davis, their name and legacy live on at Davis Park.

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Amidst the flurry of trains and industry that marked this area during the 19th century was a much needed bucolic retreat, what we now call Burnside Park. Adjacent to the historic transportation hub of Providence, Burnside Park was originally created as a public space in 1892. The park eventually became a convenient downtown space to showcase two large public art works: the Bajnotti Fountain and the statue of notable Rhode Islander Ambrose Burnside.

Dedicated in 1901, the Bajnotti Fountain was a gift from Italian Diplomat Paul Bajnotti to the city of Providence in honor of his late wife, Carrie Mathilde Brown, whose family was prominent in the city. Bajnotti and Brown married in 1876 and spent most of their wedded life in Italy, but maintained strong ties to Providence. After Brown’s death in 1896, Bajnotti erected three monuments in memory of his beloved wife: the Carrie Tower at Brown University, the Pancratiast Statue at Roger Williams Park, and the Carrie Brown Bajnotti Memorial Fountain at Burnside Park. Enid Yandell, a student of Auguste Rodin and a prominent female sculptor at the time, was the only woman to submit a design proposal. She won the competition. The sculpture consists of three allegorical parts. One interpretation states that life is symbolized by the woman, the spirit, symbolized by an angel, and “earthly tendencies” represented by three male figures. Life holds onto the spirit and they are both bound to the earth for eternity––an appropriate memorial for the marriage.

The Burnside statue, dedicated in 1887, commemorates former Rhode Island governor and Civil War general Ambrose Burnside. Born in Indiana, Burnside attended the United States Military Academy, and was eventually stationed at Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island. When the Civil War began Burnside raised the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry Regiment becoming its colonel. He quickly climbed the Union ranks and played important leadership roles in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. Unfortunately, Burnside is not well remembered for his military acumen. Failure at the Crater caused Union general Ulysses S. Grant to order Burnside on “extended leave” effectively ending his military career. Following the war, Burnside served three one year terms as governor of Rhode Island, and remained a popular public figure until his death in 1881. Launt Thompson, a New York sculptor, completed this memorial in 1887. It was dedicated in the park bearing Burnside’s name in 1906. The park is not Burnside’s only namesake, however--the term “sideburns” comes from his instantly recognizable facial hair.

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In June of 1776, on the highest point of ground in Newport, the Americans erected a signal beacon and a small fortification. This high point is known as Tonomi Hill, a shortening of Miantonomi, the name of the sachem of the Narragansetts when Newport was settled in 1639. According to local tradition, the Narragansetts used the hill in much the same way as the European settlers, as a lookout and signaling location.

When the British occupied Newport in December of 1776, they made Tonomi Hill a focus of their efforts to defend the city, according to Frederick Mackenzie, a British soldier who kept a detailed diary of his time spent in America. For instance, on August 10, 1777, Mackenzie reported, “A Detachment of a Captain, 2 Subs. and 100 men of the 22d Regiment, marched this day and encamped near Tonomi-hill near Newport, where they are to be employed in carrying on some works.”

On May 2, 1778, Mackenzie wrote, “The troops are employed in construction of a Redoubt on Tonomi hill, which, from the nature of the situation, is capable of being made a place of great strength, and will cover the left of our position.” On May 5, he reported, “Three of the Redoubts near the town are finished, and that on Tonomi hill nearly so. When the works intended to be made from Green-end to the shore on the left of Tonomi are finished, the town will be rendered very secure, as it is by much the best position for the purpose.”

There were actually two earthwork fortifications at this location. The first and larger is on Tonomi Hill; the second earthwork (sometimes called a “fleche”) is located on an outcrop to the north called Sunset Hill or Little Tonomi, and was connected to the main earthwork by a high ridge. After the French sent their fleet into Narragansett Bay on July 29, 1778, Mackenzie noted, “The troops were informed last night, that on three Guns being fired from the North Battery in Newport, (which is the Signal that the Enemy is landing) they are immediately to get under arms. On this Signal, Ditfourth's Regiment is to throw 200 men into Tonomi hill; 30 into the Fleche on the left of it.”

In August of 1778, when the Americans began massing troops on the north end of Aquidneck Island in preparation for an attempt to retake Newport, the British created a new front line, with Tonomi as the westernmost position. During the American siege, Mackenzie noted the role Tonomi played in defending the British position: “About 6 this afternoon about 40 Rebels took post at Potter's chimnies on our left, but some shots being fired at them from Little Tonomi & Irish's they went off. We lost no men this day by the fire of the Enemy. Our troops at work on the Line, which is now extended within 200 yards of Great Tomini.”

After the Revolution, the earthworks at Tonomi Hill remained intact due to their difficult terrain and inaccessibility. Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan who traveled within the former thirteen colonies after the Revolution, described the “two hills close to each other and very dominating called Tonomi hills, where there is a sufficiently capable and well constructed...redoubt.” The property surrounding the fortifications soon reverted to farmland. On October 15, 1795, William Ellery (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) was paid $10 for “levelling the earth round the Citidel on Tonomi hill,” possibly to remove the remains of the barracks or an encampment.

On his 1848 visit to Newport, the American historian Benson Lossing provided a detailed description of Tonomi Hill: “About a mile and a half northward of Newport rises a bold, rocky eminence, called ‘Tonomi Hill’, celebrated as the seat of the Narragansett sachem of that name, and the commanding site of a small fort or redoubt during the war of the Revolution. …Tonomi Hill is said to be the highest land upon the island, except Quaker Hill, toward the northern end. On its southern slope is the mansion of Mr. Hazzard. …On the top of the hill Mr. Hazzard has erected an observatory, seventy feet high, over a cellar which was dug by the Indians, and in which is a living spring of water. The hill is two hundred and seventy feet above the bay and the top of the observatory commands one of the most beautiful panoramic views in the world.”

According to a 1921 description of the area, “A dense growth of cedars now covers these hills. In the center of Tonomi Hill fort there is an observation tower, which replaced an old one blown down many years ago, from which an extensive view of Newport and its harbor and surroundings could be enjoyed.” In 1922, Newport created a city park on Tonomi Hill, which included a 90-foot tall stone memorial, supposedly on the foundation of the Tonomi Hill powder magazine.

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In May of 1776, the Americans hastily built an earthwork battery in a large field on the west side of the Beavertail peninsula on Conanicut Island. British diarist Frederick Mackenzie later described the fortification as a "Battery or Redoubt with 4 embrasures” facing the West Passage of Narragansett Bay.

There were at least two other fortifications on Conanicut during the American Revolution: another battery at Beavertail and a battery on the eastern side of the island that later was rebuilt and named Fort Dumpling, after the shape of the rocky protrusions along the shoreline. There may have been another American battery further north on Beavertail at Sheffield Cove. These defenses, along with a battery across the West Passage on Bonnet Point, were intended to protect Narragansett Bay from British naval incursions. They failed in this role.

When the British sailed past Conanicut Battery on December 7, 1776, they were met with no opposition. The British forces occupied Conanicut and Aquidneck Island, and took control of the abandoned American defenses. The British improved most of these fortifications, including the Conanicut Battery, to defend their occupation.

When the French finally arrived on July 29, 1778, British soldiers at Conanicut Battery fired its guns at two of the French ships. American Colonel John Laurens wrote to his father that, “The Sagittaire, a ship of the line, went up the western passage on the morning of the 30th , and was fired upon by a two gun battery of 24 pounders, which the enemy had on the west side of Cononicut. The Sagittaire returned a broadside as she passed, and we discovered from the Admiral's ship an explosion at the battery, which induced us to believe that the enemy had abandoned it. … The ship received two scratches in her hull, and proceeded to her station.” Upon their departure, the British destroyed the magazines, and the abandoned fort was left to decay.

After the Revolution, Beavertail returned to agricultural uses. In 1931, the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a bronze plaque on the site, but it has since disappeared. During World War II, the military installed observation and communication posts nearby. In the 1990s a local profit group, Friends of the Conanicut Battery, secured funding to protect the site. Today the 22-acre park features trails to the World War II structures, interpretive signs, and the remains of the Conanicut Battery.

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He looks surprised to see her but who can blame him? Goddesses do not often descend from the heavens and communicate with humans. The goddess Liberty hands a spear to a young farmer, still holding his plow. Leave your work in the fields! Take up arms and fight for freedom! History, the future, demands it!

William Granville Hastings (1868 – 1902), an extraordinary young sculptor, designed this classical Civil War memorial, Liberty Arming the Patriot. Gorham Company of Providence cast the memorial in bronze, and it was installed in Park Place in 1897.

Below Liberty and the farmer there is a Union artillery battery, men in the heat of battle, led by Rhode Island’s General Ambrose Burnside at Antietam Bridge. And on either side, two female figures: the Scribe of History, writing on a tablet; and Eternity, identifiable by her fern.

Rhode Island would see over 25,000 men go to battle during the course of the Civil War. Moved by the troops’ service, the Rhode Island Ladies’ Soldiers’ Memorial Association worked for eleven years to raise money to build the memorial, “conducting donations, public subscriptions, and entertainments.”

Many Ladies’ Soldiers’ Memorial Associations developed during and after the Civil War to support the troops, sending clothing, nursing the wounded, raising money for “the cause”, locating the bodies of the dead, and commemorating the fallen troops. Col. Elliott F. Shepard once claimed, “They were the ladies who, if they had been men, would have been soldiers.”

William Granville Hastings was born in Surrey, England, three years after the American Civil War ended. He won awards in art school for his renaissance-style vases, and he moved to Paris, France, to apprentice with artist Jules Dalou, who was known for producing realistic figures. At the age of twenty-three, Hastings immigrated to the United States to work as a designer and sculptor for the Gorham Manufacturing Company in New York. He received the commission for Liberty Arming the Patriot five years later, in 1896.

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When Liz Camp, a resident of the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood, heard that developers wanted to build over two dozen townhouses on an open plot of land near Mashapaug Pond, she knew she had had to do something to halt the construction. After years of campaigning, when the governor’s office told Camp that her persistence was driving them crazy, she knew that “something” was finally working.

In the fall of 1990, a developer had purchased 4.6 acres of land on the southwest side of Mashapaug Pond that had previously been preserved as open space. With plans to build twenty-five new homes and lay two new streets, Reservoir Triangle residents worried the construction would “ruin the community” and cause traffic problems. “We want[ed] this space to be open space,” Liz Camp recalled. “We want[ed] the city to buy the property or the state to buy the property. And we want[ed] it to be open spaces. So, we became activists, neighborhood activists.”

Generating any sort of grassroots change in the neighborhood, let alone creating a new park, seemed impossible in the early 1990s. One Reservoir Triangle resident told a Providence Journal reporter that at a city hall meeting, none of the officials had even heard of their neighborhood. A newspaper article mockingly described residents’ vision for the area as “floating a dream of a clean Mashapaug Pond.”

Reservoir Triangle homeowners persisted. Meeting in one another’s living rooms, they organized calling campaigns and discussed strategies for making their voices heard. The Mashapaug Pond Action Committee was born.

After a long battle against the local government and frustrating political inaction, the Reservoir Triangle residents succeeded. The city finally bought the land from the developer, guaranteeing its preservation as public space. In 1994, after the city solicited input from residents regarding how they would like the space to be used, Murphy-Trainor Park was built on the land saved by the Mashapaug Pond Action Committee.

Murphy-Trainor Park is now one of three open, public spaces around Mashapaug Pond. And continued public pressure from neighborhood residents and activists has resulted in major zoning overhauls in the past years: Several properties near Mashapaug Pond that were formerly zoned for light industrial use are now preserved as public spaces. These new open areas include J.T. Owens Park and the Community Boating Center, as well as a park currently in development behind Alvarez High School.

Following in the footsteps of Liz Camp and the Mashapaug Pond Action Committee, other community-based initiatives, like the Urban Pond Procession, have also brought neighborhood residents together to raise awareness about issues with Mashapaug Pond. Murphy-Trainor Park itself, once a rallying point, is now a space for further community organizing.

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