The house was named for Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), the French General who fought alongside George Washington in several critical endeavors—including the siege of Yorktown and the Battle of the Chesapeake—in the American Revolutionary War.

De Vimeur landed in Newport, Rhode Island in 1780, and had under his command several thousand French troops with whom he was to assist the Continental Army, under General George Washington. The French chateau that now stands at 84 Prospect Street was dubbed the Rochambeau House in honor of de Vimeur’s outstanding achievements during the war, and it is rumoured that at times, he was in command of more men than Washington, himself. The Comte, however, never actually resided in the house, as it was not constructed until 1929, more than a century after his death.

Nowhere inside the house is there any mention of the Comte's legacy, though there is a marble plaque in the building’s main foyer commemorating the life of another remarkable individual: Mary Elizabeth Evans Sharpe, of Providence, Rhode Island. Sharpe was the wife of a Providence-based industrialist, Henry Dexter Sharpe Sr., who later became the twelfth Chancellor of Brown University. The Sharpes commissioned the Boston-based architectural firm of Parker, Thomas, and Rice to design their dream home, and after its completion in 1929, Mary Sharpe lived there until her death in 1985 (Mr. Sharpe having passed away in 1954). After her passing, her only son, Henry D. Sharpe Jr., donated the house to Brown University in his mother’s honor, knowing how she and his father had for so many years worked with and loved the University community, and how she wanted to see her home remain in the care of the family's alma mater.

Mrs. Sharpe was an avid gardener and self-taught landscape architect, and over the decades during which she lived at 84 Prospect St., ensured that the house was always surrounded by beautifully-tended gardens and greenery; in the spirit of her love for garden and landscape design, the University still maintains the gardens on the grounds, today. Just outside the front door, on each side of the entrance to her home, stand two beautiful examples of Mrs. Sharpe's favorite tree: the Japanese cherry blossom, whose delicate boughs still embrace visitors and welcome her guests into the house today.

The house was given the name "Rochambeau" as a commemoration of the Comte's stay in Providence during the Revolutionary War, where he and his troops were actually sheltered at Brown (then known as The College in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations) before a march through Connecticut to connect with General Washington. De Vimeur remained in the newly-born United States for only a few years after the war, and upon his return to France, he became a key supporter of the French Revolution. That it, while his stay here in our humble Rhode Island was a brief one, his legacies have left an indelible mark upon our community and our history.

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On any given summer day in the city of Providence, you’re likely to notice a steady flow of people—Rhode Island locals, university students, families and young children—making their way down North Main Street towards Wickenden St., in the Fox Point neighborhood of the city.

It’s more than likely that all of those individuals are en route to India Point Park, located along India Street, where the Providence River meets the Seekonk. Providence has long been a crucial port city of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States—in fact, the area now known as India Point was an important center for trade since the late 1680s, far before the United States was even a nation.

In the late 17th century, goods such as teas, spices, and textile were exchanged here between the early settlers of Providence and the world; over the years, as time and industrial needs developed continued to grow into the 1800s and later, the focus would shift more to the exchange of valued products such as hardware and machinery, wool, and coal. After the Crash of 1929 and the devastation of the Great Depression, trade activity in the area declined greatly, and came to a full halt. However, in that span of 250 years, this port saw the coming and going of an incredible volume of ships, traders, merchants, and goods, although it looks quite different today than what one would have imagined it to be all those years ago.

Today, India Point Park is one of the largest public spaces in the city of Providence. After trade activity in the area ceased, and most of the incoming cargo was redirected to a new port located along Allens Avenue in Providence, the area was used mostly as a scrapyard and fell into disarray. In the 1960’s, with increasing efforts to urbanize Providence, the I-95 Interstate was constructed, running through the Fox Point neighborhood and essentially creating a divide between the India Point grounds and the rest of the city and infringing upon the lands of other public parks in the city, leaving them fragmented and neglected.

However, in the 1970s, one woman would come about with an arsenal of great ideas and mission—a passion—to beautify to city. That woman was Mary Elizabeth Sharpe, of Providence: a passionate gardener and self-taught landscape architect with a deep love for her city. Sharpe, the wife of the 12th Chancellor of Brown University, Henry Dexter Sharpe, parlayed her passion for her sprawling home gardens into landscaping projects for the University and, later, for the city of Providence. She had a particular passion for Japanese gardens, as well as for trees—she worked many years on creating a tree-planting program for the city, and lead efforts to combat the pervasive Dutch Elm Disease, whose effects were felt strongly in the city of Providence.

Sharpe established a committee of philanthropists and donors from among the citizens of Providence in order to petition the city to allow for a conversion and repurposing of that industrial scrapyard as public land—complete with a variety of green spaces, public amenities such as benches, piers, and walkways, and direct access to the waters of the Providence and Seekonk Rivers. Mrs. Sharpe not only appealed for the allocation of funds to found what is now India Point Park and to restore other parks around the city, but also donated roughly $153,000 of her own money to the realization of her project.

Her valiant efforts did not go unrewarded, and in 1974, India Point Park was formally dedicated, and given its name hearkening back to the earliest roots of the area as a point of commerce and trade with what were then called the East Indies by the early citizens of Providence. The park’s history, rich and colorful, truly cannot be told without acknowledging the work and passion of Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sharpe, though much of the publicly-available information regarding the park today fails to mention her incredible efforts. Even after her death in 1985, she continued to support the beautification of the city of Providence with the Mary Elizabeth Sharpe Tree Endowment, a trust dedicated to tree-planting created by the Sharpe Family Foundation in 1988 to ensure that beautiful foliage would always be had wherever it was needed.

Today, the park is a hallmark of the city’s landscape, and provides some of the most scenic views of Providence and the surroundings waters. The park has recently been outfitted with an amphitheater for public events, as well as a newly-renovated pedestrian bridge and towering staircases that have reintegrated the park into the city and made it far more accessible, allow passersby to enjoy views of Providence and the Harbor as they cross above Interstate 95 on their way to the park, the Brown University boathouse, or to the popular hotel that was recently built right along India Street.

Now, each year, the July 4th celebrations at India Point also attract thousands of people from Providence and beyond—undeniable evidence of the fact that Mrs. Sharpe’s determined efforts have not gone unrecognized, and that the park will be loved and appreciated by all those who visit for many years to come.

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When Cuffe–a man of color, born to a Wampanoag woman and a freed slave–and his crew–all Black or Native men–disembarked, they were met with “astonishment and alarm” by the townsfolk. Locals ran to the docks and urged the Customs officials not to give his ship a landing permit. All his papers proved to be in order, so the permit was issued. It took three weeks for Cuffe to successfully complete his business. By the time of his departure, the people of Vienna looked at him differently. His “candor, modesty, and firmness” had swayed them. He and his crew sailed home, triumphant. From a small plot of land on the banks of the Westport River that spanned less than a half-acre in total, Cuffe operated a steady and successful shipping business of common goods between Westport, New Bedford, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard. The boats on his wharf grew larger and more numerous over time. The 18-ton Box Iron gave way to the larger Sun Fish, which grew into the 40 ton Mary, and finally, Cuffe’s favorite ships, the 268-ton Alpha and the 109-ton Traveller, docked alongside the Cuffe homestead. This shipping endeavor turned Paul Cuffe into the richest Black man of his time in America. At each new port, Cuffe and his crew faced the racist reactions of white Americans. At home in Westport, Paul and John Cuffe fought against racism on the local and state level. As freed black men, they were unable to vote, but were still taxed as any other man. The brothers refused to pay their taxes, claiming taxation without representation, and were thrown in jail. They appealed to the Massachusetts courts, and a law was passed requiring taxation of freed black men, but giving them the same rights as their white counterparts. In addition to his family homestead, Cuffe owned or leased extensive landholdings in Westport where he operated businesses like a gristmill and a West Indies goods store. He helped family members acquire property by purchasing land and passing it on under favorable terms. He also provided land to support local widows and as collateral to assist others in starting business ventures. Many of Cuffe’s land transactions helped other people to meet their financial obligations, a practical and generous approach that reflected his public-spirited activities. Cuffe’s philanthropy was extensive. A member of the Westport Society of Friends, he was appointed by the congregation to a committee to decide whether a new Meeting House should be constructed. Cuffe was a leader of that committee and provided half of the costs of the new building, the same one you stand before now. Behind the meeting house is a small group of graves, each belonging to a member of the congregation. Paul Cuffe and his wife lie behind the next house, past a wall, under a tree in a group of inconspicuous Quaker graves. Distinct, prominent, and seemingly separate. This is Paul Cuffe.

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The US Rubber Company Mill has a complex history of ownership and use that stretches over 80 years. From its inception as the Joseph Banigan Rubber Company (1896-1910), through its acquisition and expansion as a regional plant of the US Rubber Company (1910-1975), to its current use as the Waterfire Arts Center and other industrial, commercial, and residential uses, this complex is representative of the reinvention and reuse of industrial buildings throughout New England.

The story of the complex begins with Joseph Banigan, Rhode Island’s first Irish-Catholic millionaire. Born in Ireland in 1839, he fled the ravages of the Irish potato famine as a child and came to Providence, where he joined nearly 16,000 of his fellow Irish immigrants. As a young man Banigan apprenticed at the Providence Rubber Company where he learned the industry. In 1889, at the age of 50, Banigan established his own company in Woonsocket. The Alice Factory, named for his mother, was the largest rubber factory in the world.

After a few years, Banigan returned to Providence to find that the city’s industrial base had changed; machine tool manufacturing now surpassed textile production. With the rechanneling of the Woonasquatucket River, the introduction of rail service along the city’s expanding industrial corridor, and the availability of process water (water that is no longer clean enough to drink but can be used in a factory), a number of new manufacturing firms moved to the banks of the river. Banigan purchased a building owned by the Saxon Worsted Company and constructed a number of new buildings to house the production of rubber shoes and boots.

While building his rubber empire, Banigan did not forget his Irish heritage and humble beginnings. He donated generously to the city’s orphanages, the Lying In Hospital (now Women & Infants Hospital), the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Home for the Aged, and St. Maria’s Home for Working Girls. After Banigan’s death, his business was sold to US Rubber Company, which shifted its production from footwear to rubber tires and rubber thread.

US Rubber doubled down on Providence in what the Providence Journal described as “one of the largest real estate transactions that has ever been recorded in this city.” The company expanded, purchasing the idle ALCO buildings in 1918 and began outfitting them for the manufacture of solid and pneumatic tires. In its adaptation of pre-existing buildings for new uses, the US Rubber Company was typical of expanding manufacturers of the period.

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This nine-acre park was a gift from one of the greatest philanthropists in Providence’s history, a man whose charitable giving still has an impact on city life. Ebenezer Knight Dexter (1773-1824) descended from land-rich colonial Rhode Islanders. In addition to this park, dedicated in Dexter’s will to military purposes, a forty-acre tract on the East Side was donated for the support of the poor and indigent. This public space played an important role in the Dorr War and was a mustering and encampment site during the Civil War and World War I. The 14^th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored), the first African-American company from Rhode Island to serve in the Civil War, was raised in Providence and bivouacked here. Historic reenactors can still be found leading an encampment now and then. The park on a summer day is as diverse as the neighborhood. Strollers walk the long sycamore allées and watch soccer or kickball games; children fill the playground. Dexter himself watches over it all, cast in bronze by Gorham Manufacturing in 1893.

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While some radicals fought against a system that they saw as rigged, other radical acts came from the world of privilege. Alida Sprague Whitmarsh was born into a wealthy family but devoted herself to helping the poor working women of Providence. In 1887, she and Harriet Richards formed the Mt. Pleasant Working Girls Club & Library, later Sprague House, to provide training and assistance to the young Irish women working in the mills. In 1910, recognizing the great need in the densely settled Italian neighborhood, they occupied a tenement in this house and relocated here entirely in 1914, becoming Federal Hill House. Settlement houses provided medical and food aid, language classes, and skills training to immigrants trying to navigate a new country. Early emphasis was on assimilation, but sensitivity to native cultures developed over time. Federal Hill House was known for its baby clinics and free milk, sewing, pottery and language classes, and social organizations for boys and girls. No longer Irish and Italian, today’s immigrants come from across the globe. Federal Hill House has a 130-year tradition of providing community and support to thousands of city residents, both newly arrived and native born. 

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Little Compton was once full of Odd Fellows. That’s no insult. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is a fraternal and philanthropic organization established in seventeenth-century England. It arrived on American shores in 1819, and in 1875, Seaconnet Lodge #39 of the Odd Fellows was formed in Little Compton.

According to one possible explanation for the origin of the name “Odd Fellows,” groups formed for charitable purposes in seventeenth-century England were unusual, and their members might have been considered "odd fellows." Initially, the organization restricted membership to Protestant men, but in 1851 the Odd Fellows formed a women’s auxiliary group, whose members were called Magnolia Rebekahs.

In Little Compton, Odd Fellows membership quickly exceeded the capacity of Seaconnet Lodge. On March 1, 1877, some members departed to found Electra Lodge #41 in nearby Adamsville. Despite the physical separation of the two lodges, Odd Fellows member Walter Elwell remembered, “The Seaconnet and Electra were back and forth visiting. Not every meeting but I would say fifty percent of the meetings.”

The two lodges also produced a young girl’s group, called the Theta Roses, and another branch of the Odd Fellows called the Encampment. During the peak of involvement in Little Compton, Odd Fellows meetings drew up to sixty people every week.

However, the group declined quickly. In 1967, the Electra Lodge closed due to inactivity and its remaining members rejoined the Seaconnet Lodge. According to Walter Elwell, “Like every fraternal organization, they’re in trouble.” The former Electra Lodge hall first became a pottery shop called Stone Bridge Dishes, and later became a private residence.

Despite these setbacks, memories of the Odd Fellows remain strong within Little Compton and Adamsville. Boy Scouts troops met at the Electra Lodge, people were married there, and the space was great for dancing. James Brady credits his existence to a USO dance held at the Electra Lodge: “Every time I drive by the Odd Fellows Hall, I say, 'My God, that’s the place where my mom and dad met. And if they hadn’t met, well, for the last sixty-six years, I wouldn’t be here.'"

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In 1861, five young ladies, attendees of a prominent Providence academy for girls, met together for an afternoon of sewing. Unlike many of their classmates, they were concerned with more than the latest fashions, juicy local gossip, and their future matrimonial prospects. With the country ensnared in the Civil War, hospital supplies and handmade comforts for soldiers were in great demand. In Providence, the wartime economy had also made life increasingly difficult for the city’s poor. Motivated to improve their community, the girls began to canvass their neighborhoods for funds and supplies. After an encounter with a crusty Yankee tycoon who declared that the young lady was “positively irrepressible,” the Irrepressible Society was born.

Nineteenth-century Rhode Island was a world dominated by men. Until 1874, married women had no control over their own earnings. Until 1917, women could not vote. Nonetheless, the women of the Irrepressible Society exerted their independence, refusing to allow men to serve in the society in anything other than an advisory capacity. Initially, even married women could not hold offices within the society, reflecting its inclinations as a “spinster society.”

By the early 1870s, the Irrepressible Society had expanded beyond its humble beginning as a ladies’ sewing circle. They even had a coat of arms: two pairs of scissors rampant on a gold field, crowned by a thimble. Now, most of the actual sewing work was done by needy women compensated for their labor by the society. Although the Irrepressible Society’s mission included “charitable work of the city” more generally, they were particularly concerned with the plight of women without means to support themselves. Providing instruction in hand and machine sewing, the society made it possible for disadvantaged women to find gainful employment and improve their lives.

The Irrepressible Society was also remarkably forward-thinking in regard to the its finances. Acknowledging the impossibility of funding their work solely through donations, the ladies of the society endeavored to make it as self-supporting as possible. By 1929, half of the society’s revenue came from the sale of its goods and clothing. Although some items were made available to impoverished residents of the city at little or no cost, the Irrepressible Society also operated a small retail store. In addition, the society cultivated clients who placed large wholesale orders. For example, the Providence Lying-In Hospital purchased thousands of layette bundles for newborn infants over the years.

Part charitable society and part social club, most of the ladies of the Irrepressible Society were members of well-connected Providence families. Fundraising events hosted by the society were the talk of Providence. In 1884, the society hosted an elaborate “Charity Ball” that quickly became an annual winter tradition. Reviewing another society event, a local reporter began thusly: “The tea party of the Irrepressibles – we have been obliged to write that word three times, because our pen would slip into Irresistibles, as anybody’s would after coming from the blaze of matron beauty and maiden loveliness that lighted up the nice old rooms in which this society held its housewarming last evening.”

In 1929, the Irrepressible Society merged with three other social service agencies in Providence to form the new “Bureau for the Handicapped.” Seven years later, the society officially disbanded, turning all of their remaining funds over to the bureau. Although the new agency would continue to provide many of the same services – including job training, temporary employment, and financial relief – the days of the Irrepressible Society’s croquet parties and elaborate theatricals were over.

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