Rhode Tour

William M. Rodman

2017-08-09T17:08:33+00:00

Violence in Chepachet!

“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.

After their victory, the soldiers ransacked Sprague’s Tavern and other residences and captured 140 prisoners. When they reached Providence, they were met with a remarkable welcome:
Brilliant was the spectacle, which old Westminster presented. From the side walk to the house tops, all was life, aye, life in its most attractive forms -- and with boquets [sic] and wreaths, only excelled in beauty by their own personal attractions, they literally smothered the advancing columns.
Given his profession as a tailor, it is perhaps no surprise that Rodman noted what he and his compatriots had donned as uniforms: “Scarlet cap, trimmed with Brass -- Black fountain plume, with scarlet tips, Blue coat trimmed with scarlet, with scarlet epaulets and white pantaloons. Black belts. Cartouch box, etc.”
27 Westminster Street was the location of Rodman’s tailoring firm and on the path of the parade following the Charterite success at Chepachet
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Catherine R. Williams

2017-08-09T13:40:30+00:00

"You might have heard a leaf move in the forest..."

A crowd of 1,500 had gathered in Millville on a late fall day in 1842 to show their support for their exiled hero, Thomas Wilson Dorr. One of the most well-known women in the crowd was Catherine R. (Arnold) Williams (1790-1872), who, despite some apparent misgivings about doing so, approached the podium to speak.
She later wrote to Dorr, “You might have heard a leaf move in the forest, so profound was the attention given.” The crowd had learned that Williams had recently visited Dorr and were eager to hear news of their leader. Williams writes of herself in the third person: “To my confusion, she was called for by so many voices at once, she was obliged to show herself. Literally forced to the stump. Thank heaven, women never are at a loss for words, and finding herself thus compelled, the Lady in question, threw off her cloak and stepped forward to the front of the Stand and gave a brief and I trust intelligible history of her visit to our exiled Governor.”
Williams had come of age when White women were granted as yet unparalleled access to education and independence, and so it is fitting that she would have become a fierce public advocate for Thomas Wilson Dorr and close confidante. In fact, Dorr and Williams had much in common. Like Dorr, Catherine Arnold was born into a family with deep roots in Rhode Island, yet was devoted to the cause of common men (and women, in Catherine’s case).
This location is the former site of Arnold family home where Catherine spent her childhood and later years.
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Thomas Wilson Dorr

2017-08-09T13:18:45+00:00

The Man Behind the Rebellion

Thomas Wilson Dorr has been called an unlikely people’s hero in the Rebellion that bears his name. A well-educated lawyer, Dorr hailed from an upper-crust Rhode Island family. His father, Sullivan Dorr, amassed great wealth through his dealings in the China Trade, and Dorr’s mother, Lydia (Allen) Dorr, was the sister of the prominent textile manufacturer Zachariah Allen.
Thomas Wilson Dorr’s family aligned themselves with Samuel Ward King and the Charterites during the conflict of 1841-2. His parents even wrote to plead with him against running for governor under the People’s Constitution, but he was not dissuaded. When Dorr and his followers attempted to seize the Providence arsenal, Dorr’s father and uncle, Crawford Allen, were among the men on site to defend it. Ultimately Dorr was estranged from all in his family, apart from his mother.
Despite pressures from disapproving family members, verbal abuse from his opponents, and the disappointment of former allies changing sides, Dorr remained convinced of the righteousness of his cause. In August 1842, two months after the debacle at Chepachet, Dorr wrote a lengthy letter to his friend Williams Simons, editor of the Providence paper The Republican Herald:
“It is due to myself to say that although I am not insensible to the opinions of men, I feel conscious that I have done the duty which was assigned to me by the People of R. Island, and in this a source of satisfaction of what no hostility or malice can deprive me . . . my spirit is not broken by the burden of defeat & obloquy that has been cast upon me.”
Thomas Wilson Dorr would likely have been surprised, although hardly displeased, to learn that his legacy in Rhode Island lives on. While he was not able to secure King’s seat as governor in the Old State House on Benefit Street in 1842, Dorr’s likeness now stands outside the senate chamber of the Rhode Island State House on Smith Hill.
This location, 109 Benefit Street, was the home of Thomas Wilson Dorr.
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The Dorr Rebellion - Context:

2017-08-09T13:04:17+00:00

Ready for a Change

Rhode Islanders were pretty pleased with their royal charter in 1663, which granted them freedom from religious persecution. But even a beloved antique can lose its luster eventually, and so by the 19th century, when Rhode Island still operated under the charter (which included no means to amend it in any way), citizens were justifiably ready for a change.
Not surprisingly, the Rhode Island of the nineteenth century was a far cry from that of the seventeenth. No longer a collection of sleepy farming communities, roaring centers of industry had emerged, attracting new waves of immigrants eager to fill factory jobs. Despite major population booms in Rhode Island’s urban sectors, these areas received the same representation in state government as the sparse rural towns. The other inequality that most stuck in the craw of some Rhode Islanders was the issue of suffrage, or the right to vote. But there were many in the state who wanted to hold onto their voting power, namely mill owners opposed to reform and conservative rural Democrats, who had much to lose if their interests were overshadowed by an onslaught of city voters. Many contemporary critics saw through to the deeper issue at hand: most of the urban voters would be immigrants, and the tide of anti-immigrant hatred was only growing.
The conflict in 1841-42 pitted two parties against one another: the Charterites, or the Law and Order Party, led by then-governor Samuel Ward King, who wanted to stick with the charter and keep close tabs on who deserved the privilege of voting; and the People’s Party, spearheaded by a Harvard-educated lawyer and former state legislator named Thomas Wilson Dorr.
The frustration over inequalities in representation and voting that had been brewing for some time came to a head in 1841 when the Rhode Island Suffrage Association charged Thomas Wilson Dorr with drafting a new constitution to usher in a new political order. In early 1842, two separate elections were held, one naming Dorr governor, and the other, Samuel Ward King. After a trip to New York persuaded Dorr to resort to force to gain the advantage, he and his followers unsuccessfully attempted to overtake an arsenal with cannons that misfired. Dorr fled the authorities through Connecticut and into New York, returning to Rhode Island in June where he attempted to reconvene his People’s legislature and gather forces in Chepachet. When Charterite militia marched on the village, they discovered that Dorr’s troops had already retreated. No battle took place, but many Dorr supporters were arrested. Dorr fled again, this time to New Hampshire. He eventually returned and was tried for treason and sentenced to life in prison (though he served only one year of the sentence).
Although the Dorrites had been unsuccessful in the short term, the cause for suffrage had gained such support that a new constitution was drafted and adopted in 1842, going into effect in 1843. In this iteration, suffrage was extended to any native-born male, including Black men, regardless of property holdings. In truth, though, it was no great victory for the Dorrite cause: the new constitution disenfranchised non native-born citizens as well as Narragansett Indians.
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