This is the inscription upon the east side, immediately above which, in raised letters, is the name Cooke. On the west is the following:
"Hannah Sabine, relict of Nicholas Cooke, born in Killingly, Connecticut, March 13th, 1722; died in Providence, March 22d, 1792." This monument is about twenty feet high, composed of a single block. The sketch of it here given is from the cemetery, looking eastward, and includes in the distance the French camp-ground just mentioned. The most remote of the two fields seen between the trees on the right, is the one wherein the remains of the encampment are to be seen.
On the road leading from the cemetery to the town is a brick building, with a hip-roof, which La Fayette occupied as head-quarters, while in Providence a short time in 1778 He had been sent by Washington with two thousand men to assist Sullivan in the siege of Newport. The house is well preserved, but changed somewhat in its external appearance On our way into the town we passed along Benefit Street, on the east side of which, in a vacant lot, upon the slope of a steep hill, near the mansion of the father of Governor Dorr, is a living water-fountain, called Roger Williams's Spring. Tradition asserts that here, in the cool shade of sycamores (of which the huge trees that now overshadow it are the sprouts), Williams first reposed after his journey, and that here his first tent was pitched, at twilight, on a beautiful evening in June. It is a pleasant spot now, even with the pent-up city around it; it must then have been a delicious resting-place for the weary exile, for below him were the bright waters of the Narraganset, beyond which arose the gentle slopes and more lofty hills of the fair land of Canonicus, his friend and protector.
* Mr. Cooke was deputy governor in 1775. When the Assembly, or House of Magistrates of the colony, voted to raise an army of fifteen hundred men, Joseph Wanton, then the Governor of Rhode Island, his deputy, and others in the government, were opposed to the measure. The people were displeased, yet Wanton, who had been chief magistrate since 1769, was rechosen governor in May; but, failing to appear and take the prescribed oath, the Assembly directed that the deputy governor should perform the duties of chief magistrate. Mr. Cooke became convinced that the warlike measures of the Assembly were correct, and entered heartily into all their views. Wanton appeared in June, and demanded that the oath of office should be administered to him, but, as he had not given satisfaction to the Assembly, his request or demand was not complied with.
Old Tavern in Providence.—Its Associations.—Destruction of Tea in Market Square.—Rhode Island Historical Society
Within the city, on the east side of Market Square, stands the old tavern, with moss-grown roof, where many a grave and many a boisterous meeting were held by the freemen of the Providence Plantations during the Stamp Act excitement, and the earlier years of the of the people; and many excited audiences have crowded Market Square, in front of it, to listen to patriotic speeches.
The people ol Providence, and particularly the matrons and maidens, cheerfully acquiesced in the demands made upon their self-denial by the non-importation agreements, and foreign tea was discarded as if it had been a poisonous drug. ** In 1773, when it was ascertained that the ships of the East India Company, heavily laden with tea, were about to sail for America, the people of Providence were among the first to express their disapprobation; and on one occasion the town crier, with a drum, patroled the streets in the evening, announcing that a bonfire of tea would be made in Market Square at ten o'clock at night, and requesting those who possessed and repudiated the article to cast it upon the heap. At the appointed hour the square was crowded, and the old tavern front and its neighbors were brilliantly illuminated by the glow of the burning tea, aided by other combustibles, while shouts long and loud went up as one voice from the multitude. This was but a prelude to the united and vigorous action of the people when the war notes from Lexington aroused the country; and until the close of the contest Providence was a "nest of rebels against the king."