*** The house and the mill are covered with shingles instead of clap-boards. This view is from the lane, looking east. The ocean is seen in the distance, on the left.
Oppression of the Whigs by Prescott.—View from 'Tonomy Hill.—Mrs. Hutchinson and Sir Henry Vane.
of Rhode Island, Prescott turned many of the families of the Whigs (and there were but few others) out of their houses, to take shelter in barns and other coverts, while his soldiers occupied their comfortable dwellings. Mr. Hubbard and his family were thus driven from their house, and compelled to live for nearly two years in their mill, while insolent soldiery, ignorant and vile, occupied their rooms. The family of Mr. Hubbard took possession of the house on the evening after the evacuation, but all was desolation, the enemy having broken or carried away every article the family had left there.
'Tonomy Hill is said to bo the highest land upon the island, except Quaker Hill, toward the northern end. On its southern slope is the mansion of Mr. Hazzard, where families from a distance have a pleasant home during the warm season, while the younger fashionables are sporting at the Ocean House on the shore. 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. Stretching away northward was seen Narraganset Bay, broken by islands and pierced by headlands, and at its remote extremity the spires of Providence were glittering in the sun. On its western shore were glimpses of Warwick, Greenwich, and Wick-ford, and on the east were seen Warren and Bristol, and the top of Mount Hope, the throne of King Philip. On the south and west were the city and harbor of Newport, the island of Canonicut with its ruined fort, and the smaller islands in the harbor, with the remains of fortifications. Beyond the city, looking oceanward with a spy-glass over the ramparts of Fort Adams, was seen the dim outline of Block Island, like a mist lying upon the waters There rolled the dark and boundless Atlantic, with no limit but the blue horizon, no object but a few sails. Turning the glass a little more eastward, there was a faint apparition of Gayhead, on Martha's Vineyard, and of some of the islands in Buzzard's Bay. The cultivated fields of more than one half of Rhode Island, upon which I stood, were spread out like a map around me, rich in Nature's bounties and historical associations. From our lofty observatory, let us take a field survey with the open chronicle before us.
We have seen Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts because of alleged heresy. The rulers of that colony had scarcely recovered their equanimity, before similar difficulties arose from an unexpected quarter. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a Lincolnshire lady of good birth, education, and great energy of character, had been leavened by the tolerant principles of Williams before he left, and assumed the right to discuss religious dogmas and to detect the errors of the clergy. A privilege had been granted to hearers, at the end of sermons, to ask questions "wisely and sparingly." Mrs. Hutchinson put so many searching questions upon abstruse points in theology, in a manner which convinced the ministers that she well understood the subject, that they were greatly annoyed. She held conferences at her own house every Sabbath evening, which were fully attended, and her brother-in-law, a minister named Wheelwright, who was of the same mind with her, drew crowds to his chapel every Sunday. Henry Vane, a young man of splendid talents, heir to a princely fortune, and son to Charles the First's chief secretary, had just arrived in the colony, and took up his residence with the Reverend Mr. Cotton, who treated Mrs. Hutchinson's views with gentleness, if not with favor. Vane (afterward Sir Henry Vane) was elected governor the following year, and being imbued with the spirit of toleration, was on terms of intimacy with Mrs. Hutchinson. The ministers were alarmed; their churches were thinned, while the chapel of Mr. Wheelwright could not contain the hundreds that flocked to hear him. A clamor was raised by the old party of ministers and their friends, and the next year Mr. Winthrop was elected governor, and Vane soon afterward returned to England.
A general synod of ministers now assembled at Salem, consisting of the preachers, August 30, 1637 deputies from the congregations, and magistrates, and after a session of three weeks, marked by stormy debates, unanimously passed sentence of censure against Mr. Wheelwright, Mrs. Hutchinson, and their adherents. Continuing to hold her conferences, Mrs. Hutchinson was ordered to leave the colony within six months; and a similar command was
Persecution of Mrs. Hutchinson and her Friends.—Settlement of Rhode Island.—Its first Constitution.—Royal Charter.
given to Mr. Wheelwright, Mr. Aspinwall, and others. They, like the Tories in the Revolution, were required to deliver up their arms. With their departure ended the Antinomian strife in Massachusetts. Wheelwright and his friends went to the banks of the Piscataqua, and founded the town of Exeter at its head waters; but the larger number of Mrs. Hutchinson's friends, led by John Clarke and William Coddington, proceeded southward, designing to make a settlement on Long Island, or with the Swedes on the Delaware. On their way through the wilderness Roger Williams gave them a hearty welcome, and by his influence and the name of Henry Vane as their friend, obtained for them from Miantonômoh, chief of the Narragansets, a gift of the beautiful island of Aquitneck. * A deed signed by Canonicus and Miantonômoh was given them in March, 1638. Naming the beautiful land the Isle of Rhodes, because they fancied that it resembled the island of that name in the eastern Mediterranean, they bound themselves as a community of freemen, by these solemn words, to found a new state, appealing to the great Searcher of Hearts for aid in the faithful performance of their promises:
"We, whose names are underwritten, do swear solemnly, in the presence of the Great Jehovah, to incorporate ourselves into a body politic; and as he shall help us, will submit our persons, lives, and estates unto the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to all those most perfect laws of his, given us in his most holy word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby."
This was a simple declaration, but a broad and sure foundation upon which to build a state. Mr. Clarke and eighteen others began their new settlement at Pocasset (Portsmouth), on the north part of the island; borrowed the forms of the administration of laws from the Jews; elected Coddington "judge in the new Israel," and prospered greatly. Soon after the arrival of these pioneers, Mrs. Hutchinson, with her children, made her way through the wilderness to the settlement of Roger Williams, and paddling down the Narraganset in a canoe, joined her friends on Rhode Island. She had been left a widow, but blessed with affectionate children. Her powerful mind continued active; young men from the neighboring colony were converted to her doctrines, and so great became her influence that "to the leaders of Massachusetts it gave cause of suspicion of witchcraft," and they sought to ensnare her. Rhode Island seemed no longer a place of safe refuge for her, and the whole family removed into the territory of the Dutch, in the neighborhood of Albany. The Indians and Keift, the Dutch governor, were then at enmity. The former regarded all white people as enemies, and Mrs. Hutchinson and her whole family, except one child, were murdered by the savages, and their dwelling burned. **