The privilege of worshiping as one pleased attracted many persons in the neighboring settlements and even across the water. As soon as they heard of Roger Williams’ daring venture, they were eager to cast their lot with him.
Now while the new settlement was thus broad and reasonable, the Massachusetts Bay Colony grew even narrower than before. Differences of opinion in church matters continued to arise, for never in the history of the world has it been possible for all men to think alike. Punishments for “heresy” were still the order of the day. Banishments were frequent. Some of the exiles thus disgraced were obliged to seek new homes as Roger Williams had done.
Among these were William Coddington and John Clarke, a learned physician, both of whom had much to do with the history of the new colony afterwards. With the help of Roger Williams, the new-comers purchased the island of Aquidneck in Narragansett Bay from Canonicus and Miantonomo. It was this island, later called Rhode Island, that gave its name to the state. The Indians then residing on the island agreed to vacate in return for ten coats and twenty hoes.
Another exile from the Bay Colony was Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, a woman of brilliant and wonderful mind, who had offended the magistrates for holding firmly to certain religious opinions and teaching the same. She joined the little Aquidneck settlement and as long as she remained there, enjoyed peace and freedom from persecution.
To return to the colony at Providence. It was an experiment in every sense of the word. For one thing, mere existence was to prove a struggle. Life was hard and crude. The early settlers were unfitted, in many ways, to meet the difficulties of building up a new community. Few were skilled laborers, all were poor. Men of professional training were unknown. No doctor’s sign was in evidence and for many years, whenever medical advice or medicine was needed, Roger Williams had to send outside the settlement for it.
Land was plentiful, it is true, but scarcely anything else. Yet one early precaution taken by Roger Williams did much to lessen the hardships of those first years. He and Governor Winthrop purchased the island of Prudence in the Bay as a grazing-place for goats and swine. Twenty fathom of wampum and two coats was the price paid. Roger Williams’ curious description pictures it as “spectacle-wise and between a mile or two in circuit.” This transaction plainly showed his tact as well as the high esteem in which he was held by Canonicus. It seems that the sachem wished to reserve half of the island, but was anxious to have Roger Williams for a neighbor. Two short extracts from Roger Williams’ correspondence with Winthrop tell the whole story of the proceedings that followed. In the first letter, he wrote, “I think if I go over, I shall obtain the whole”; the second letter records simply, “I have bought and paid for the island.”
The purchase indicated good judgment and foresight, for here the live stock could not stray far, it had good pasturage, and was conveniently near salt marshes, which were necessary to keep it in the best condition. As one writer has put it, Prudence Island was the stock-farm and market-garden of Providence, supplies being carried back and forth by canoes.
The early “home lots” of the Providence settlers, as they were called, extended from the main or Town Street eastward, up a steep hill, and over back in the direction of the Seekonk. They were generous in size, at least five acres in extent, large enough for house, garden, orchard and burial plot. Roger Williams’ house was not far from the spring where he landed. In modern Providence it is hard to find any trace of the early village that was started on the banks of the Moshassuck, yet now and then a voice out of the past takes one back over the centuries to the Providence of Roger Williams. The main thoroughfare still runs through the heart of the city and on an ancient building in the street is a tablet bearing the legend, brief but thrilling with history: “Under this house still flows the Roger Williams spring.”
Hospitality and neighborliness were common in early Providence days, for everybody was dependent upon everybody else. Roger Williams and his good wife kept open house for all. Now they took in a sick soldier and nursed him back to health and strength, once they sheltered an Indian with a hurt foot, and even went so far as to allow Miantonomo to hold his “barbarous court” under their roof!
The Indians, in fact, early found a way to the Williams door. They frequently came with messages from the other colonies or carried letters from Roger Williams to his neighboring friends. These were often accompanied by simple gifts, such as some chestnuts from Mrs. Williams for Mrs. Winthrop or a Narragansett-woven basket for the same lady from the Indian wife of Miantonomo. The carriers themselves were always rewarded, of course. Roger Williams must have kept on hand an extra supply of coats, trousers, tools and trinkets to satisfy their eager, childish desires.