The Wanton House, still pointed out in Thames Street, may be known by its ornamented cornice and general air of superior condition. It stands within a stone's-throw of the City Hall. The Wantons, like the Malbones, Godfreys, Brentons, Wickhams, Cranstons, and other high-sounding Newport names, were merchants. Like the Wentworths of New Hampshire, this was a family, I might almost say a dynasty, of governors. When one Wanton went out, another came in. It was the house of Wanton, governing, with few intervals, from 1732, until swept from place by the Revolution.[262] As the king never dies, at the exit of a Wanton the sheriff should have announced, "The governor is dead. Long live the governor!"
Joseph Wanton, the last governor of Rhode Island under the crown, was the son of William. He was a Harvard man, amiable, wealthy, of elegant manners, and handsome person. In the description of his outward appearance we are told that he "wore a large white wig with three curls, one falling down his back, and one forward on each shoulder." I have nowhere met with an earlier claimant of the fashion so recently in vogue among young ladies who had hearts to lose.
NEWPORT STATE-HOUSE.
Turning out of narrow and noisy Thames Street into the broader and quieter avenues ascending the hill, we find ourselves on the Parade before the State-house. Broad Street, which enters it on one side, was the old Boston high-road; Touro Street, debouching at the other, loses its identity ere long in Bellevue Avenue, and is, beyond comparison, the pleasantest walk in Newport.
The Parade, also called Washington Square, is the delta into which the main avenues of Newport flow. It is, therefore, admirably calculated as a starting-point for those street rambles that every visitor has enjoyed in anticipation. On this ground I saw some companies of the Newport Artillery going through their evolutions with the steadiness of old soldiers. Their organization goes back to 1741, and is maintained with an esprit de corps that a people not long since engaged in war ought to know how to estimate at its true value. A custom of the corps, as I have heard, was to fire a feu de joie under the windows of a newly married comrade; if a commissioned officer, a field-piece.
COMMODORE PERRY'S HOUSE.