Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast

by Samuel Adams Drake

CHARLES LEE.

When Washington was at Cambridge, besieging Boston, he sent Charles Lee to look after "those of Rhode Island" who were still for King George. Lee administered to the Tories who would take it an oath as whimsical as characteristic. He knew the fondness of these old royalists for old wine, good dinners, and fine raiment. They were required to swear fidelity to the Whig cause "by their hope of present ease and comfort, as well as the dread hereafter." Colonel Wanton refused the oath, and was, I presume, of those whom Lee had taken to Providence with the threat of forwarding them to the American camp.

Another isolated field of graves is that usually called the Coddington burial-ground, containing the remains of Governor Coddington and kindred. A stone erected on the second centennial anniversary of the settlement of Newport, compresses in a few lines the chief events of his history:

"To the memory of William Coddington, Esq., that illustrious man who first purchased this island from the Narraganset sachems, Canonicus and Miantonimo, for and on account of himself and seventeen others, his associates in the purchase and settlement. He presided many years as Chief Magistrate of the Island and Colony of Rhode Island, and died, much respected and lamented, November 1st, 1678, aged 78 years."[299]

Lechford, in his "Plain Dealing," relates a circumstance that has caused some inquiry into the ecclesiastical polity of Coddington and his associates. "There lately," he says, "they whipt one master Gorton, a grave man, for denying their power, and abusing some of their magistrates with uncivill tearmes; the governor, master Coddington, saying in court, 'You that are for the king, lay hold on Gorton;' and he again, on the other side, called forth, 'All you that are for the king, lay hold on Coddington.' Whereupon Gorton was banished the island." Gorton was the founder of Warwick, Rhode Island.

There is a little inclosure at the upper end of Thames Street in which is a granite obelisk to the memory of John Coggeshall, president of the plantations under their first patent. The name was originally Coxehall. It is the same John Coggeshall briefly met with in the trial scene, to whom a lineal descendant has raised this monument.

Other burial-places may be enumerated, but that lying in the shadow of Trinity Church is probably first to challenge the attention of such as seek to read the annals of the past on memorial stones. The church steeple, with gilded crown on the pinnacle—how these churchmen love the old emblems!—was in full view from my window, slender and graceful, the gilded vane flashing in the morning sun, itself a monument of its ancient flock below.

Here are the names of Hunter, of Kay, of Honyman, and of Malbone: all are to be met with in Newport streets or annals. The presence of foreign armies on the isle is emphasized by the burial of French and British officers in this church-yard. A few family escutcheons designate the ancient adherence to the dogma that all men were not created politically free and equal. One of the unaccustomed objects the stranger sees in peering through the railings of these old church-yards is the blazonry of which the possessors were once so proud, and which is now carried with them to their graves. In cavities where leaden coats of arms have once been imbedded are little basins to catch the rain, where careless sparrows drink and take their morning baths, twittering and chirruping among the homesteads of the dead.

Stuart, who was fond of rambling through the old grave-yards, reading the inscriptions, went to Trinity. He mentions his pew, and the sweetness of the organ, the gift of Berkeley. The painter had a Scotsman's inordinate fondness for snuff, and would be most naturally drawn with palette in one hand and a huge pinch of snuff in the other. A resident of the same street once told me that when Stuart's table-cloth was shaken out at the window the whole street sneezed. He was a good talker and listener, though crabbed and eccentric to a degree.

I venture to contribute to the already portentous number the following anecdote of Stuart: Dining one day at the house of Josiah Quincy, his attention was attracted by an engraving of West's "Battle of the Boyne." "Ah!" said Stuart, "I was studying with West when he was at work on that picture, and had to lie for hours on the floor, dressed in armor, for him to paint me in the foreground as the Duke of Schomberg. At last West said, 'Are you dead, Stuart?' 'Only half, sir,' was my reply; and my answer was true; for the stiffness of the armor almost deprived me of sensation. Then I had to sit for hours on a horse belonging to King George, to represent King William. After the painting was finished, an Irishman who saw it observed to West, 'You have the battle-ground there correct enough, but where is the monument? I was in Ireland the other day and saw it.' He expected to see a memorial of the battle in a representation of its commencement."[300]