[303] The first bridge spanning what was known as Howland's Ferry was completed in 1795. It was of wood, destroyed and swept to sea by a storm; rebuilt, and again destroyed by worms. The present stone structure was built in 1809-'10, and, though injured by the gale of 1815, stands firm.
[304] The battle was fought in the valley below Quaker, sometimes called Meeting-house, Hill. Sullivan commanded in chief, though Greene is entitled to a large share of the credit of repulsing the British attack. It was a well-fought action. Pigot, by British accounts, had six thousand regular troops. Lafayette was mad as a March hare at their fighting without him.
[305] Lechford, writing between 1637 and 1641, says: "At the island called Aquedney are about two hundred families. There was a church where one Master Clark was elder: the place where the church was is called Newport, but that church, I hear, is now dissolved. At the other end of the island there is another town called Portsmouth, but no church. Those of the island have a pretended civil government of their own erection without the king's patent."
[306] To be exact, the shores adjacent to the rock are in the town of Berkeley, formerly part of Dighton.
[307] A copy of the inscription, made by Professor Sewall, is deposited in the Museum at Cambridge. There is another copy, by James Winthrop; see plate in vol. iii., "Memoir American Academy," and description of method of taking it, vol. ii., part ii., p. 126. Many others have been taken, more or less imperfect; the best one recollected is in the hall of the Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts.
[308] Watch Hill, in the town of Westerly and near Stonington, is the south-western extremity of Rhode Island.
[309] Named from Captain Adrian Blok, a Dutch navigator. Its Indian name was Manisses. There are about twelve hundred inhabitants on this island, all native-born, of whom two hundred and seventy-five are voters. There are also six schools, two Baptist churches, and two windmills, a hotel, and several summer boarding-houses. Two hundred fishing-boats are owned by the islanders. In 1636 John Oldham, mentioned in our ramble in Plymouth, was murdered here by the Pequots. Block Island in 1672 was made a township, by the name of New Shoreham.
[310] The two forts, Trumbull and Griswold, are named from governors of Connecticut. They date from the Revolution. Fort Trumbull in its present form was completed in 1849, under the supervision of General G. W. Cullum, U. S. A. In passing through New London in April, 1776, General Knox, by Washington's direction, examined the harbor with the view of erecting fortifications, and reported, by letter, that it would, in connection with Newport, afford a safe retreat to the American navy or its prizes in any wind that blew.
[311] Son of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts. He passed his first winter on Fisher's Island, which remained in his family through six generations. The valuable manuscript collection known as the Winthrop papers was found some years ago on the island, which belongs to New York in consequence of the grants to the Earl of Sterling and the Duke of York. The origin of its present name is uncertain, though so called as early as 1636. Governor Winthrop relates to Cotton Mather a singular incident which happened on Fisher's Island the previous winter. During the severe snow-storms hundreds of sheep, besides cattle and horses, were buried in the snow. Even the wild beasts came into the settlements for shelter. Twenty-eight days after the storm alluded to, the tenants of Fisher's Island, in extricating the bodies of a hundred sheep from one bank of snow in the valley, found two alive in the drift, where they had subsisted by eating the fleeces of those lying dead near them.
[312] In 1834 New London employed thirty-six vessels in whaling and sealing. A few are still engaged in the latter fishery, in the extreme navigable waters of the Arctic and Antarctic seas.