Washington afterward made several visits to the town. In 1793 he spent a week at the home of Governor Bradford, at “the Mount,” Bradford being then a member of the United States Senate. The Bradford house is still standing.
Rhode Island was the last of the “Old Thirteen” to adopt the Federal Constitution. Then as always she chafed at the domination of Massachusetts. Because Bristol had been a part of Massachusetts before it became a part of Rhode Island it was still greatly influenced by the ideas of the “Bay Colony.” When in 1788 the question of adopting the Constitution was submitted to the people of Rhode Island, Bristol and Little Compton (which had also been a part of Massachusetts) were the only towns in which a majority in favor of the adoption was obtained. A great celebration took place in 1790 when the State became a member of the United States of America.
At once the energy which had lain dormant during the Revolutionary War revived. Commerce again became active. Evidence of this was manifested by the building of new distilleries. One, erected by the leading firm of ship owners, was opened in 1792. They were preparing for a renewal of the trade with Africa. For thirty-five years thereafter two hundred gallons of rum were here each day distilled. At one time five distilleries were in active operation. The last of them closed its doors in 1830, the business having ceased to be profitable.
In the first quarter of the last century two great religious revivals transformed the town. They began in Saint Michael’s Church in the rectorship of Bishop Griswold. The town then numbered about two thousand inhabitants, almost all of whom were more or less connected with the sea. The first among the laymen to take part in the movement was a sea captain who had just returned from a voyage to the Island of Trinidad. Before he left Bristol, the unwonted fervor of Bishop Griswold’s sermons and discourses had turned his thoughts toward the attainment of the holier and higher life, whose glories the bishop was ever placing before his people. The awful solemnity of the ocean had completed the lesson. On Saturday night he returned from his voyage. The next day, when the bishop had finished his sermon, the emotions that stirred the soul of the sailor entirely overcame the modesty that usually kept him back from the public notice. Rising from his seat, he went forward to the old wine-glass pulpit in which the preacher was yet standing, and conversed with him earnestly for a few moments, while the congregation looked on with amazement at the unusual interruption. With that benignant smile which marked his gentle nature, Bishop Griswold assented to the request that was preferred; and placing his hand upon the shoulder of the eager enthusiast, he turned to the congregation and said: “My friends, Captain —— wishes to tell you what the Lord has done for his soul.” Then the quiet sailor told the congregation the story of the change that had been wrought in him; told it without a thought of the unusual part he was assuming; told it in the simplest words, with no attempt at eloquence or effect, but with the wondrous power of God’s love so plainly before his eyes that the minds of all his hearers went with him upon the sea, and felt the struggle which had brought his soul out of darkness into light. Never, even, had the inspired words of their pastor stirred the people of St. Michael’s Church more strongly. When he ceased there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation. Only a few well chosen words did the bishop add to intensify the lesson, and then dismissed his people with the usual benediction.
From that day the revival became general. Through the town it spread, until the minds of all were turned to thoughts of the life that was to come. The sound of the workman’s hammer was unheard for a season, the horses stood idle in their stalls, the noise of merry laughter ceased as the crowds of serious worshippers poured onward to the churches. For days these remarkable scenes were to be witnessed; their effect could be observed for years.
The second revival came in 1820. Like the first it began in Saint Michael’s Church. It lasted for about three months. The first meeting was held in a private house. The Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, writing sixty years later, said: “It was with unbounded surprise that I went into the house at the hour appointed. It was crowded in every room, staircase and entry, as if some unusually crowded funeral were there. But for ministering to this people, hungry for the bread of life, I was there alone. They had placed a Bible and Prayer-book on the first landing of the stairs. The people were crowded above me and below me, as far as my eye could reach, in the most eager attention to the Word. It was the most solemn assembly I had ever seen, and its impression upon my mind and memory was overwhelming and abiding. But this was the commencement of months of work of a similar description, and from this day we had a similar meeting appointed for every evening. These were held in various rooms and houses throughout the town. The evening meetings were usually held in the Academy Hall. My whole time for about three months was given up to this one work. Three times every day I was engaged in addressing different assemblies in different parts of the town and of the surrounding country, and in conversing with awakened and anxious persons connected with these meetings. Such a scene in human society as Bristol then displayed, I had never imagined. The whole town was given up to this one work. The business of the world was for a time suspended. The stores were in many instances closed, as if the whole week were a Sabbath.”
As in the former case the work spread through all the churches. Crowds came from surrounding towns to gaze upon the remarkable spectacle the town afforded. Such revivals would now be impossible. The busy manufacturing town of today would pay slight attention to exhortations to which the ears that were accustomed to tales of horrible disaster upon the ocean lent ready attention. Moreover, the descendants of the old colonial stock are comparatively few in number, and the new foreign element which forms the great majority of the population is not to be moved by religious appeals as were those whose lives were dominated by Puritan traditions.
The maritime element always furnished the most picturesque part of the Bristol story. Until half a century ago the boys of the town had the names of the famous ships and the exploits of the most famous captains at the tongue’s end. The most noted captains were Simeon Potter, John De Wolf and James De Wolf, of whom detailed accounts will be given later. We idealized those seamen, especially Simeon Potter. One sailor who was not a captain but a ship’s surgeon had had a most remarkable experience. He was an inveterate smoker and his inordinate use of the weed once saved his life. He was shipwrecked upon a cannibal island in the Pacific ocean. His fellow sufferers were all eaten by their captors. Because he was so flavored with tobacco, he was not deemed fit to be eaten at once by the savage epicures, and so lived to be rescued. He was also a most profane man. One day after a long attack of fever, which had wasted him almost to a skeleton, he ventured out for a walk. Unfortunately, he had not noted the wind. He wore a long cloak and the wind was fair and heavy. Having once started before it, he was not able to stop, but went on, gathering speed and scattering profanity, until friendly arms at last rescued him, entirely exhausted except as to his supply of oaths. Depraved boys when caught smoking sometimes brought forward his case in extenuation of their own crime.
Boyish sports before the introduction of baseball in the “early ’60s” were largely nautical. As a matter of course every boy learned to swim almost as soon as he learned to walk. Before his anxious mother had really begun to worry about him he was diving from a bowsprit or dropping from a yard arm. One man whom I know still regards a forced swim of about half a mile which he took from an overturned skiff, at the age of nine, as the most delightful episode of his career. (He forgot to tell his mother about it until a considerable time, i.e., the swimming season, had elapsed.) One of the amusements of that olden time was unique. When we were about ten years old we were wont, as soon as school was dismissed, to hasten down to the wharves, “swarm” up the rigging of some of the vessels lying there, and having reached the point where the shrouds stopped, to “shin up” the smooth topmast and place our caps upon the caps of the masts. The one who got his cap on a mast first was of course the best boy. Singularly enough, I never remember to have proclaimed to my parents the proud occasions when I was “it.” My great chum in those days was Benjamin F. Tilley, who died quite recently, an Admiral in the United States Navy and one of the best loved officers in the service. When he was in Providence a few years ago, in command of the gunboat Newport, we indulged largely in reminiscences of our boyhood, and among other things “shinned” up those masts again. Very strangely Tilley could not remember that he had ever proclaimed to his parents that he was “it.” Modest always were the Bristol boys in the days of my youth. Looking back upon these episodes with the added knowledge fifty years have brought, I feel sure that if I had told my father of my prowess, he would have said in his quiet way, “Perhaps you would better not say anything to your mother about it,” and would have gone away chuckling. He had been “it” himself. For we boys were simply exemplifying the traditions of our race. We were only doing what our forebears had done for generations.
In the earliest years of the town the names of streets in cities across the ocean were more familiar to its inhabitants than were those of the towns of the other Colonies. In 1690 fifteen of its vessels were engaged in foreign commerce, and the number of such vessels steadily increased until the Revolutionary War. When that struggle broke out fifty hailed from the port. Add to this the number of craft of every description engaged in the coasting trade and one can easily imagine the crowded condition of the harbor. Ship building was at one time a prominent industry. Statistics are not readily accessible but we know that from 1830 to 1856 sixty vessels were here built and rigged. After 1856 none of any importance were constructed until, in 1863, the Herreshoffs began to send from their yard the yachts that were to “show their heels” to all rivals. The decline of commerce dates from the revival of the whale fishery. In the earliest colonial days whales were captured along the coasts of New England by means of boats sent out from the shore whenever one of the great fishes came in sight. This was not infrequently. (It was a whale cast up on the shore that saved Thorfinn Karlsefni from starvation when the Norsemen made their second visit to Vinland.) In the year 1825 the first whaler was fitted out for a cruise. The venture was unusually successful and other ships were quickly placed in commission. In 1837 the arrival of sixteen vessels “from a whaling cruise” is recorded on the books of the Custom House. The most noted of those whalers was the General Jackson, prize of the privateer Yankee. Of her more anon. In 1837 the Bristol whaling fleet numbered nineteen ships.