Shared Article
Merchants fight against tea, taxes
A reflection on the role of Jamestown Rhode Island merchants and slaves during the Revolutionary War nearly 250 years ago.
Author: Peter Fay
Shared Article
Slaves, tea prized during Colonial revolution
Jamestown 250 years ago, edged ever closer to an abyss as slaves and tea were prized before and during the Colonial revolution.
Shared Article
East Ferry wharf owner active in slave trade
In 1800 Jamestown residents boarded Freeman Mayberry’s ferry to shop in Newport
Shared Article
Jamestown’s History Can be Told Through the Quahog Shell
Indigenous people in Jamestown buried their loved ones with decorated quahog shells as long ago as 1400 BC, according to discoveries by archaeologist William Simmons.
Shared Article
JHS Revamps Website to Enhance Accessibility and Engagement
The Jamestown Historical Society launched a redesigned website, ushering in improved accessibility, interactivity, and community engagement.
Shared Article
Revolutionary War took toll on town’s ‘rural character’
A decade ago, residents declared the overarching goal of their community plan should be to “protect Jamestown’s rural character.”
Shared Article
Slaves linked to Africa
In 1816, Ormand Remington of Jamestown told the Newport Town Council that he “was born on the coast of Africa and brought into this country by Captain Robert Stoddard, [a Newport slave trader], when he was about 12 or 13 years old.”
Shared Article
Ferrying across bay once a dangerous duty
Dinah Battey, of Jamestown, 20, married her husband in 1711. Six days after her wedding, on the sailing ferry home from Newport, the boat capsized, and she tragically drowned. Little was more dangerous in Colonial Rhode Island than crossing the bay in ferries.
Shared Article
Tradition of Portuguese crown dies with younger generation
Most of the Portuguese immigrants who came to Jamestown at the turn of the 20th century were from the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic about 900 miles off the Portuguese coast. Many of these immigrants spoke of their homeland as the Western Isles rather than Portugal.
Shared Article
Remington Only Local Slave to Buy Freedom
Orman Remington was enslaved at Gershom Remington’s farm, which is now Watson Farm, on North Road. He was the only known slave in Jamestown’s history to purchase his own freedom, an exceptionally rare event that often was enabled by other people assisting with payment.
