Everyday items had political overtone in Revolution
Originally written by Peter Fay for the Jamestown Press February 28, 2026
In Revolutionary Rhode Island, politics permeated daily life long before shots were fired.
In Jamestown, with barely 50 houses, disputes regarding British domination reshaped work, religion, loyalty and even clothing.
Revolutionary leader John Adams observed a “radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affection of the people,” and well before the war began, an “alteration in the religious, moral, political and social character of the people,” which grew until “it burst out in open violence, hostility and fury” in 1775.
Smoldering hostility emerged as early as April 1769, when 20 women gathered at the North Road home of Daniel Weeden Jr. for an anti-import “spinning match.”
The Newport Mercury reported the “Fair-Sex” did “great things toward the salvation of this vast continent” in manufacture, producing 90 skeins of linen yarn.
Patriots urged farmers to reduce stocks of horses for the West Indian market and instead raise sheep to counter the “oppressive and enslaving schemes” of the British Ministry. “Manufacture for yourselves! Or be Slaves; low, base, stupid slaves; or mere jackasses; and be treated with that contempt you will then justly deserve.”
A month later, 33 women at Josias Arnold’s house at Fox Hill spun 150 knotted skeins of linen yarn.
Jamestown, with 50 houses, now had “linen yarn enough, lately spun, to make a thousand yards of cloth.” Ruling elites lauded “ladies of good fashion and unexceptionable reputation” spinning for their country.
Even so, much spinning was the work of the poor, especially the indigent in Newport’s “workhouse.” Elites were unlikely to labor long hours when the newspaper, for example, advertised for sale “a Bermuda Negro Woman that can wash and iron, card, spin, and cook.”
Thomas Jefferson’s draft Declaration of Independence blamed the Crown for enabling slavery, although the economy, both northern and southern, reveled in it.
Clothing became the object of Adam’s observed “hostility.” A writer to the editor maintained that if a man wears “foreign fineries, I can’t believe his patriotism is sincere.” High fashions drew the attention of both sides. When the British raided Jamestown, some women “were stripped of some of their best clothes they had on,” depriving rebels of their luxuries. The resistance soon escalated to armed conflict. Benjamin Underwood, the town clerk, and ardent patriot, listed his belongings that were “consumed by fire” when the British burned the town: “two pair of looms, one wheel and yarn swift, one pair of warping bars … one spinning wheel … one quilting frame.”
British flames reduced the symbols of independence to ashes. Military service also disrupted families. Men such as Stephen Congdon joined a company of minutemen defending Jamestown. He remained on the island after it was burned and was taken prisoner, “carried off … on board one of the British ships” to Boston.
His wife and five children were “entirely destitute & subjected to much hardship and distress.” Congdon later escaped, “whilst at anchor in Boston Harbor.”
Political upheaval did not stop at the battlefield. Change penetrated houses of worship as well, though highly resisted in Jamestown. The Society of Friends rejected military service and rebellion and remained neutral, although many younger members defied their elders or left the society.
Stephen Remington of Watson Farm refused to fight. But his nephew, Tiddeman Remington, also from a Quaker family, served in place of him in the Rhode Island militia, saying “my uncle was somewhat scrupulous, even in those times, about bearing arms.”
Jamestown Quakers resisted change when they declared they would “remain in peaceable obedience to his Majesty, and will not take up arms in opposition.”
In Newport, 76 Quakers pledged “their allegiance to the King.” The most stalwart loyalists — many of them wealthy merchants — worshiped at Newport’s Trinity Church, an Anglican parish.
Jamestown farmer John Martin hosted local Anglican services and supplied the British Navy with provisions.
Congregationalists like the Rev. Ezra Stiles, however, followed their separatist roots, heaping abuse on the Anglican loyalists, convinced of a ministerial plot against religious dissenters. He was labelled “seditious” and his church was called “the Church of the Patriots.”
Suspicion extended beyond Christian denominations. In 1773, newspapers suspected Jewish merchant Aaron Lopez of smuggling British tea. Most merchants did. At the same time, merchant and sea captain Peleg Clarke, father of Beavertail resident Audley Clarke, smuggled 20 pounds of tea into Newport to sell at 20 shillings without censure.
In Jamestown, spinning wheels, livestock, clothing, religion and tea all took on political overtones.
Adams’ “radical change” reordered the daily lives of local families and made neutrality nearly impossible.
