by JHS | Feb 22, 2021 | 2021 Articles
The African-American and Native American community in Jamestown burgeoned during slavery, but it declined precipitously after the Revolution. Nine tenths left in only 50 years. The turbulence of war, the slow demise of slavery and the exclusion from economic...
by JHS | Feb 18, 2021 | JHS in the News, Library Exhibits
The new exhibit in the JHS display case in the Jamestown Philomenian Library tells the stories of some of Africans and African Americans who have lived on the island over the passed 350 years. During the colonial era, Black and Native American slaves made up about...
by Rosemary Enright | Jan 31, 2021 | 2021 Articles
George Wallin Bowen and his brother James Howard were born on the Point in Newport in 1882 and 1884, respectively. In their 20s, the two brothers went their separate ways – George to Chicago; J. Howard, as he was known, to the U.S. Navy. The First World War...
by JHS | Dec 29, 2020 | JHS in the News, Library Exhibits
The new exhibit in the JHS display case in the Jamestown Philomenian Library celebrates the different ways the people in Jamestown supported its military forces fighting in Europe and the Far East from 1941 to 1945. Ambulance volunteers, c.1945 Those unable to serve...
by Rosemary Enright | Dec 29, 2020 | 2020 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
From 1938 through 1940, the United States watched with growing concern the war that was engulfing Europe. Air warfare directed against civilians, demonstrated in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, led some – especially on the eastern seaboard – to fear for...
by Stephanie Amerigian | Dec 17, 2020 | From the Collection
Perusing archival material in the JHS collection, we came upon a reminiscence titled “Noel” that was written by W. L. Watson, December 1948. Among Mr. Watson’s thoughtful words about family holidays and summer visits at the Carr homestead, he reflects upon the value...
by JHS | Dec 15, 2020 | Events, Newsletters
Our Fall 2020 Newsletter is now available for download. Don’t miss the committee reports of all the things that we’ve been working on while at home. And take a look at the donations that made over the past year, we value everyone’s efforts to keep...
by Rosemary Enright | Nov 20, 2020 | 2020 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
In honor of Veterans Day, we are excerpting a Civil War veteran’s story, edited by Rosemary Enright and Sue Maden. Three days after the first military action of the Civil War, the assault on Fort Sumter, NC, on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln called for 75,000...
by JHS | Nov 20, 2020 | JHS in the News, Library Exhibits
From colonial days till the present, aids to navigation – lighthouse, foghorns, buoys, lightships – have warned mariners of the risks ahead as they entered Narragansett Bay. Jamestown itself was home to four lighthouses, two on Conanicut Island, one on Gould Island...
by JHS | Nov 2, 2020 | From the Collection
Our online collection has many items from 1763 to 2020 describing the votes and voters of Jamestown. The handwritten document is a list of freemen of Jamestown who voted for the governor and general officers of the colony of Rhode Island in 1763. The list is followed...
