by Rosemary Enright | Mar 17, 2021 | 2021 Articles
In the mid-19th century, the population of Jamestown was declining. The 1870 census counted only 378 people living here. Those remaining knew the town would die if nothing were done. In 1873, the town and some of its major landowners formed the Jamestown &...
by JHS | Mar 9, 2021 | JHS in the News, Library Exhibits
The Jamestown Historical Society monitors eBay and other auction websites for objects pertaining to Jamestown. Over the last six years, we have purchased several archives and objects to add to the JHS collection. The new exhibit in the JHS display case shows some of...
by JHS | Mar 8, 2021 | From the Collection
Francis X. West was an artist and painting contractor who worked from his Red Elephant Studio on Cole Street. In the JHS Collection is his artist’s palette with images of clouds, gulls, and sailboats. At the bottom of the palette is his autograph, “Frank West RES.”...
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 JHS | Feb 8, 2021 | From the Collection
From the early 18th century until the American Revolution, approximately one-third of the people living and working in Jamestown were recently captured Africans, second-generation African Americans, or indigenous people, mostly Narragansett. The vast majority of these...
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 | Jan 8, 2021 | From the Collection
J.S. Lovering Wharton of Philadelphia designed Clingstone, his new home, with artist William Trost Richards. It was completed in 1905 atop a small rocky island in an island group called “The Dumplings” and replaced Braecleugh which had been demolished when Fort...
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...
