Newport News

“ Nobody (except Newport) talked about anything else for days, and to find news of international importance in the papers was almost impossible, for everything else except the Revels was tucked away into odd corners. Newport alone maintained an icy silence, but disaffection was already at work there, and those who were only struggling on the fringe of Newport society said openly that they would go to Long Island next year, since there really seemed to be some gaiety there, whereas Newport was like a wet Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Palmer's two English guests, however, stopped on. So also did Bilton ”

“ The city's export of grain and its coastwise trade in coal are especially large. Among the manufactures are shoes, tobacco, medicines and knit goods. The value of the factory products in 1905 was $9,053,906, being 52.5% more than in 1900. Both in 1900 and in 1905 Newport News ranked second to Richmond among the cities of the state in the value of factory products. ”

“ The city has several important educational institutions, an excellent dock system, grain elevator, fire system for schools, and is one of the most progressive cities in the country. It has National and State banks, electric railroads, several daily and weekly periodicals, knitting mills, iron works, an extensive foreign export trade. ”

“ Baptists; for, under the mild fostering of Roger Williams, Newport has become a city of refuge to religious malcontents of every persuasion. All the population, however, is not of like sobriety. A “rage of finery” distinguishes the aristocracy of the island, and silk-stockinged gentlemen, with scarlet coats and swords, silver-buckled shoes and lace ruffles, may be seen in abundance, exchanging stately greetings with ladies in brocades and hoops, as they pass to and fro between the decorous gambrel-roofed houses or lift the brazen knockers of the street-doors. ”

“ At Newport you constantly hear jokes, laughter and song, but studying the drama of the various faces one sees pride, sensuality, cruelty, and fear that no ocean brine can cleanse. Mingled with these, too, are noble countenances lighted up by the fires of holy living within, whose radiance seems to overflow in kindly thoughts and deeds, attracting those sublime qualities to them as the moon the tides. ”

“ The population is as variable as the breezes that blow over the ocean, for Newport has gained fame the world over as one of America's most fashionable watering places. As early as 1830 it began to attract health seekers and others wishing a brief respite from toil in the unnumbered factories in the east, and the movement has continued until the section of the island adjacent to Newport is dotted all over with cottages. villas and cheerful, luxurious homes.
One is delighted to find well paved streets and a city that is withal sunny, gay, and full of color. ”

“ Thirty-five years have passed since the scenes we have attempted to describe in this story were enacted, and during that time some great changes have taken place in Newport. From a thriving village it has grown into a city of respectable size, and boasts of a mayor and councilmen. Of the boys of our acquaintance some have passed away and been forgotten, others have grown to manhood, and now occupy the positions in business and society once held by their fathers, and another generation of youth has sprung up to take the places of our heroes of thirty-five years ago. ”

“ There is nothing grand, not even anything natural in Newport, but it is very pretty for all that. For an artificial place, destined to house the most artificial people in the world during three months of the year, it is as pleasing as it can be in a light-comedy-scenery style. ”

“ Newport, in fact, has been haunted by a sort of ill-luck. It has never been able to make the best of itself. There was a time when its harbour bade fair to rival the harbour of New York, and when its inhabitants fondly believed that all the great ships of the world would find refuge under the splendid shadow of Rhode Island. And when this hope was disappointed for ever, Newport still possessed in herself all the elements of beauty. Whatever exquisite colour and perfect situation could give, was hers. What more can the eyes of man desire than green lawns and an incomparable sea? ”

“ The first newspaper of Newport was published in 1732 by James Franklin, a brother of Benjamin Franklin, and in 1758 James Franklin's son, also named James, founded the present Newport Mercury.
Newport is best known as a fashionable resort during the summer and autumn; there are annual horse and dog shows, and fox-hunting is one of the amusements. The harbour is a rendezvous for racing- and pleasure-yachts. On Bellevue Avenue is the country club, the Casino. ”

“ There is, I think, a far more intimate fondness between Newport and its frequenters than that which in most American watering-places consecrates the somewhat mechanical relation between the visitors and the visited. This relation here is for the most part slightly sentimental. I am very far from professing a cynical contempt for the gaieties and vanities of Newport life: they are, as a spectacle, extremely amusing; they are full of a certain warmth of social colour which charms alike the eye and the fancy; they are worth observing, if only to conclude against them ”

“ So also is the life, entirely without privacy; morning calls are customary; and beginning society thus early, does not prevent its being carried on at high pressure for the remainder of the day.
There is a well-known and accommodating Frenchman, who undertakes not only to supply a "cottage," but all the elaborate necessaries, servants, linen, plate, &c., for a stay at Newport. The Ocean Drive and Bellevue Avenue are daily crowded with joyous equipages and neat phætons, driven by their fair owners, and equestrians. ”

“ As the houses stand well back from the shore, the space between is laid out in bright-hued parterres, that look like Persian carpets spread on the well-kept lawns. The eye at times fairly revels in sumptuous masses of color. Yet Newport was now deserted by the fashionable world, in the month of months, when sea and shore are incomparably enticing and satisfying. ”

“ But Newport is the great school for that instruction, and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects, however splendid, are divided and hidden. In summer Newport they are concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open air. ”

“ Here at Newport we visit friends of Larry's, all of us except the nice Tom, Dick, and Harry I told you of; a Senator Collinge, Mrs. Shuster's friend; the Goodrich family, who are so large and handsome, and a family of two who are a bride and bridegroom, and Mr. Storm. He is not at Newport at all, though the others who are not at Moon Pond stay in a pretty little hotel almost like a private house. It seems odd, they do not have big hotels in this wonderful place. The rich people who have made the new part so wonderful do not like to have tourists come and stay if they can help it. ”

“ The newspapers had been on the alert, and soon after the Duke's arrival visitors began to call and invitations to pour in—some well-nigh irresistible, for they included opportunities for experiences of bass-fishing.
June 25th.—Newport has not yet put on its festive attire. It is not the season, and we ought not to be here. Nevertheless it is still so pleasant, and so respectably dull, that one enjoys it amazingly. ”

“ There are quiet and very decent places for those of us that must. But at Newport one must not fall behind in display. A sense of loyalty to the others, a noblesse oblige, compels one to be as lavish as those flamboyant outsiders who go there. One doesn't want them to report, you know, that such and such families of our smart set are falling behind for lack of means. So, while we of the real stock are chummy enough here, where there is only us in a position to observe ourselves, there is a sort of tacit agreement that only those shall go to Newport who are able to keep up the pace. ”

“ Much that is best worth seeing in Newport is never seen by a majority of the people who visit the town during "the season." In the eighteen miles length and nine miles breadth of the island are many nooks and grottos unknown to those individuals who limit their expedition to the ocean drive, and the path across the beaches. Artists know these spots and linger in them. Lovers find them out somehow instinctively. ”

“ Newport is more charming even than you remember it; like everything else over here, it has improved. It is very exquisite today; it is, indeed, I think, in all the world, the only exquisite watering-place, for I detest the whole genus. The crowd has left it now, which makes it all the better, though plenty of talkers remain in these large, light, luxurious houses, which are planted with a kind of Dutch definiteness all over the green carpet of the cliff. ”

“ This trade in the human species has been the first wheel of commerce in Newport, on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended. This town has been built up and flourished in times past at the expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness of the poor Africans; and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten most of their wealth and riches. ”

“ Quarrels between Hessian and British officers, growing out of their amours, were frequent. A Hessian major and captain at last fought a duel about a woman of the town, in which glorious cause the major was run through the body and killed. General Prescott then ordered all the authors of these troubles to be confined in Newport jail.
Driving in Newport is one of the duties the fashionable world owes to itself and to society. On every fine day between four in the afternoon and dusk Bellevue Avenue is thronged with equipages, equestrians, and promenaders. ”

“ But of all such summer haunts, Newport is supposed to be in many ways the most captivating. In the first place it is certainly the most fashionable, and in the next place it is said to be the most beautiful. ”

“ Soc. 146; Money's Newbury (1884) , 249) . At the end of 1645 he was with the king's forces in Devonshire. On 23 Jan. 1645–6, when Dartmouth was stormed and fell, Newport was taken prisoner. He was sent to London, and the lords committed him to the custody of the gentleman usher (26 Jan. 1645–6) , but it was reported that Newport ‘was a means of delivering up [to the parliament] divers forts of great strength without forcing.’ On 11 Feb. Newport petitioned the lords to confine him in some private place where his maintenance would cost him less money. ”

“ It will appear that the prisoner, John Frost, who had been for many years a linen-draper in the town of Newport, possessed extensive influence in this part of the country, the hill district of the county of Monmouth. Newport, you are aware, is the place from which the coal and iron obtained in the mines is exported. It is a considerable town, and great importance is attached to it. It is the highway from South Wales to Bristol, Gloucester, Birmingham, and the north of England. ”

“ It was my last night on sea-girt Nantucket. I do not deny that I left it with reluctance.
[Pg 356]
NEWPORT, FROM FORT ADAMS. CHAPTER XXII. NEWPORT OF AQUIDNECK.
"This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."—Macbeth.
Newport is an equivoque. It is old, and yet not; grave, though gay; opulent and poor; splendid and mean; populous or deserted. As the only place in New England where those who flee from one city are content to inhabit another, it is anomalous. ”

“ I remember well that household of young people in successive summers at Newport, as [292] they grew towards maturity; how they in turn came back from school and college, each with individual tastes and gifts, full of life, singing, dancing, reciting, poetizing, and one of them, at least, with a talent for cookery which delighted all Newport; then their wooings and marriages, always happy; their lives always busy; their temperaments so varied. ”

“ It is quite safe, however, for you to drive with them, if they invite you, in those cunning little phaetons with the footman at your back, because flirting in that case is under difficulties, not easily conquered unless you lose him off upon the road. Meantime Newport remains the gem of summer seaside resorts, combining, as it does, society or seclusion at your pleasure, and city and country, with all the advantages of both. ”

“ What would infallibly have occurred at the best, however, was what did punctually happen—its having to be definitely gathered that, though we might apparently be good, as I say, almost on any ground, there was but one place in which we should even at a restricted pitch be well: Newport imposed itself at that period to so remarkable a degree as the one right residence, in all our great country, for those tainted, under whatever attenuations, with the quality and the effect of detachment. The effect of detachment was the fact of the experience of Europe. ”

“ Tradition tells that the pond or lake was situated where the railway station is now, but of it and of that castle no traces have survived. The fortunes of Newport fell, and those of Saffron Walden began to rise, when the Empress Maud, somewhere about 1142, authorised Geoffrey de Magnaville to transfer the market to Walden, and although, some sixty years later, in 1203, King John granted Newport the right to hold an annual 82fair, this stricken town never recovered from the blow inflicted by the loss of its market privileges. ”