In old Narragansett; romances and realities

								


                           THE IVORY SERIES



                   Each, 16mo, gilt top, 75 cents

 AMOS JUDD. By J. A. Mitchell, Editor of “Life”


IA. A Love Story. By Q. [Arthur T. Quiller-Couch]


THE SUICIDE CLUB. By Robert Louis Stevenson


IRRALIE’S BUSHRANGER. By E. W. Hornung


A MASTER SPIRIT. By Harriet Prescott Spofford


MADAME DELPHINE. By George W. Cable


ONE OF THE VISCONTI. By Eva Wilder Brodhead


A BOOK OF MARTYRS. By Cornelia Atwood Pratt


A BRIDE FROM THE BUSH. By E. W. Hornung


THE MAN WHO WINS. By Robert Herrick


AN INHERITANCE. By Harriet Prescott Spofford


THE OLD GENTLEMAN OF THE BLACK STOCK. By Thomas Nelson Page


LITERARY LOVE LETTERS AND OTHER STORIES. By Robert Herrick


A ROMANCE IN TRANSIT. By Francis Lynde


IN OLD NARRAGANSETT. By Alice Morse Earle.


SEVEN MONTHS A PRISONER. By J. V. Hadley.

                    Other Volumes to be announced

                          IN OLD NARRAGANSETT

                        ROMANCES AND REALITIES

                                   BY

                           ALICE MORSE EARLE

                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

                             NEW YORK, 1898

                          Copyright, 1898, by

                        Charles Scribner’s Sons

                             TROW DIRECTORY

                    PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY

                                NEW YORK

                               FOREWORD

Some of these stories of old Narragansett are familiar fireside tales
to those who have lived in that picturesque land; some are but vague
traditions, others summer dreams; a few are family chronicles; still
others are outlined in that interesting memoir, Thomas R. Hazard’s
“Recollections of the Olden Times,” or in Updike’s “Narragansett
Church.” Old Narragansett was, properly, all the lands occupied by the
Narragansett Indians at the coming of the English. Narragansett is
now, popularly, the coast sweep of the western shore of Narragansett
Bay from Wickford to Point Judith. In 1685 Narragansett was made a
separate government apart from Rhode Island, and was called the Kings
Province. When reunited with Rhode Island this was changed to King’s
County. For many years, and by some old people to-day, it is called
the South County, but its legal name is Washington County, which was
given it in 1781; Washington being a more agreeable and tolerable name
at that date to loyal Americans than King’s. Narragansett was owned by
a comparatively small number of persons, and estates were large, one
family owned a tract nine miles long and three wide. Thomas Stanton had
a “lordship” four and a half miles long and two wide. Colonel Champlin
owned two thousand acres, Thomas Hazard twelve thousand acres. Farms of
five, six, even ten miles square existed.
_Thus the conditions of life in colonial Narragansett were widely