History of the City

"375 YEARS AT A GLANCE"

by Patrick T. Conley and Paul R. Campbell

The Colonial Era: 1636-1765

The land upon which Roger Williams planted his town of Providence was the tribal domain of the Narragansett Indians. Their generous deeds to the early English colonists entitle them to share with Williams and his associates the honor of founding this important settlement.

For its first century Providence was significant much more for the principles upon which it was established than for its political or economic influence. Roger Williams made Providence (which he named for God's guidance and care) a haven for persecuted religious dissenters. His town became the "lively experiment" in religious liberty and church-state separation. This was and is its major claim to fame.

Despite Providence's position at the head of Narragansett Bay, Newport far outdistanced its sister town during the colonial era. Providence's rocky, hilly, heavily wooded hinterland yielded grudgingly to the plow and the axe, whereas pasturage was more spacious and the land more level and fertile in the colony's southerly regions, and these supplied Newport with valuable articles of commerce.

The destruction of the town during King Philip's War was an added hurdle, albeit temporary, to the growth of early Providence. Still another obstacle was posed by the town's tradition of dissent, which was not conducive to the development of sound and orderly government. Providence's independent-minded and strong-willed pioneers often clashed with one another over land titles, politics, and religion. Roger Williams's bout with William Harris and the Arnold Family over the territory along the Pawtuxet River was only the most acrimonious of many such squabbles.

During its first forty years the town was exclusively a fishing and farming village, laid out along one winding dirt road which meandered along the eastern shore of the Providence River and the old Cove. Called "the Towne Street," this thoroughfare (present-day North and South Main streets between Olney and Wickenden) was the main artery of Providence for the duration of the colonial period and beyond.

In the years following the devastation of King Philip's War some industrial and commercial activity began, and settlers moved outward to the town's remote lands bordering upon Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the north. Despite this growth, however, the population of the entire municipality was only 1,446 when the first colony-wide census was taken in 1708.

The economic tempo of the town quickened during the second and third decades of the eighteenth century. By the next census, in 1730, the population had nearly tripled (to 3,916), and so many farmers had moved into the "outlands" of Providence that three large towns were set off from the parent community in 1731 (Scituate, Glocester, and Smithfield). Before the colonial period came to a close, an inner ring of three more farm towns (Cranston, Johnston, and North Providence) were carved from Providence's territory. What remained, less than six square miles, huddled around the river and the Cove and was predominately commercial and increasingly cosmopolitan in character.

By the middle of the 1760s-- the eve of the Revolution--Providence had a flourishing maritime trade, a merchant aristocracy, a few important industries, a body of skilled artisans, a newspaper and printing press, a stagecoach line, and several impressive public buildings. Its long period of civic gestation was over, and its 4,000 inhabitants were ready to play a leading role in the political and economic revolutions that lay just ahead.