Self-Guided Walking Tour of Benefit Street, Providence, Rhode Island Trace where the money that built Providence's Benefit Street came from, and what each family did with it once it arrived. Who this is for Travelers who want to read a historic street as evidence, and leave able to date a house and trace its fortune from its facade alone. About Founding Families and Fortunes of Benefit Street Founding Families and Fortunes of Benefit Street is a self-guided audio walking tour of Providence, Rhode Island, covering twenty-two stops, from People's Savings Bank to the Gorham and Angell Houses. You'll Learn About… On this tour you'll learn how the order of the house fronts on Benefit Street, from colonial to Federal to Greek Revival to Italianate, follows when Providence's money arrived and where it came from: China Trade cargoes, slave-trade wealth, textile mills and Gorham silver. Behind each front is a family, and a fortune. You'll meet Sullivan Dorr, a wealthy China Trade merchant whose son grew up in the family house at 109 Benefit Street and set out to overthrow the government of Rhode Island, despite opposition from his own family. You'll find out how Jabez Gorham, born in 1792 as the fifth child of Jabez and Caty Gorham, grew up at 56 Benefit and went on to found the Gorham Manufacturing Company, and why he later built an Italianate villa seven blocks from his own factory floor. You'll learn how Thomas A. Jenckes, a Providence lawyer, introduced the bill that created the United States Department of Justice, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant on June 22, 1870. The street also features unique transactions and distinctive architecture. The State Arsenal sits on a lease of one thousand years at six and a quarter cents a year. In 1906 a grocer named Sydney Adams jacked a 1786 house fifteen feet into the air so he could put a shop at street level and a home above it. The David L. Barnes House wears a facade of carved wood shaped to imitate rusticated stone. The Dustin Lacey House was built in 1847 and relocated to its current address in 1977. The Old Stone Bank, originally designed with a gold dome resembling the Pantheon in Rome, now serves as a single-family house with a sculpture gallery. Money also shows up in smaller numbers. The James Humphreys House at 147 Benefit Street was assessed at twenty-five thousand dollars in 1864, two years after the same lot sat on the tax rolls at one hundred dollars. The Providence Art Club was founded on February 19, 1880, by sixteen people, six of them women, and it was the first American art club to write full and equal membership for women into its original charter. And the south end unit of the Knowles Row was the address of John F. Kennedy, Jr. for his last two years at Brown University, from 1981 to 1983. The Route: 22 Stops in Providence People's Savings Bank: where a shipping profit stopped being cargo money and became an account balance, a mortgage and a loan. Old Stone Bank: opened in 1819 as the Providence Institution for Savings, and now a home with a gold dome. Seril Dodge House I: a 1786 house that a grocer lifted fifteen feet in 1906. Providence Art Club: sixteen signatures in 1880, six of them women. Rufus Waterman House: the Providence Directory places the Waterman family at 188 Benefit Street from 1835 to 1866. Waterman House / Univ. Club: two men named Rufus Waterman, one brick house. Thomas Jenckes House: home of the lawyer whose bill created the Department of Justice. Benefit Street Arsenal: a thousand-year lease at six and a quarter cents a year. The Knowles Row: John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s address at Brown from 1981 to 1983. Thomas F. Hoppin House: another family house on the Benefit Street ridge. Humphreys House & Rectory: a lot taxed at one hundred dollars in 1862 and a house assessed at twenty-five thousand in 1864. Sullivan Dorr House: the house where a rebel against Rhode Island's government grew up. Jabez Gorham House: an Italianate villa built seven blocks from the founder's factory. Henry Rhodes House: a brick Italian palace of 1862 by the architect Alpheus Morse. St. John's Cathedral: King's Church of 1722, now becoming a museum about the slave trade. Hallworth House: a private residence of the early nineteen hundreds with people still living in it. Dustin Lacy House: built in 1847, carried to 65 Benefit Street in 1977. Jabez Gorham House, Benefit: the wooden house at 56 Benefit where a future silver founder grew up. David L. Barnes House: carved wood made to look like stone. Earl Pearce House: built as an investment by a merchant who lived next door. Reverend Francis Smith House: the single-family house that steps back from the sidewalk. Gorham & Angell Houses: one architect, Alpheus Morse, and two deliberately different materials. Practical Details The tour is self-guided and runs at your own pace, with twenty-two stops from People's Savings Bank to the Gorham and Angell Houses. The stops have no required order, so you can begin at any of them. Background audio, including the While You Explore Providence chapters on founding families, the textile boom, Greek Revival mansions and the Dorr Rebellion, plays anywhere. Take the Founding Families and Fortunes of Benefit Street Tour Download the app and take this Providence audio walking tour to read Benefit Street one house front at a time.
