Self-Guided Walking Tour of Colonial-Era Providence, Rhode Island Learn how a small Rhode Island port founded by a banished dissenter came to defy the Crown openly in Providence, in daylight, with a crowd watching. Who this is for Travelers who want to reach the actual doorsteps and squares where Providence's revolutionary generation lived, worked and protested, and to leave able to read colonial houses as clues to who built the town. About Colonial-Era Providence Colonial-Era Providence is a self-guided audio walking tour of Providence, Rhode Island, featuring eighteen stops including Market Square and the Joseph Jenckes House. You'll Learn About… On this tour, you'll learn how Providence's revolution was driven by neighbors who already ran the town, openly defying the Crown. They were the descendants of Roger Williams's refuge for dissenters, and they built the houses, college and statehouse that still line these streets. On March 2, 1775, residents of Providence piled English tea in Market Square and set it alight in protest of the Tea Act. Providence residents piled English tea in Market Square and set it alight in daylight, with a crowd watching. The Boston Tea Party had given them the idea, but the Providence version played out on dry land and in broad daylight, with a crowd watching instead of a harbor. Before there was a Providence at all, there was a fugitive: Roger Williams, a Puritan minister expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his insistence on religious liberty and the separation of church and state, escaped from Salem during a blizzard in January 1636. You'll meet the people who ran the town. Stephen Hopkins, a justice of the peace at twenty-three, served as speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives seven times and governor of the colony ten times, living in his house until his death in 1785. John Carter served his apprenticeship in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin, and in 1775 Franklin appointed him Providence's Postmaster. Joseph Brown, an industrialist and astronomer, held the chair of natural philosophy at the college without taking a salary, and he took the model for the College Edifice straight from Princeton. Only two of those Princeton-style buildings are left. You'll also pick up the practical and architectural stories. Food spoilage was a problem for the open-air market near Market Square because goods had to cross the bridge to reach the market. This problem led residents to build a roofed Market House. Hatmaking paid for one of the four oldest surviving houses in Providence. A wooden statehouse on Meeting Street burned in December 1758 and was replaced in brick. H.P. Lovecraft used the cellar of the Stephen Harris House as the setting for the evil presence in his 1927 story "The Shunned House." And a mid-nineteenth-century engine builder's valve gear used four rotary valves that work something like gas taps. The Route: 18 Stops in Providence Market Square: the 1775 tea fire, burned in daylight with a crowd watching. Market House: a roof built because the outdoor market kept spoiling its food. The Joseph Brown House: a roofline gable that rises in an ogee, a doubled S-curve, topped with a white trellised parapet. George Corliss House: four rotary valves, turned like gas taps, and the variable timing that improved engine efficiency. Peleg Williams House: a colonial house on the route. Joseph Tillinghast House: the home of a mariner, the son of John Tillinghast, named in a 1767 deed. Tillinghast Burial Ground: a family plot dating to 1668, from the first generation of English colonial Providence. Stephen Hopkins House: the home of a governor ten times over, where he lived until 1785. The College Edifice: Joseph Brown's Princeton-modeled design, one of only two left. The First Baptist Church: Roger Williams's escape from Salem in a January 1636 blizzard. William Russell House: a five-bay facade with Corinthian pilasters and a segmented-arch portico. John Carter House: Benjamin Franklin's apprentice, appointed Providence's Postmaster in 1775. The Old Brick School House: young children downstairs and Brown University students upstairs, under one roof. Old State House: the brick Georgian replacement for the wooden statehouse that burned in December 1758. Benjamin Cushing Sr House: a hatter's mansion house, one of the four oldest in Providence. Stephen Harris House: the cellar behind Lovecraft's 1927 story "The Shunned House." Dr. Jabez Bowen House: one of the earliest houses still standing in Providence. Joseph Jenckes House: a 1774 house with two names, Joseph on the records and John on the preservation plaque. Practical Details This is a self-guided audio walking tour that you take at your own pace. It covers eighteen stops from Market Square to the Joseph Jenckes House, and the stops can be visited in any order. Thayer Street, near Brown University, offers shops and restaurants for a break between stops. Take the Colonial-Era Providence Tour Download the app and take the Colonial-Era Providence walking tour to hear these stories where they happened.
