Revolutionary Road - Day 2 - Revolutionary Rhode Island

9/27/15, “Revolutionary Rhode Island”

En route, Metro North, Harlem Line

When I last closed, I was about to eat my Chinese food.  That seems like a lifetime ago, not 24 hours ago, though I suppose 24 hours often seems like a lifetime when I travel.  Far removed from the Revolutionary War sites we visited today, we are now heading back to New York.  It is close to 10:30 PM, my entry will be finished around 11 PM, yet my night will only just be beginning, and I doubt I will get to sleep before 2 AM.  After I finished my Chinese food last night, I lit up a Santana as I tried to plan today and publish my entry.  I almost fell asleep with the cigar in my mouth, and I put it on the window ledge to save for morning.

We got a late start, but I figured we had plenty of time.  I figured wrong.  First off, there were too many NHLs to see in Newport and Providence, and I knew we couldn’t see them all, despite them being as densely packed as Boston.  I would have to come back and do another weekend in just Rhode Island to hit all the NHLs in Rhode Island.  I just chose my favorites and the most convenient for today.  Everything took longer than expected.  We went to breakfast at a place called the Hungry Monkey, the other place, which had better reviews, being too crowded.  I also got a paper and some snacks at 7-11.  I ordered the corned beef hash.  It was 10 AM by the time we were done with breakfast.

My friends wanted to see an abandoned structure in a State Park, so we headed to the south tip of the island.  I was so confused.  Did this site get a cigar, did I need my water bottle?  It wasn’t a WHS, an NPS, or even an NHL.  It was not something that was on any of my lists, so there was nothing Official about it, like no different than museum or something.  I chose to have the cigar, lighting up a My Father cigar.  We had fun exploring the abandoned structure before we headed back to downtown Newport.

Along the way, we stopped at Newport’s first mansion, the Marble House.  It was closed for an event, but we were able to take some pictures at the gate.  We continued to downtown, and I had everything planned out perfectly, the exact order for efficiency, what we would see by foot, what we’d drive to instead.

We parked in front of the old church.  Trinity Church was modeled after the Old North Church in Boston, and it was easy to see the similarity.

From there we walked to the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, which was the home a Stamp Tax collector.  It was damaged by riots during the Revolution, but there were no signs of the damage to be found.

From there, we headed to the Brick Market Place, which was now a museum.  Along the way, I saw the Old State House, but I had my order planned out, so we kept going.  The gift shop at the museum was disappointing, but I found a keychain.

We then headed to the Touro Synagogue, which is the oldest synagogue in the country.  It’s still active.  We took some ceremonial pictures, but we didn’t go inside.

After that, we went back to the Old State House, which was no more interesting than the one in Boston.  We turned around and walked back towards the car, stopping at what was the most important site in Newport for me.

The Vernon House was where Comte de Rochambeau had his headquarters.  The whole point of this trip was to follow the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route.  This house was where it began.

We went to the car and drove to the Hunter House, which housed the Loyalist Deputy Governor, who was forced to flee his mansion.  I lit up an Aroma de Cuba there.

From there, it was to Bristol, to find the Joseph Reynolds House.  We didn’t have the exact address, but we knew the coordinates and that it was a three-story blue house.  We had a lot trouble finding it, in no small part due to the fact that had been repainted red.

At this point we were hungry, and Rhode Island’s candidate for “most iconic” restaurant, the Haven Brothers Diner in Providence, would not be open by the time we left Providence.  We stopped at McDonald’s.  We got back on the road, heading straight to Providence.

I am short on time, and there is not much to say about our time in Providence, so I will condense, along with condensing my photos.  If my reader wants more details, Google knows a lot about these sites.  There were four sites within a block of each other in Providence.  The first one was the Nightingale-Brown House, the second one the Corliss-Carrington House, the third one the Thomas P. Ives House, the last one the John Brown House, yes, that, John Brown.  I lit up a Camacho, and we breezed through each of the sites, half of them now private residences.

We continued to the main campus of Brown, where I found University Hall, the oldest building on campus.  It looked like a nice campus, and I texted my sister a couple of pictures, as it is her alma mater (my aunt’s too?).  She recognized it instantly.

We then headed to the Governor Stephen Hopkins House, another signer of the Declaration of Independence.  By this point, we were in a total rush.  It was at the take a picture and move on point of the trip.  

We got the car and drove up to the First Baptist Meetinghouse, which was established by Roger Williams and was the first Baptist church in America.  Tight on time now, we skipped the other site I had in Providence, the Arcade, and headed straight to Coventry.  I asked my friend to provide me with driving times, so I could calculate everything.  We looked good on time to see all the sites and make a train at a reasonable hour.  Something seemed off, though, that one of the times was too low.

We headed to the General Nathaniel Greene Homestead in Coventry, our last stop in Rhode Island.  That was when I learned there was a Coventry in Connecticut, and the times I had been provided were based on that Coventry.  We frantically recalculated, but it was too little, too late.  We were not going to make all the sites by dark, and we were going to be on a late train.  I lit up a Tattoo, and we took the ceremonial pictures at the homestead and headed straight to Lebanon, Connecticut, which would serve as our last stops.

There were two sites there, the William Williams House, and the John Trumbull House.  We easily found the John Trumbull House, but we couldn’t find the William Williams House, and we had no cell service.  Worse, we were almost out of gas.

Well, long story short.  I found both houses, the William Williams House actually having a plaque out in front, and I finished my cigar on its last puff right there.  We then we had to call it quits, get gas, and head straight to North White Plains.  I lit up an Avo and listened to Les Mis as we drove home, and it finished as we were getting our stuff out of the car.

My mom met us there, and she took us back to Scarsdale, where Candlelight wings were waiting.  We scarfed down our wings, and she took us to the train station.  We got on the 10:15 PM train, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as we were now pulling into Grand Central, along with closing out the trip.  Next stop: day trip to Philadelphia with my parents to visit my grandfather, whom I haven’t seen in over a year, unless he cancels on us again.