 For you, let me get in this camera, right? My name is Ken Walsh. I'm an engineer for everything else. My bachelor's in electrical engineering, my master's in ocean engineering. I worked at the Navy Lab for 43 years. And when I retired in 2002, I went back to school and studied history and economics. And I got a PhD. So I spent two years looking at Newport's history, particularly from an economics standpoint, which turned out to be very interesting. Had a thriving international economy. Turns out that the farms on this island and the adjacent, Hog Island, Gold Island, like that, were very productive. Twice as productive as any of the farms on a mainland, mainly because the predators couldn't get to these farms. And if a wolf or another predator managed to get to the island, you got hunted down and gotten rid of. So the island farms were twice as productive as the mainland. That gave them something to sell. They started selling up and down the coast and down to the Caribbean. It turned out that there were three major ports at the beginning of the American Revolution, Halifax in Canada, Newport, and New York. The problem with New York was that the water was too shallow to get in there with major warships. The British, in order to shut down the trade, occupied Newport from 76 to 79. And the prevailing opinion was that this action by the British, which did depress the economy here severely, put a permanent crimp in Newport economy and it never recovered. It turned out to be not so. Let's say I'm an engineer. If I went in and said you've got to have more samples on a set of data because of the Nyquist criteria, everybody would say, huh, not good. So what I did is I put this quote in and now most people recognized Arthur Conan Doyle, a studying scholar at the first of the Holmes novels. And he has Holmes saying it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. It biases the judgment. A lot of the contemporary literature, they didn't bother checking. So we went in and we checked. We used the local records. We go to Historical Society in Newport, what you'll find is the tax records going back all the way to 1772. So you can see who's paying taxes and whatever. There was an industrial revolution in Providence in the late 1770s. Slater Mill started it and then went on from there. And then what that did, it produced a phenomenon called creative destruction. What happens is that some new product comes along off a buyer's shift from the old product to the new product. People who were making the old product go out of business. And what happened was that Newport had to shift from a mercantile economy to a tourist industry and basically to what we've got now. The colony was founded in 1639 and Newport was set up the following year. We got a charter. Rhode Island was the only non-secular state in the world when that charter was passed. It was signed by the king. The only place you could go where you couldn't, the legal structure could not make laws regarding religion. And because of that, all the non-conformists ended up in Rhode Island because they were thrown out of every place else. A couple of examples. Aaron Lopez was a refugee from Portugal. He came with his family about, and then Tom Robinson was a quaker, neither of which were very welcome any place else. When Lopez went to, his family went to New York from Portugal because they had relatives in New York City. Founding fathers of New York said, we don't want you guys here, right? They said, go to Newport. They'll take anybody, right? So they went to Newport. Aaron Lopez became the richest guy in Newport in 1775. Excellent merchant. Newport became the major commercial center for the East Coast by 1760. They were trading with England for manufactured goods. They were trading and would produce, take the manufactured goods and trade them, trade down to the Caribbean for sugar, molasses, make rum, trade that to Africa back to the Caribbean and then back up here for more rum. In terms of religious freedom, in 1659 two quakers, well three quakers from here went up to Boston and two of them were men, one woman, Mary Dyer. The two men were tried and hung. Mary Dyer came back to Newport following years she would back up to Boston and they tried her and hung her too. It was very dangerous outside this colony for anybody who didn't total line on whatever the state religion happened to be. Colonial merchants traded with England due to economics and advantages. When it was profitable, they bypassed the British law. British law said that if you trade with a foreign country, like a Dutch or a French or Italians, you had to stop in England before you came home and pay your taxes. The problem was that it was too costly for the British Navy to effectively stop the trade. The result was a general disrespect for the English law and customs service. Charles II named Edward Randolph as a surveyor of taxes. They sent him over to see what was going on. Randolph, the courts, the governor in all the inhabitants obstructed the British customs collectors and supported the smugglers. Randolph's comment was the need of law in the government in Newport. The city had become a major port where there was much illegal trade. In Newport, the courts were used to harass the government customs officials. In many cases, a smuggler was caught. Before they could bring him to trial, the evidence disappeared. The witnesses disappeared and the guy who was found not guilty. If a customs inspector crossed the line, he was tried and convicted immediately. Speedy justice. Documentary evidence was sent through the British Custom Service to England describing the infamous practices of the colonials. The use of bribery and fraudulent papers and the highly effective way of evading the English law. Up until 1760, Newport's economy was unconstrained. Nobody could keep track of it. In fact, the Navigation Acts but before 1763, the Navigation Acts provided a workable system. If it was profitable, they'd go to England. If it wasn't, they'd just bypass England and not worry about them. The shipping events were set up in tables. The way you could find out what the shipping events were is you go to the newspaper and the Custom House posted which ships came in which ships would go out and where they were coming and going from. You can see the sloops and the destinations. One of the things you gotta watch out for when you're reading these old newspapers, the first letter that looks like an F, it's really an S. If you look in this list, you get Turk Island and Newcastle and this is right here. That's an S. Not an F. Now, here are the destinations of the shipping between 1762 and 1763. If you look at this, you can see that most of the commerce was local. You had 494 ships in local trade. To the Caribbean, you had 133 ships trading back and forth to the Caribbean. In the whaling, you had four. Nova Scotia had 15. What they were doing in Nova Scotia, the Brits would ship manufactured goods to Nova Scotia. These guys would go to Nova Scotia and pick up those trade goods. They were going to Africa. The only reason they were going to Africa was in the slave trade. Out of some 600 ships coming and going, only 12 were in the slave trade. This is some of the routes. In the slave trade, they would go this way. They were trading not only for slaves but for gold. This is the gold coast. They came back around through the Caribbean and back and forth to England, back and forth this way. The ships used, most of the ships were sloops of Briggs. Some of them were a little larger. They would trade fish, grain, meat, lumber, whale oil, and ships, tobacco. They would trade with the West Indies with slaves, fish, trade goods, lumber, livestock. The King of England forbade the export of horses from England because he was afraid he wouldn't have enough horses for his cattle rig. When he did that, all the Newport people who were raising horses started trading quick with the Caribbean because the price went up. This gives you a list of things that were advertised for sale in the Newport people. The colony of Sunam is a Dutch colony on the North Coast. They also hunt their wheels in the Falcons. This is a picture that was painted of a tavern scene by John Greenwood. You've got Cook, you've got Ezra Hopkins, Stefan Hopkins, and Joseph Wanton. Nobody liked him. There's a guy going to put a punch on his head and he's passed out from drinking too much, and this guy's throwing up in his pocket. It turned out that he's a Tory, and when the Newport was occupied by the British, they made him the Chief High Sheriff. He was not well liked. This picture, by the way, you can get off the web at St. Louis Op Museum as it posted. The price of molasses on the French islands in the Caribbean was half the price it was on the British islands. There's a big advantage of trading with the French islands, right? One of the techniques for justifying trade with the islands under flag of truce, what they would do is they would take one Frenchman and a shipload of cargo and go down and trade with the French islands. The other method they would do is they would sail into one of the Spanish islands, put a Spanish crew on the boat, and then into the French island and do the trading. At one point the little town of Monte Cristo was on the north coast of Espanola. It was right next to the border of what is now Haiti, the French colony, and they would go to that port and meet the French ship there and they would trade. They wouldn't even take the stuff as short. Aaron Lopez, Richard's man on Newport in 1775. He had a farm in Portsmouth. He purchased the farm in 1758 on the corner of Bremen's Lane and it's on Wapping Road that goes down to the winery if you want to go look for it a lot. He had a farm house in a barn and easy access to the second it. The claim to fame for this farm was that you could bring boats into the second it, unload on the beach above the farm, haul the stuff up the road, store it in the farm, and take it into Newport as if it came from Boston. Lopez did on at least one occasion because we sort of let him. He wrote a letter to the Dutch merchants. Had the Dutch merchants ship their order to the Dutch colony on South America. No taxes. He was in a sloop down, picked the stuff up, bring it back up into the river, load it in the farm and then down into Newport. Bremen's Lane is the Wapping. This is the road going down to the beach. This is such well known to the British that when Lieutenant Fage drew his map they named the bay Lopez Bay and they actually took over his farm house and made a fortress out of it. Now, George III took over after George II died in his water closet. He was 77 years old. He died sitting on his throne in his water closet and his grandson took it over. George III. Now, the seven years war in Europe was a French and Indian war here. It was basically that turned out to be the root cause of the American Revolution if you believe that. William Pitt fighting the French doubled the English national debt. Right? When he died in his water closet his grandson, George III, took it over. George III wasn't interested in the war. He didn't like Pitt either. And he replaced the illibute above him. George III negotiated an easy settlement of the Seven Years War with the French and left them in an economic condition where they could provide financial and military aid to the colonies. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Right? So, anyway, the success of Britain in the Seven Years War made them overconfident. Pitt's expenditures during the Seven Years War, they doubled the British national debt. The objectives of the British government after the Seven Years War was get the Canadians under control. Now they got Canada from the French. France didn't want Canada. Canada was a money sink. Right? And they were trying to get the Canadians under control. They wanted to get the colonies to cooperate. Right? And the colonies to pay the cost of the defense. Right? Right here the revolution started. When they started to try to make the colonies pay the English national debt. Newport was under control of a group of major merchants. The merchants controlled the international trade and the local trade. They corrupted the British government officials and performed a prodigious amount of smuggling. Right? The customs office's salary was 100 pounds a year. It was about 480 Spanish dollars. Right? Now customs official was making over 6,000 Spanish dollars a year under the table from the merchants. So you can guess who the size he was on. Right? The major merchants formed the backbone of the Newport economy. Members in this group in 1775 paid about $10 each in taxes and had about 70-70% of the wealth. These people fit the description of barbarians they were aggressive traders. They really had a clear idea of what they wanted to do. They wanted to make money profit. Right? And that drove the whole setup. Now taxes on a basis for this I think was done in 1772. All right? Merchants paid $24 Spanish dollars. Farmer was 16. Distiller was 11. Comptroller and like that down the line. And until you get to a ship captain he didn't have any property. These are property taxes. He may have had a house on a postage stamp lot in Newport so he didn't pay much. Farmer's Merchants and Distillers paid the most of their taxes. They accumulated most of the wealth and property and they paid most of the taxes. The Newport tax base was pretty stable between 1772 and 1775. You can see them sort of overlay. The taxes were property tax. Whenever they had a project they had to do they would figure out how much it was going to cost and then they would divide it up proportionally among all of Newport citizens. Most of everybody in Newport paid taxes. The mean value of in Newport of the town was about a little over a million Spanish dollars. And plus or minus about 200,000. That's an important number it turns out because that's the number we use to see whether or not Newport recovered after the revolution. Washington was closed Bunker Hill was fought 1775 2,000 people out of 5,000 were smart enough to leave Newport the only people they left behind were the Tories. They were the guy that was getting punch on his head in his pocket. Lopez moved up to a small town in Massachusetts Joseph Anthony moved to Pennsylvania and there's 2,000 people left with better places. Port of Boston was closed in the wake of the Boston Tea Party. Guess where all those merchants went they went to Newport and went to Newport. By the way when the British tried to take Bunker Hill they learned a hard lesson right? They lost 47% 48% of their troops trying to take Bunker Hill and the reason for it was the Colonials hid behind the stone walls and didn't stand up straight and they just shot these guys as they killed. The second thing they did was that they shot the officers first right? In the British Army the troops of cannon fodder they were from the low class that don't count for anything the officers from the noble class usually and they provided all the direction once the officer was dead these guys just milled around right? Bunker Hill, General Sullivan the only reason they didn't lose more was that Sullivan ran out of ammunition In an article published in the Newport Mercury in August of 1775 it was a letter it was sent from Britain to the Brethren quotes Quakers and it said the large fleet in Army that was being ready to sail against them that was one of the things that prompted the 2,000 people to leave Newport right? the Rose Swan and the Kingfisher made preparations to cannonade Newport but they never did they went to Jamestown and burned a bunch of buildings between the East and West Ferry the Rose and another armed schooner attacked Prudence Island but there wasn't anybody there I think they wrecked a windmill and Prudence Island had already been evacuated now of the three ports Halifax the British had Newport they occupied they shut down the port and then New York they had that picture was taken on siege day in 1978 but British arrived 6,000 regulars half British, half Hessian closed the port martial law, no civil government military courts were used for everything people who spoke up against the British were thrown in the prison ship no freedom of speech British collected all the firearms no right to bear arms now when you look at the bill of rights you can tell who is lobbying we had personal experience in Newport as to what happens when you get an army in there to suppress you these are forts along the top of Portsmouth the ferry is out here going out to Tividon Bristol ferry is here Lopez Farm was made into a fortress the Elms was made into a fortress what they would do is take the house and they would raise a dirt wall around it and the dirt wall would be thick enough and high enough to protect them from small arms fire and some light cannon right now Benjamin Franklin negotiated a treaty with the French for mutual aid the first item under the treaty the king of France sent Admiral de Stang and the Toulon fleet here to help out he went down to Sandy Hook to try to attack the British fleet that was down there under Admiral Howell turned out that his ships had a 25 foot draft big ships, lots of guns the water was only 15 feet deep so he couldn't get at them eventually he and Washington were going back and forth Washington said go to Newport Deepwater Port and help General Sullivan so he comes up to Newport talks to General Sullivan and the plan was he was going to land his troops on the west coast near Dyer Island Sullivan was going to attack across from Fargo and Fury and they were going to make a pencil movement and cut off the troops in the north part of the island well he was creating Newport had made a decision that if the French got into the bay he was going to pull all his troops back down to Newport and leave nobody up on the north end of the island so what happened was that's what he did he pulled all his troops back and he got this defensive line this is the internal line he had built and then he pulled all his troops back he built this line while the Colonial troops were trying to get the way down the island this is Cod's Redoubt this is where the Colonials were up on Honeyman Hill eventually they came around this way seized a little damage to Newport most of it action took place up on Valley Road in Middletown and there was a rear garden in Portsmouth that covered withdrawal into August the French fleet came into the bay and as they came into the bay they had a gunfire can dual with the short batteries the British had set up the British didn't do any damage apparently the the French didn't do much damage either again English forts this is Greenland going out this is the Colonials coming down this is Valley Road now 1979 the British hike behind in New York decides that all these guys sitting up in Newport aren't doing any good to anybody except they're making a target of themselves so they recall them in 1779 they recalled all the British out of Newport down to New York and they were going to use them in campaigns in the southern colonies now the British weren't really interested in New England New England was basically a competitor to England right but they were interested in the southern colonies because that's where they got their cotton for the cotton industry so they were going to pull them out and work them down there so what happened in 1780 Russia on boat comes with another French fleet land and they come and buy Newport no English so they pulled into Newport and set up they had quite a few sick because of the scurvy and they had to have them here let them recover this is a map drawn for Russian boat showing the French and the interesting part about that is that it tells you here which ones are which and all numbered turned out the French built three new forts and then rebuilt the English forts that were made in this exterior defense line that we were looking at and so the other thing they did goes to show you what we were just doing and Compton Rushamble was in charge of the Army Brendan houses where he had his headquarters when he was here you can see you can look at the plaque on the wall these are on Washington street and they were locations where the French military had the sub headquarters the French and the local militia built up all these forts they positioned the French warships in a harbor to defend Newport against a British counter attack Rushamble left the detachment of French military which combined with the colonial militia defended Newport for the rest of the war Rushamble brought money right the French government had given Rushamble a large quantity of silver that he could spend to buy troops and like that the most important thing for Newport's economy was that the ships brought money and customers you can look at the Newport newspaper in this time era advertisements written in French trying to sell stuff that are French soldiers right anyway Rushamble was one of the merchants that left Newport but he didn't go very far he went over to Narragansett and stayed out of the way when the English left he came back and he got between the French military and the local farmers because he knew everybody right and he started making money he used his money to purchase a ship and he got into the far eastern Baltic trade John Gibbs and Walter Channing came back and they reestablished their trading firms and Gibbs and Channing merged their businesses in 1793 and by 1800 they owned seven 300 ton ships one 600 ton ship three brigs and one schooner so Newport's reestablishing its status as a merchant community now what's the worth of Newport based on the tax returns 1775 we figured places worth a million and some it lost half its value when the 2000 people left the British ruined whatever was left and by the time the French arrived the value of the material in the town was like half of what it was before 1782 the economy is growing like a weed right 15% per year and you get down in here 1796 the town is worth more than it was here 1801 it's worth this and when you look at the growth rate this is about where it would be if there had been no war and it was growing at a nominal 1% to 2% now I work for the federal government for 43 years I know what it's like it wasn't good to these folks between 1801 and 1812 there were 4 groups with 4 different agendas the French under Napoleon was trying to take all of Europe the English were trying to stop the French the United States wanted the British out of the Americas 1803 we bought the Louisiana Purchase the British are selling guns to the Indians in ammunition through Canada they wanted them out of there and so the people in the congress were predominantly southern large land owners ok and southern politicians and they wanted to expand westward their states and so anyway the merchants in Newport were doing a good business because they were neutrals stuff to everybody and having a good time the British were impressing seamen right now a British seamen was making something like $7.50 a month ok a US merchant seamen at the time was making $18 a month you can guess where those British sailors wanted to go work now so the British would stop a ship and say hey that guy looks like he's in English and grab him so you had a crew of 5 you had a crew of 4 they would make port and they would hire a seamen who was probably a British deserter coming back to work for the merchants the British Royal Navy had 600 cruising warships 175 ships of the line they needed a lot of people and it was not a job they could easily recruit to Nelson wiped out the French Navy basically he beat the French in Egypt he crushed the Danish fleet and then he went to Trafalgar and got rid of the Napoleon's remaining forces so after that date the British controlled the ocean Americans were making a lot of money it was stealing the British commerce right and British were involved in this war but the Americans would come in and trade with it whatever by 1811 the merchant marine fleet expanded from half a million tons to almost a million tons double they needed sailors for their ship they recruited from all countries they were paying $16 $18 a month of able body compared to the British who paid $7 the British claimed that at least 20,000 British subjects deserted the Navy to serve the merchant marine the American estimate was about 9,000 the justification for the war of 1812 for the US government was that this enslavement of white American seamen on British ships right the driving motivation however was the intended expansion westward into the Louisiana Purchase and the British was selling guns to the Indians true objective of the war of 1812 was to attack Canada and remove the British from the Americas not the Navy or not the ships but that and Congress tried to stop US goods from reaching Britain embargo act of 1807 and the non intercost act of 1809 disaster for Newport shut it down we couldn't trade reform ports there goes our merchant the British weren't injured at all they obtained their food by trading with South America they found new markets for their manufacture goods in South America British ships took over the maritime trade that the American ships had been stopped in addition the United States discharged the British born sailors they could no longer employ they all went back to work for the British it was a windfall for the British and it ruined the American trade the other thing was that normally the goods from the Midwest would come through like to Newport and Newport would trade them out to the Europeans well Newport couldn't ship so what they did is they moved the goods to the Canadian border the American merchants had a field day the American exports and imports dropped from 114 million and 8 to 20 million down by a factor of 5 government revenue dropped to 13 million from 13 million to 6 million even though the tax rate was doubled the senior merchants in Newport were reaching the end of their lifespan what had happened Slater Mill in Pataka was started up you started to have an industrial revolution happening in Providence area so the merchants in the Providence area didn't have to go to England to get their manufacturing goods they got them right there they could trade them at savings compared to the Newport merchants and they competed very aggressively the other thing what's happening is there's no new investment in Newport shipping it's being invested up in Providence George Gibbs died in 1803 and at the time Gibbs was the highest taxpayer George Gibbs look at these dates these are the major Newport taxpayers in 1801 and look at when they're dying so by 1820 there's one major taxpayer left alive everybody else is dead and their businesses are coming apart Channing announced that he was going to take over the partnership of Gibbs and Channing he continued to operate after George Gibbs died and dissolved that day and became also Channing and cooperated top 10 taxpayers in 1793 9 had died before the end of the war in 1812 the 10th was James Robinson died in 1817 at the age of 79 so you can see the whole mercantile structure of Newport is collapsing by 1820 of the 9 that survived 3 more died 5 minor merchants and 1 major merchant Thomas Dennis to rebuild Newport and what happened if you look at Samuel Whitehorn his house is down on Thames Street he and his brother were partners in the distillery he was a junior partner in the distillery he imported molasses and sold some of that at retail and still likely in the slave trade is likely that he was taking rum to Africa and slaves to some of the islands in the Caribbean and then coming back up with molasses he went bankrupt he lost a couple of ships and he went bankrupt in 1844 that's the house he built on Thames Street up until about 1807 they were still operating at a profit even in the adverse trading environment mainly because the costs were up so high 1815 after the war of 1812 the harbor was wrecked by a hurricane and the porcelain and bridge was wiped out had there been no more changes Newport might have recovered however the industrial revolution in Rhode Island centered in Providence brought big changes after 1815 this is what's going on here's Providence here's Newport you can see building up 1780 this is where the British occupied it dropped it down and it starts building up again now right about here steam engine in the US takes off Providence takes off Newport continues on at the same growth rate okay this increase in here in railroad and steam ships Providence became a big manufacturing center for steam engines you're building railroad engines all kinds of things and during the Civil War the woolens manufacturers in the northern part of the state made a fletchum they produced most of the woolen uniforms for the United States Army and they were doing quite well we ended up with four mills in Newport two woolen, two cotton the woolen mills burned down the cotton mills are still there this is Perry Mill which is on a corner by the post office downtown and that's Quidditch Mill which is for the down Thames street on the right hand side 1836 Newport had mills and both cotton and woolen cloth it's Warwick in Newport you can see 1809 it's 6, 12, 11 15, 29 we had four in 1840 and the reason for that by the way is that we don't have any rivers on the island none that are with anything I grew up in Winsocket the Blackstone River coming down to power the mills and to provide water for washing the cloth and all the northern part of the state is growing like a weed banking capital it's Newport going along look at this is in millions 15, 208 million dollars in banking capital what's happening to the slave trade what did you build up then the last guy we know that was in the slave trade was Whitehorn and he was at a very low level the slavery you know, out in Newport and all the slavers went to Bristol and after that Bristol for a while the economics of the slave trade are interesting because what would happen is that they would take the rum and other goods from here trade it to Africa pick up the slaves in Africa take them to the Caribbean in that loop gave them a factor of 10 increase in value so the slavers in that loop made a lot of money they increased their profits by a factor of 10 but most of the the economy the slave trade per se trading goods back and forth up and down the coast and like that there were 22 distillers down on Washington street down in that area and I read a report from one of the town council meetings in Newport that said that these people were complaining because a woman of good virtue could not walk down Washington street without getting drunk from the distiller fumes and they were complaining because of the air pollution so but the the slave trade became very consequential after this time but he was up in Bristol they kicked all the slave traders out of Newport oh shoot this was before the war of 1812 I forget exactly when they outlawed the slave trade in Newport I didn't stop Whitehorn was trading up until 1844 but from what I understand he was the only one left and he was doing it because they needed molasses for their distillery by the way most of the rum from the distilleries in Newport were trading up and down the coast I think they said two thirds of the rum was drunk in the colonies and a third of it was used in the trade alright yes the thing that put the finish to the Newport trading was the railroad they built a railroad coming up from New York along the coast up through Providence, up to Boston and the coastal trade out of Newport depended on picking up produce along the way and selling it in New York and back when the train was there train does 30 miles an hour what does the sailboat do train arrives on time the sailboat's stuck with the wind or whatever as long as the sailboat was the only mode of transportation Newport was doing pretty good when the train came along to compete with them it ruined the coastal trade Newport basically 1811 when Channing retired it folded up cloth mills established in here railroad and shipyard the Newport shipyards were making wooden ships for the coastal trade when the coastal trade went away they got in a lot of trouble they did some whaling farming and fishing there was an international depression in 1857 which hurt a lot of these businesses it's the same map the same basically we saw the war of 1812 we can see the expansion tourist industry now the farmers in the southern colonies in the southern states would come up with their families and spend their time in the summer in Newport at the same time the Newport merchants would be making deals with them for either transporting their cotton or bringing it up here to be manufactured into cloth they were getting in the order 500 visitors per week during the tourist season social life was informal and the technology helped the Newport tourism industry because the steam ships and the railroads made it easier to connect from Charleston and Savannah to New York and Newport and the Fall River line was bringing people up from New York up through to Newport they would get on the train they would end up going up to Boston the problem we're now these people they're from the south they're running cotton they're growing cotton Civil War wiped that out now Bellevue Avenue in 1850 was a dirt road and you could buy land on Bellevue Avenue at $300 an acre land speculators moved in they bought it for $300 to $400 per acre and 1853 they were selling it for $2,000 to $5,000 an acre right now this come out of the city documents so it's reasonably good up until the Civil War was a mixed population of upper middle class both the south and the north many cases the heads of the family would be in business with each other they opened a hotel Bellevue hotel opened on St. Catherine Street landing hotel opened on Bellevue what about clipper ships going to China say again clipper ships going to China they had some they were doing that before the war of 1812 that's where they were making their China runs and the Baltic runs during the war of 1812 the British ran a blockade on Newport and caught those ships coming back that trade more or less collapsed that's the fishing and ocean house now conclusions the occupation by the British 1776 to 79 stopped the trade chased away a lot of prominent merchants but it didn't do any major damage to the town's infrastructure oh it did do sorry it did not change the trading environment as long as everybody was using wooden ships and there was no overland transportation things were pretty good for Newport Newport recovered and was back in the international trading business by 1801 wasn't Newport sort of a center of piracy to Newport was a center of pretty much anything there were people running ships in Newport that were considered privateers depending on which side of the war you were on and pirates if you weren't and some of them decided they were still going to be privateers even though the war was over which made them pirates by everybody's you know what happened basically is the people from from Providence had significant advantage in the way they were manufacturing goods there and the merchants traded it out and they just put Newport out of the trading business the personally coined this thing Joseph Schrumper he was a professor of economics at Harvard but basically it's the new thing comes in all the customers desert the old thing for the new thing the people were doing the old thing go out of business capitalistic systems get changed from the inside new goods, new market methods Slater Mill was the start of Newport's problem once Slater Mill in the northern part of Rhode Island started in its industrial revolution Newport was in bad trouble the difficulty with Newport is you can't get to it once you get away from travel by ship you got you got if you got somebody coming down from Providence he's got to come across the Mount Hope or you got to come across from Tividen and then he's got to come down the island then he's got to go over to Jamestown on the ferry and then from Jamestown to now against it on the ferry whereas somebody in Providence who wants to go to New York he gets on a train and goes down the coast so it's a very high place to get to second there's no water resources no water power on the island so they were limited until they started getting steam engines which were manufactured in Providence by the way steam engines they couldn't run their factories and then they had to bring the coal in you notice all the factories they were making either cotton or woolen cloth were down on Thames Street and the reason for it was that they had to run on coal the only way to get coal to them is to bring them by ship so they were at a competitive disadvantage because you go up to Providence you got water power not to bring coal you don't have to ship it so it was a problem the Providence merchants just competed them out of business Nupa just couldn't change because he didn't have the resources so when did they get into the the tourist business I mean look at the houses New Yorkers coming when did all that start basically after the war of 1812 in that timeframe what was happening is that the rich people in the southern states where they were a matter of fact or growing cotton and other things where they had trading relationships with the merchants in Newport they bring their families up here in the spring go through the summer and in the fall they go back south and this is a nice place to sit out the hot summer in Savannah like that that's basically how it started the Civil War put an end to that because those people no longer had any money and then the people from New York who were making all their money on railroads and whatever started keeping an eye on Newport Newport is a nice place it's not crowded it's not hot it's relatively cool in the summer compared to this place and so they decided this is a nice place to have their summer homes and moved their people out of New York and wherever else they were it turns out that the people from New York came up into Newport and built their houses out of stone the people in Philadelphia who were rich moved up to Jamestown and built their houses out of wood there are very few wooden houses left in Jamestown there's a lot of stone structures left over at Newport the beneficiary right now of a lot of that stone structure is South Virginia University most of their big buildings are left over mansions donated to them and converted over to the school anyway more of 1812 and it's aftermath really put a finishing touch to Newport British occupation did not finish Newport that's the revolution around and finish Newport