A History of Enslaved People at the Vernon House
By Christian McBurney
The history of enslaved people living at Vernon House at 46 Clarke Street in Newport, Rhode Island, from 1720 to 1800 is incomplete because surviving records are incomplete.[1]
The first record of slaveholding at 46 Clarke Street is the 1729 probate inventory of Captain William Gibbs, formerly a painter. Gibbs had in his estate “Indian Hector,” valued at £100, “Indian Tom,” valued at £80, and “Rhode Island, a Negro boy,” valued at £85.
Hector and Tom are the only enslaved Native peoples known to have resided at 46 Clarke Street. Given the substantial values assigned to them, it is clear they were treated as enslaved. By the mid-18th century, enslaving local Narragansetts or Wampanoags was rare. The boy named Rhode Island may have been a recent African captive on board one of five known slave ships that sailed from Newport for Africa from 1725 to 1727.[2]
[1] See Inventory of the Estate of Captain William Gibbs, Feb. 11, 1728/29, in Rhode Island Law Cases, File Papers, 1737, vol. 7, pp. 13-18, Rhode Island State Archives. See also ibid., Newport Town Council Records, 1727-1730, vol. 6, p. 163, Newport Historical Society (some of the pages are torn and parts missing).
[2] See Slave Voyages Database at www.slavevoyages.org (search for years 1700 to 1730 and USA flag).
The house at 46 Clarke Street then was much smaller than the current mansion. Hector, Tom and Rhode Island likely slept in the house’s garret. In Gibbs’ inventory, property in the garret included a bed and “servants wearing clothes and bedding.”
In the following decades, from three to six enslaved people likely resided at 46 Clarke Street.
Metcalf Bowler, after acquiring the property from his father Charles Bowler in 1759, embarked on a major renovation and expansion project, turning the house into largely what it looks like today. Metcalf, a wealthy merchant and prominent Rhode Island politician, during the American Revolutionary War spied for the British.[3]
In 1768, Metcalf Bowler began renting out 46 Clarke Street, including to William Vernon.[4] In 1774, Vernon purchased the property, which became known as Vernon House.
[3] See Maud Lyman Stevens, A History of the Vernon House in Newport, R.I. (Newport, RI: The Charity Organization Society, 1915), p. 9. On the anniversary of the repeal of the hated Stamp Act, in 1767, celebrations in Newport were capped with Bowler giving “an elegant entertainment to a number of gentlemen, true friends of Liberty.” Quoted in ibid., p. 11. Presumably, the celebration occurred at 46 Clarke Street. For Bowler as a spy, see Christian McBurney, Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014), pp. 55-60.
[4] In the Rhode Island census of 1774, Bowler is reported as having six Black people at his estate in Portsmouth, all of whom were likely enslaved. Rhode Island 1774 Census, Portsmouth, Rhode Island State Archives. Some of them may have resided at 46 Clarke Street at some point in their lives.
William Vernon, also a wealthy Newport merchant, became Newport’s leading slave trader. He invested in more African slave trading voyages—at least forty—than anyone in the port’s history. Slave ships invested in by him carried an estimated 5,150 captives from Africa to the New World.[5] While most of William’s slave trade investments occurred in colonial times (often with his brother Samuel), William continued slave trading after the American Revolutionary War ended, until his death in 1808.
In the Rhode Island 1774 census, William Vernon is listed as heading a household in Newport (Vernon House) with five Black people living there—two adult males, two males aged under sixteen years, and one adult female.[6] The unnamed Black people were likely all enslaved.
Some enslaved males would have worked at Vernon’s warehouse on a Newport wharf. Others may have worked at a trade, such as carpentry. One would have served as William’s valet and handled the family’s horses. The enslaved females did the cooking, cleaning, sewing and other chores to maintain Vernon House and serve the Vernon family.
[5] For William Vernon’s slave voyages, see the Database in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade at www.slavevoyages.org (search for years 1700 to 1810 and with Vernon as the Owner). Much of the slave trade correspondence of the Vernon brothers, held at the Newport Historical Society and New-York Historical Society, is published in Elizabeth Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1932). Some of this correspondence, as well as the Cato Varnum letter quoted below in the main text of this article, can be accessed at the Newport Historical Society’s website. See Voices from the NHS Archives at https://collections.newporthistory.org/People/Index (search for: Vernon).
[6] Rhode Island 1774 Census, Newport, Rhode Island State Archives.
Some enslaved people likely slept in a garret on the house’s third floor, under exposed wooden supports for the roof. In chilly weather, they probably used the nearby third floor fireplace. Kitchen workers likely slept where they worked, in the kitchen or in the basement below the kitchen.
The Vernon House’s enslaved people enjoyed some free time for themselves. During working hours, they often ran errands, visiting local shops to purchase goods or delivering messages. This allowed them some free time. In addition, depending on the leeway of their white masters, they would have been allowed some free time to do as they wished. With the large Black population in Newport, they would have had opportunities to meet with free people of color and the enslaved.
Rhode Island Slave History Medallion Installation at Vernon House
When the American Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, with Newport exposed to a British invasion by sea, many Patriots departed Newport, William stayed.[7] But upon the appearance of a Royal Navy fleet that entered Narragansett Bay on December 7, 1776, William fled Vernon House. On December 8, on his way to Rehoboth, Massachusetts, he wrote to his adult son, Samuel Jr. (“Sammy”), who had remained at Vernon House.[8] William wrote that he had brought with him three of the enslaved people who had likely resided at Vernon House and had left behind three others. William named them, allowing readers to learn something personal about them—their given first names. Departing Newport with William were Barre, Accran and Caesar. These were all male names. It may be that Vernon, a Patriot, did not want any of these three men, either voluntarily or involuntarily, joining or working for the British army. William added that he left behind at Vernon House Cadys, Belinda and her child.[9] Cadys and Belinda were female names.
Four of these enslaved people were likely among the five Black people listed as residing at Vernon House in the 1774 census. Since 1774, Belinda’s child had been added to the household.
[7] William Ellery to William Vernon, Feb. 26, 1777, in Papers of William Vernon and the Navy Board, 1776-1794, (Providence, RI: Snow & Farnum, 1901), p. 7.
[8] Summarized in Stevens, A History of the Vernon House in Newport, R.I., p. 20.
[9] Ibid.
William’s son, Samuel Jr., and his elder sister, Esther, looked after Vernon House during the British occupation of Newport. Esther became nervous about the presence of British army soldiers and went to stay with her Loyalist brother Thomas residing on Division Street, taking with her Cadys, Belinda and Belinda’s child.[10] Presumably, their absence from Vernon House was temporary. It was important that someone stay there, since unoccupied Patriot homes were often destroyed by desperate soldiers tearing the wood from them to use as firewood.[11] Due to the dire firewood shortage, whites and the enslaved were often forced to share a single room with a fireplace.
William Vernon worked in Boston for the next four years, serving honorably on the Navy Board for the Eastern Department, overseeing the construction and outfitting of Continental Navy ships.[12]
Cato Vernon was likely one of the two Black males aged under sixteen listed in the 1774 census as residing at William Vernon’s Newport household. Probably by late 1776, Cato was working in East Greenwich as an apprentice to a ship carpenter.
[10] Ibid., pp. 20 and 21.
[11] William Vernon to Samuel Vernon, Jr., April 22, 1778, Providence, Vernon Papers, Box 49, Folder 5, Newport Historical Society.
[12] Washington C. Ford, ed., Vol. VII, Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907), p. 331; William Ellery to William Vernon, May 9, 1777, in Papers of William Vernon and the Navy Board, p. 10; William M. Fowler, Jr., Rebels Under Sail, The American Navy during the Revolution (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), pp. 74-75.
On March 11, 1778, Cato enlisted in the First Rhode Island Regiment of Continentals (the famous “Black Regiment”). It appears Cato enlisted without permission from William Vernon, then in Boston.[13] Cato likely enlisted mainly because by enlisting he obtained his freedom. Meanwhile, under the state law, William was entitled to receive a payment equal to Cato’s property value, determined to be £114.[14]
A 1781 regimental record described Cato as nineteen years old; five feet three-and-one-half inches tall (normal for the times); a Black man with black hair; born in Newport and a resident of
East Greenwich at the time he enlisted; and prior to the war he worked as a ship carpenter. He enlisted at East Greenwich “for the war.”[15]
Cato and his regiment fought at the Battle of Rhode Island on August 29, 1778, helping to repulse three charges by British army troops. It was an impressive performance, especially considering it was the first combat for most of the men. Cato served in other campaigns from upstate New York to the surrender of a British army at Yorktown, Virginia.[16]
[13] John Glasier to William Vernon, March 18, 1778, in Slaves, Box 43A, Folder 26, Item 3, Newport Historical Society. Glasier was the tradesman to whom Cato was apprenticed.
[14] General Treasurer’s Accounts, 1761-1781, Alphabetical Book, No. 6, Rhode Island State Archives. A portion of the payment was due to John Glasier since Cato’s apprenticeship to Glasier was cut short. See letter in prior footnote. For more on the Slave Enlistment Act, see Robert A. Geake, From Slaves to Soldiers, The 1st Rhode Island Regiment in the American Revolution (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2016, 39-42.
[15] Bruce C. MacGunnigle, ed., Regimental Book, Rhode Island Regiment for 1781 &c. (East Greenwich, RI: Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 2011), p. 46. The original of the regimental book is at the Rhode Island State Archives.
[16] See Shirley L. Greene, Revolutionary Blacks, Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2023), 91-102 and 119-66; Geake, From Slaves to Citizen, 47-85.
Cato served in the First Rhode Island Regiment for the entire war, more than five, hard years. He earned a badge of distinction, which was conferred on veteran Continental soldiers who had served with “bravery, fidelity and good conduct.”[17]
Allied French soldiers occupied Newport from July 1780 to June 1781. The commander of French forces, the Comte de Rochambeau, made his headquarters and sleeping quarters at Vernon House. Rochambeau built a temporary extension that served as a meeting room. George Washington stayed at Vernon House when he visited Newport in March 1781. William (Billy) Lee, Washington’s enslaved manservant, accompanied Washington on the trip and likely slept in the hallway outside of the general’s second-floor bedroom.[18]
The rhetoric of the American Revolution, including that all men deserved freedom and liberty, played a key role in ending slavery in the North. In a December 10, 1780 letter from William Vernon in Boston and delivered to Samuel Jr. in Newport, William queried, “What are our Negros doing? I suppose they expect to be their own?”[19] William’s pointed question indicated that the enslaved people kept by the Vernons soon expected to be liberated and to work for themselves for pay and no longer to labor for free for the Vernons. The scent of freedom was in the air.
[17] Report of Honorary Badges, Sept. 23, 1782, in MacGunnigle, ed., Regimental Book, Rhode Island Regiment for 1781 &c., 91-92 and 98; Return of Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates Enlisted for the War in the 6th Company of the Rhode Island Battalion, June 15, 1783, in ibid., 113-14.
[18] See Elizabeth Potter Randolph Recollections, in Christian M. McBurney, A History of Kingston, R.I., Heart of Rural South County, 1700-1900 (Kingston, RI: Pettaquamscutt Historical Society, 2004), p. 62 (William Lee accompanied General Washington during his overnight visit to Little Rest (now Kingston), Rhode Island, on his way to Newport). For information on William Lee, see “William (Billy) Lee,” Mount Vernon website at www.mountvernon.org (search for William Lee).
[19] William Vernon to Samuel Vernon, Jr., Dec. 10, 1780, Boston, Vernon Papers, Box 49, Folder 5, Newport Historical Society (question mark added).
The Rhode Island General Assembly waited until after the end of the war, in 1784, to abolish slavery. It chose the path of gradual abolition. Children of enslaved people would become free as young adults.
In reality, Rhode Island’s enslaved became free much faster than the gradual abolition statute anticipated. Some enslaved men, such as Cato Vernon, had earned their freedom fighting in the war. In other cases, masters manumitted their enslaved people. Masters and their enslaved people sometimes negotiated an end to the enslavement arrangement, requiring the enslaved person to work a few years more. Alternatively, enslaved people could self-liberate themselves by running away, with their former masters not bothering to find them.[20]
The first United States Federal census of Rhode Island in 1790 reported William Vernon as living at Vernon House with six white people and only one (unidentified) enslaved person.[21] So, while William Vernon had five Black persons living at his Newport household in 1774, all of whom were likely then enslaved, by 1790 there was only one.[22]
[20] See Christian M. McBurney, Jailed for Preaching, The Autobiography of Cato Pearce, a Freed Slave from Washington County, Rhode Island (Kingston, RI: Pettaquamscutt Historical Society, 2006), 3-5.
[21] Heads of Families, 1790 Federal Census, Rhode Island, p. 21, accessed at https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1907/dec/heads-of-families.html. The ancestry.com database inadvertently has left out William Vernon.
[22] Heads of Families, 1790 Federal Census, Rhode Island, p. 21; Newport section, 1774 Rhode Island Census, Rhode Island State Archives.
In the second Federal census, for 1800, one enslaved person is still listed as residing at Vernon House. This person could have been an elderly man or woman whom the Vernons did not want to manumit to be on his or her own. By 1810, no enslaved person was listed as residing at Vernon House.[23]
The fates of the enslaved who once resided at Vernon House and were liberated is unknown. The women likely obtained manual labor jobs such as laundresses or seamstresses. The men may have served on board Newport ships as sailors or were hired as temporary laborers. Some had trades learned during their enslavement, such as ropemakers or coopers.
In August 1793, Cato Vernon, from a Newport jail, wrote a letter to William Vernon, one of the few surviving letters from a Black Revolutionary War veteran. Cato was imprisoned for failure to pay his debts. At this time, bankrupts had to stay in jail until family members or friends would pay their debts so they could be released. No doubt to Cato’s chagrin, he had to beg his former master to pay the money he owed.[24] William Vernon paid the debt on August 26, 1793.[25]
[23] See 1800 and 1810 U.S. Censuses, accessed through www.ancestry.com. Several unidentified white persons resided at Vernon House according to the 1790 and 1800 censuses. They were likely paid servants, perhaps recent Irish immigrants.
[24] Cato Vernon to William Vernon, Aug 24, 1793, Box 43A, Folder 26, Item 1, Newport Historical Society.
[25] Receipt of Fees Paid, Aug. 26, 1793, in ibid.
