I Come from Rhode Island

Oct 5, 2024

6 min read

Yes, yes, I know the title sounds like a Michael Feinstein song (people are forever explaining my own damn jokes and literary devices back to me, as though the very productions of my own mind had never occurred to me).

The quaint landmark you see above, known as the Narragansett Towers, is located about a minute from the house where I grew up. It was once part of a huge casino that burned down, back when Narragansett was much more similar to nearby Newport as a fabulous resort destination for New Yorkers. (I managed to slip that factoid into my post on Elsie Janis, who used to summer there). At any rate, its pictureque outline is considered iconic where I come from, and seemed a good representation of what my home state is all about. As I’ve noted here, I’m doing a series of posts inspired by U.S. States. Having previously done ones on Florida, New Jersey, and Connecticut, I could hardly neglect my birthplace. To a near certainty I can tell you, however, that I won’t be doing all 50, though I’m willing to rhapsodize about a surprising percentage of them.

Just as small dudes are known for Napoleon complexes, as a Rhode Islander I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder about the place, born of insecurity. When I was a kid it seemed like Rhode Island was an obscure backwater, a kind of gutter state squashed between the much more widely known Connecticut and Massachusetts. The name has always confused people, being as it is part of a geographic landscape that also includes Long Island and Block Island, and unlike those two, it isn’t even an island, although it contains many. One of them, Aquidneck Island (which contains Newport and Portsmouth) became known as Rhode Island in the 17th century, either because it resembled the Greek Island of Rhodes, or because Dutch explorer Adriaen Block (for whom Block Island is named) observed that it looked red (Roode in Dutch) when seen from a distance. This Rhode Island, located in Narragansett Bay, was originally its own colony; it merged with nearby Providence in 1644 to become what eventually became known as “The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”, usually shortened to Rhode Island. In 2020, the name was officially shortened in order to remove the reference to Plantations, which people had begun to find offensive.

When I was a kid, the list of notable people from Rhode Island seemed like a half dozen names no one had ever heard of. Think of all the famous people from New York, Massachusetts, California, and about 30 other states! I’ve since gone on to realize that that handful of names actually did contain highly signficant people, and that there were many more, and then still more were added over time. Now, I believe it has swelled to impressive proportions, and that’s what I will crow about today.

I should also add that my mother (who pronounced it “Vo Die-lunt”) is directly descended from one of Rhode Island’s earliest settlers, Benjamin Harrington. He was a bit of a ne’er do-well, so he can’t be described as a “Founder”, though through intermarriage over the centuries I am descended from many true Founders, just not directly. This includes the Founder of Providence, Roger Williams (1603-1683), whose fame deserves to be far greater than it is. To my mind, his rep is diminished on account of the tiny colony he planted, though in a way, it’s the least earth-shattering of his many accomplishments. He ought to be taught in both U.S. history and world history courses as the originator of the doctrine of the separation of church and state. He was also Founder of the First Baptist Church in America, although he preferred not to be affiliated with any particular denomination. The fact that many modern Baptists are looking to revive theocracy would be repugnant to him. A Cambridge graduate, Williams had apprenticed under Sir Edward Coke, the greatest English Jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He had even tutored John Milton in languages. He was an ordained minister in the Church of England, although he had been drawn to Puritanism and then Separatism, necessitating his transplantation to the New World. His highly individual ideas got him kicked out of Boston, Salem, and Plymouth, resulting in his establishing his own colony south of Boston and west of Plymouth. Lastly he should be known for his exemplary dealings with the Native Americans. He treated them as equals, paid them for their land, learned their languages, and even published books about their culture. If all Americans had followed his example, the ensuing centuries would have looked very different, and the nation might have gotten less blood on its hands.

Anyway, if I write an entire biographical post on every Rhode Islander of note, I wouldn’t be making a blogpost but a book. And you see, I’ve already posts on them individually at the links. As Roger Williams is the founder, and no one knows his birth date, we gave him special attention today. Now, for the rest. I’ve broken them down into areas of interest, with special emphasis on the usual themes of this blog:

Vaudeville:George M. Cohan, Eddie Dowling, Sissieretta Jones (“The Black Patti”), Francis Renault,Doc Rockwell, Al Mardo and His Do Nothing Dog, Red Pepper Sam (the voice of Popeye), Jack Cameron, Daniel Sully

Silent Movie Stars:Kate Price, Jack Duffy, Ruth Clifford, Doris Kenyon

Sideshow/Circus: sword swallower Marie De Vere, and Little People Herbert Henry Rice and Col. Reuben Steere,

Radio Era: Frankie Carle, Nils T. Granlund, Jane Pickens (the Pickens Sisters),

Mid-Century Movie People:Van Johnson, Robert Aldrich,George Macready,Nelson Eddy, Ruth Hussey. Betty Hutton lived in R.I. late in life; John Huston died there while helping his son Danny make Mr. North.

Horror:H.P. Lovecraft, Sarah Helen Whitman (lady friend of Edgar Allan Poe), horror stars Bryant Haliday and David Hedison (The Fly, The Cat Creature, etc), and several local ghosts, vampires, and witches

Writers of Plays, etc:George Pierce Baker, S.J. Perelman,

Rock/ Pop:The Cowsills, The Talking Heads (formed at RISD), Throwing Muses

Comedy/ Performance Art:Harry Anderson,Spalding Gray, Charles Rocket,John Roarke (of Fridays), Janeane Garofolo (started out at Periwinkles in Providence, as did yours truly).

Sit-Coms: Nick Colasanto (Cheers), David Angell (Frasier, Wings), Debra Messing (Will and Grace)

Assorted recent notables:Viola Davis, The Farrelly Brothers, James Woods, Brian Helgeland, Jhumpa Lahiri (a high school friend of this guy!), Meredith Vieira, Emeril Lagasse, Wylie Dufresne

Assorted Historical Figures of National Import: Samuel Slater (Father of the American Industrial Revolution), Julia Ward Howe (writer of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”), Cotton King Daniel Sully, religious leader Anne Hutchinson, artist Gilbert Stuart, James Franklin (brother of Benjamin), Revolutionary War Major-General Nathanael Greene, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, Civil War General Ambrose Burnside, Union Army Private Elisha Hunt Rhodes (prominent inKen Burns’ Civil War doc), and various members of the Hopkins, Aldrich, Arnold, and Brown families. Notable local pols of the 20th century included John O. Pastore, America’s first Italian-American Senator; Sen. Claiborne Pell, who gave us the Pell Grant; and John Chafee, Senator, Governor and U.S. Secretary of the Navy (whose son Lincoln debated Hilary Clinton so hilariously in 2016).