Newport, Rhode Island

City with a population of 24,672 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Newport County. The city was first settled in 1639 by religious schismatics from Portsmouth. It attracted religious refugees from other New England colonies and became the biggest city in early colonial Rhode Island. It became a refuge for Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal, as well as Quakers. Pirates operated from the port here during the 17th centuries, and the city became a center of the slave trade - the majority of American slave trading vessels traveling overseas originated from Newport in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, both legally and illegally. The British occupied the city in the fall of 1776 to protect occupied New York from American attack. A Franco-American siege the next year failed, but the British abandoned the city in 1780. The French occupied the city shortly afterward and made it the base of French operations during the war.

Southern planters built vacation homes here in the Antebellum period. This and the immigration of Irish into the city spurred development in the 19th century. Newport served as a co-capital of Rhode Island from 1776 to 1900 until Providence became the only state capital.

read the wiki and - An Historic Perspective of Newport www.cityofnewport.com/history.cfm

'The City of Newport covers the jagged peninsula on the southwestern
end of the Island of Rhode Island that looks like a crumpled old boot,
with its toe pointing westward into Narragansett Bay and its sole and
rear to the Atlantic Ocean. The old center is, roughly, at the front of the
ankle on sheltered Newport Harbor. The famous Ten-Mile Drive con-
necting great estates along the shore is a loop that winds nearly straight
south from the center, swings west along the sole and winds back over the
toe to the center again."

www.archive.org/stream/rhodeislandguide00federich/rhode...

see also - Newport Historic District - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_Historic_District_%28Rhod...

and an excellent article/description from Harper's Weekly 1873 here - www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rinewpor/maps/Newport1873.ht...

Timeline of Newport, Rhode Island, history - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Newport,_Rhode_Island...

Newport County RIGenWeb - www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~rinewpor/ *excellent for further research*

en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Newport_%28Rhode_Island%29

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