Newport, Newport County, Rhode Island Genealogy

United States Rhode Island  Newport County  Warren

Quick Facts
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County.

Colonial Period

Newport was founded in 1639 and its eight founders and first officers were Nicholas Easton, William Coddington, John Clarke, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull, who left Portsmouth, Rhode Island after a political fallout with Anne Hutchinson and her followers. As part of the agreement, Coddington and his followers took control of the southern side of the island. They were soon joined by Nicholas Easton, who had recently been expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for holding heretical beliefs. The settlement soon grew to be the largest of the four original towns of Rhode Island. Many of the first colonists in Newport quickly became Baptists, and in 1640 the second Baptist congregation in Rhode Island was formed under the leadership of John Clarke.

The early Jews

In 1658 a group of Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal were allowed to settle in Newport (Jews fleeing Brazil after defending Dutch interests there against the Portuguese were denied the right to stay in then-Dutch New York until governor finally relented in 1655; seeking asylum in Spain and Portugal was not an option). The Newport congregation, now referred to as Congregation Jeshuat Israel, is the second oldest Jewish congregation in the United States and meets in the oldest standing synagogue in the United States, Touro Synagogue.

Biography

 * Robert Durfee's journal and recollections of Newport, Rhode Island; Freetown, Massachusetts; New York City &amp; Long Island; Jamaica and Cuba. Robert Durfee was born about 1770 in Rhode Island. During his lifetime he spent time in Massachusetts, New York City area, and several islands in the West Indies before settling on Saint Simons Island, Georgia about 1805. This material includes his journal kept during this period with supplimentary information collected by Virginia Wood concerning the events, individuals, and thoughts discussed in Robert's journal.

Business and Commerce

 * Commerce of Rhode Island: 1726-1800 Half title: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, seventh series, v. 9-10. Includes index. Contents: v. 1. 1726-1775 -- v. 2. 1775-1800."The letters and papers printed in these volumes formed a part of the commercial correspondence of four generations of a Newport mercantile house. The earlier letters were of the Redwood family. The house of Ayrault of Newport entered about the middle of the eighteenth century as also that of Lopez. To the second half of the century, the firms of Lopez and Champlin contribute the larger part"--Prefatory note, v. 1.

Society of Friends
also known as Quakers.


 * A preliminary guide to the records of the meetings in New England Yearly Meeting of Friends with their subordinate meetings