Online Review of Rhode Island History

On Sunday, June 7, at the Shaw’s supermarket parking lot on Taunton Avenue in East Providence, Professor Gordon Wood was struck by an automobile and seriously injured. He died at the hospital later that evening. This is a great loss not only to his family and friends, but also to those who appreciate early American history, particularly in light of the upcoming 250th annivers...

The amazing story of Benoni Simmons’s military service in the American Revolution spans some fourteen years, perhaps the longest term of service by anyone in that conflict. More so, his astounding dedication to the cause of independence despite his grievous wounds make him a true American hero.[1]

Benon...

Charles Henry Gosselin had not yet turned two years old when the probate court of Providence committed him to the county orphanage in 1924. He spent his infancy there in cottage B before being transferred to the State Home and School. At the age of eighteen, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and was assigned to Camp G in Moffat County, Colorado, where he worked as a c...

[Note from the editor:  Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826) prepared surveys of each of the states of the new United States in the 1780s. He prepared one for Rhode Island in 1789; it was printed in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.

I set forth most of Morse’s survey on Rhode Island. I omitted extended discussions of Rhode Island’s history of its settlement and of its...