Looking over and beyond the Rome estate and the village of Wickford still farther to the north, may be seen the picturesque country bordering on Narragansett Bay, called by the Indians Quidneset. Still farther in the same direction lies Potowomut Neck, whereon since my memory the blacksmith's shop stood in good repair in which Rhode Island's hero--greatest among the great all save one of his countrymen--forged, with sturdy arms, anchors to hold storm-tossed ships to their moorings, until at liberty's and his country's call he forged his sledge hammer into a sword, and went forth to constitute himself one of the two bower anchors that held with a vice-like grip the ship of state to her moorings amidst the storms that assailed the tempest-riven bark through the dark days of the Revolution. A half-mile or less south of Snuff Mill Pond may yet be seen from the hill a gentle declivity on the eastern side of the lake, on which since my memory stood a homely cottage in which lived for many years Theophilus Whalley, the regicide, and whose location is mentioned in President Styles' history of the Judges of King Charles the First. I extract the following from "Potter's Early History of Narragansett," page 311: "Whale or Whalley.--The following account is abridged from Styles' history of the Judges of King Charles I. Theophilus Whale lived on the Willett farm. He came there from Virginia about 1679-80, built an underground hut at the north end of the pond, and lived by fishing and by writing for the settlers. From his name he was supposed to be the judge, and when questioned answered obscurely. Colonel Francis Willett said that the gentlemen who visited them from Boston in his father's time treated Whale with great respect and furnished him with money. In Queen Anne's war, a ship of war whose captain's name was Whale anchored near there, and they visited and recognized each other as cousins. Whale always used to say that he was of collegiate education, had been brought up delicately, and had been a captain in the Indian wars in Virginia. He knew Hebrew, Greek, &c. He subsisted part of the time by weaving. Whale died about 1719-20, aged 104 years." |
