In addition to chronicling Newport’s transformation into a premier resort destination, the museum tells the story of how the small town settled in 1639 by religious refugees fleeing the rigid Puritanism of Massachusetts quickly grew into a Colonial power. Among the artifacts on display are examples of fine Newport cabinetry and furniture along with the printing press used by James Franklin and his younger brother, Benjamin, to publish Colonial currency, pamphlets, broadsides, and laws.
The museum is the starting point for walking tours offered by the Newport Historical Society and the Newport Restoration Foundation, including the Discover Colonial Newport Walking Tour that winds through the hill overlooking the waterfront. On a stroll through the neighborhood’s narrow lanes, we stop outside 18th-century residences and houses of worship and learn that the harbor offered not only a refuge from nature’s fury but a haven from religious persecution for Quakers, Jews, and other groups ostracized in Puritan New England.
“In the early days, people came here for liberty of conscience,’’ our guide Martha tells us. “The principle of religious tolerance started here and provided a foundation for entrepreneurial trade throughout the world when Newport was part of a global economy that created great wealth in the city.’’ The British occupation of Newport during the Revolution decimated the city, turning it into a ghost town as wealthy merchants fled along with half of the city’s population.
Samuel Whitehorne Jr., one of the few Newport merchants to endure the economic ruin in the war’s aftermath, built a waterfront brick mansion in 1811. By the time Doris Duke’s Newport Restoration Foundation — which has preserved more than 80 Colonial-era buildings in the city — bought the Whitehorne House in 1969, it had fallen into disrepair.
