Rhode Island's Civil War Hospital

Rhode Island's Civil War Hospital
Author: Frank L. Grzyb
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780786468614

During the Civil War, thousands of wounded Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners convalesced in a general army hospital in rural Portsmouth Grove, Rhode Island. Because of its location on the periphery of the action, the hospital has remained a footnote to the dramatic sweep of Civil War literature. However, its history and the experiences of the doctors, nurses, patients and guards that gave it life provide a new perspective on the interaction between the army and society in wartime and on life in Civil War America. This in-depth account also explores the barbarities of medicine, daily routine in a general army hospital, the role of citizens in providing aid, the later adventures of former patients and staff, and the final resting places of those who died on the grounds.

Rhode Island 39 Club

Rhode Island 39 Club
Author: Martin Podskoch
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-07-28
Genre:
ISBN: 9780997101959

After writing two best-selling travel books, Adirondack 102 Club and Connecticut 169 Club, CT author Martin Podskoch turned to his neighboring state and published RHODE ISLAND 39 CLUB Your Passport and Guide to Exploring Rhode Island. He again encourages readers to veer off the beaten path and discover Rhode Islands secret and lovely places that main roads do not reveal. With 39 invites to scenic vistas, picnic sites, fresh-water swimming holes, salt-water beaches, museums, amazing architecture, 400+ years of history, and local eateries of every description for fun in The Ocean States 39 towns and cities. The book is laid out in a crisp, inviting format. Locals in each town wrote a short history and interesting places to visit. Podskoch encourages readers to meet locals and businesses etc. and get their passport book signed or stamped. Visit all towns and earn Rhody Red patch award at annual dinner where all are invited to attend.

Killed Strangely

Killed Strangely
Author: Elaine Forman Crane
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2014-04-11
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0801471443

"It was Rebecca's son, Thomas, who first realized the victim's identity. His eyes were drawn to the victim's head, and aided by the flickering light of a candle, he 'clapt his hands and cryed out, Oh Lord, it is my mother.' James Moills, a servant of Cornell... described Rebecca 'lying on the floore, with fire about Her, from her Lower parts neare to the Armepits.' He recognized her only 'by her shoes.'"—from Killed Strangely On a winter's evening in 1673, tragedy descended on the respectable Rhode Island household of Thomas Cornell. His 73-year-old mother, Rebecca, was found close to her bedroom's large fireplace, dead and badly burned. The legal owner of the Cornells' hundred acres along Narragansett Bay, Rebecca shared her home with Thomas and his family, a servant, and a lodger. A coroner's panel initially declared her death "an Unhappie Accident," but before summer arrived, a dark web of events—rumors of domestic abuse, allusions to witchcraft, even the testimony of Rebecca's ghost through her brother—resulted in Thomas's trial for matricide. Such were the ambiguities of the case that others would be tried for the murder as well. Rebecca is a direct ancestor of Cornell University's founder, Ezra Cornell. Elaine Forman Crane tells the compelling story of Rebecca's death and its aftermath, vividly depicting the world in which she lived. That world included a legal system where jurors were expected to be familiar with the defendant and case before the trial even began. Rebecca's strange death was an event of cataclysmic proportions, affecting not only her own community, but neighboring towns as well. The documents from Thomas's trial provide a rare glimpse into seventeenth-century life. Crane writes, "Instead of the harmony and respect that sermon literature, laws, and a hierarchical/patriarchal society attempted to impose, evidence illustrates filial insolence, generational conflict, disrespect toward the elderly, power plays between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, [and] adult dependence on (and resentment of) aging parents who clung to purse strings." Yet even at a distance of more than three hundred years, Rebecca Cornell's story is poignantly familiar. Her complaints of domestic abuse, Crane says, went largely unheeded by friends and neighbors until, at last, their complacency was shattered by her terrible death.

The Banisters of Rhode Island in the American Revolution

The Banisters of Rhode Island in the American Revolution
Author: Marian Mathison Desrosiers
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2020-12-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476639655

When Thomas Banister fought for the British during the American Revolution, his farm and business were confiscated. He was exiled in far-off Nova Scotia, before he returned to a secluded life on Long Island. His older brother, John Banister married with a child, swore allegiance to the United Colonies, then witnessed the destruction of his Newport lands by the British Army. Convinced British laws supported remuneration, John left for England, where he sought justice for four years. His wife, Christian Stelle Banister, managed the family property and raised their son while the state threatened confiscation and the French Army lived in Newport. Tracing the lives of three young Americans during the Revolution, this study of the Banister family of Rhode Island contributes to an understanding of the war's effects on the lives of ordinary people.

Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island

Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island
Author: Christian M McBurney
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2014-04-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 162585255X

A history of espionage in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War. Espionage played a vital role during the American Revolution in Rhode Island. The British and Americans each employed spies to discover the secrets, plans and positions of their enemy. Continental navy lieutenant John Trevett dressed as an ordinary sailor, grew out his beard and went from tavern to tavern in Newport gathering intelligence. Metcalf Bowler became a traitor on the order of Benedict Arnold, as he spied for the British while serving as a Patriot leader in Providence. Disguised as a peddler, Ann Bates spied for the British during the Rhode Island Campaign. When caught, one spy paid with his life, while others suffered in jail. Author Christian M. McBurney, for the first time, unravels the world of spies and covert operations in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War. “McBurney tells a series of fascinating stories about the spies and their families, many of them prominent Newporters, in his book.” —The Newport Daily News “According to . . . McBurney, New York and Pennsylvania may have witnessed more spy activity in the Revolutionary War, but Rhode Island was not that far behind...”no theater of war produced such rich stories of spies and spying as Rhode Island.” That’s a pretty big brag for a state as small as ours, but McBurney does make his case very well. The fact that Newport was a major North American port at the time had a lot to do with that, but there are a few towns around the edges that turned up some surprising tales of intrigue and treason.” —Cranston Herald

Homicide at Rough Point

Homicide at Rough Point
Author: Peter Lance
Publisher: Tenacity Media Books
Total Pages: 78
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre:
ISBN: 9780996285599

Cielo Drive cuts like a beautiful scar along the bottom of a V-shaped canyon in the hills of Bel Air, off of Benedict. In February, 1969, as she looked out on it from the red farmhouse at 10050 Cielo she and her husband Roman Polanski had just rented, Sharon had no way of knowing that she only had 6 months to live. On the night of August 9th, members of "The Manson Family" would invade that house and murder Sharon and three of her closest friends. But strangely, half a year earlier, she'd had a brush with a different killer. It happened after her younger sister Patti, then 11, looked across at the ominous Spanish-Moorish estate Sharon called "The Haunted House." In "Restless Souls," their remarkable memoir, Alisa Statmen and Brie Tate write that Patti then hiked down and across Cielo, walking up to No. 1436 Bella Drive. There, she encountered an open gate where white pillars bore the name: Falcon Lair. Once the home of Rudolf Valentino, it had been purchased in 1953 by the fabulously wealthy heiress Doris Duke. The wrought iron gates were open when Patti wandered inside. Suddenly, she heard, the caretaker yell, "This is private property!" Startled, she turned and lost her balance, skinning her knee, when just then, a black limo pulled in. A tinted window went down and a tall woman in back lowered her sunglasses to ask who she was. Once she ID'd herself as Patti, whose sister Sharon lived "across in the red barn," Doris knew that this wasn't just any child. She was the sibling of the hottest young star in town. So Doris snapped to the caretaker, "Stop being such an ogre and bring Patti in, so we can clean those scraps. And get me the Polanski's phone number." Later, the Duke staff was bandaging Patti's knee when Sharon arrived, "nervously chewing her lower lip" and apologizing to the blond billionaire who was the 3rd richest woman in the world behind Queen Elizabeth & Queen Juliana. But by then, Sharon Tate was Hollywood royalty herself; her husband Roman, coming off "Rosemary's Baby," was a kind of cinematic prince. So why was she nervous? What would make her bite her lip in the face of a woman whose caretaker's aggressive warning had caused her little sister to draw blood? Since Sharon was killed that summer, we'll never know. But one thing is clear: this wasn't the first time Sharon Tate had been pulled into Doris Duke's orbit. 2 1/2 years earlier, one of Sharon's closest friends, Eduardo Tirella, had been violently killed after Doris crushed him under a two-ton station wagon. At the time, all of Eduardo's friends suspected he'd been murdered. The brutal stabbing of Sharon Tate is the tragic tale of a young woman of great promise cut down in the prime of life. But the same could be said for Eduardo, whose own Hollywood career was just catching fire, when he told the possessive, heiress he was leaving her, just minutes before she ran him down outside the gates of her Newport, RI estate. Because she had the money and power, Doris Duke succeeded in effectively erasing his death from the narrative of her troubled life. For more than 50 years, the real truth behind what happened at Rough Point in 1966 has been hidden. Until now!