Williams and Others Found Providence

Williams had been informed of this order. Ex-Governor Winthrop had kindly but secretly advised him to "steer his canoe to the Narraganset Bay and Indians;" and when Underhill and his men went to his house to arrest him, they found only his sorrowing wife and two babes. Williams had been gone three days. On a cold winter's night, the moon on the wane, he had kissed his wife and children and departed in the gloom to seek a refuge with the dusky pagans, who were more tolerant than his pale-faced Christian brethren. He went forth alone with a long staff and a scrip thrown over his shoulders. The snow was deep. Wild beasts were in his path. Behind him were the treasures of wife and children; before him, as radiant and enticing as the "star in the east," glowed the brilliant luminary of Christian ethics, which was his pole-star and guide. He made his way to the house of Massasoit, the venerable sachem of the Wampanoags, where he was warmly welcomed. The sachem gave him a tract of land on the Seekonk River, eastward of the site of Providence, at which place he and some friends who joined him seated themselves in the spring of 1636. Some distance above them, on the Seekonk or Pawtucket River, was a solitary settler named William Blackstone. He was a non-conformist minister, who disliked the "lords brethren" of Massachusetts as much as the "lords bishops" of England. He had withdrawn to the wilderness, and there lived the life of a hermit at a place which he named Rehoboth-room. He was the first settler but not the founder of Rhode Island, for he refused to join Williams and his friends.

Just as the new colony had begun to build and plant near the present Manton's cove, a friendly letter came from Governor Winslow saying they were within the jurisdiction of the Plymouth Colony, and as he did not wish to offend "the Bay," and desired the undisturbed repose of the exiles, he advised Williams and his little party to pass to the other side of the Seekonk, where he would have a large country before him beyond the jurisdiction of both colonies on the coast.

The settlers heeded this kind and wise advice. The six exiles left the Seekonk in a large canoe, with all the worldly goods which they had brought into the wilderness, and rounding the headlands known as Fox and India Points, they went up to the mouth of the Mooshansic River and landed. It was a warm day late in June. Near by, upon a grassy slope shaded by sycamore trees, they saw a gushing spring. It was a joyful sight to the thirsty pilgrims. Around it they gathered, and after partaking of its clear waters, they fell on their knees and offered fervid supplications and thanks-giving to God for his goodness. At that spring, now surrounded by a populous city and yet shaded by sycamores, these devout men resolved there to lay the foundations of a free state. In commemoration of "God's merciful providence to him in his distress," Williams named the spot Providence, and dedicated it as "a shelter for persons distressed for conscience."

The freedom enjoyed at Providence was spoken of at Boston, and persecuted men flocked to the new settlement with their families. Williams had purchased the land from the aged Canonicus and the younger Miantonomoh, who had learned to love him. These men, naturally shy and suspicious, had perfect confidence in Williams, and willingly took him and his friends into their bosoms. "It was not thousands nor tens of thousands of money," Williams wrote, "that could have bought of them an English entrance into the bay." It was the personal influence of the men who there established a pure democracy, under the following simple article of agreement:

"We, whose names are hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to submit ourselves, in active or passive obedience, to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good by the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of the inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together into a township, and such others as they shall admit into the same, only in civil things."

Every man was required to sign this compact, which left him free in all but "civil things." The conscience was left absolutely free. The founder reserved no political power to himself, and the leader and follower had equal dignity and privileges. Under the sunny skies of such freedom, the settlers fell to work cheerfully. The summer was too far advanced to allow them to procure much food from the soil; and when Governor Winslow visited Providence in the autumn, the planters were much pinched. This fact is made evident by the touching manner in which the founder gratefully alludes to the kindness of the governor. "He put a piece of gold into the hands of my wife for our supply," he wrote;-that sweet, loving wife who shared with her husband the privations as well as the comforts and honors which were his lot.