On October 7, 1775, the town was bombarded by a British fleet. The squadron consisted of three ships of war, one bomb brig, one schooner and some smaller vessels, fifteen sail in all. They had sailed up from Newport under the command of Sir James Wallace. A boat’s crew was sent on shore to demand sheep from the town. As they were not forthcoming, the boat returned to the ship and shortly afterward the whole fleet began “a most heavy cannonading, heaving also shells and ‘carcasses’ into the town.” (Carcasses were vessels bound together with hoops and filled with combustibles.) Singularly enough, no one was killed, though many buildings were struck by balls. The next morning the sheep demanded were furnished and the fleet sailed away. An epidemic of dysentery was raging at the time, seventeen persons having died within a fortnight; and the fact that at least one hundred sick persons would have to be removed if the cannonading was resumed influenced the town committee to provide the supply demanded. One life, however, went out because of the bombardment. The Rev. John Burt, the aged pastor of the Congregational Church, had for a long time been sick and feeble. When the air was filled with missiles he fled from his house, no one seeing him, and wandered away, weak and bewildered. The next morning, as he did not appear in the meeting house at the hour of service, his congregation went out to seek him. They found at last him lying dead upon his face in a field of ripened corn.
About three years later, on Sunday, May 25, 1778, most of the houses in the center of the town were burned by the British. Five hundred British and Hessian soldiers landed on the “West Shore,” marched quickly through Warren to the Kickamuit River, and there burned seventy or more flat-boats that had been gathered together by the colonists for the purpose of making an expedition against the enemy. The raiders set fire to some buildings in Warren and then proceeded along the main road to Bristol, making prisoners of the men found in the farm houses standing near the highway. A force of perhaps three hundred militia had been hastily gathered at Bristol to oppose them. But, as is almost always the case, the number of the marauding troops was greatly exaggerated and the American commanding officer did not deem himself strong enough to oppose them. Withdrawing in the direction of Mount Hope he left the town to their mercy. The torch was first applied to Parson Burt’s house, which stood near the Congregational Meeting House.
Mr. Burt had died during the bombardment, as has been before related, but he had been fearless in his denunciation of royal tyranny during his life and his house was burned as a warning. Then the other buildings southward along the main street were set on fire, including the residence of Deputy Governor Bradford, this last being the finest house in town. One of the Governor’s negro servants had just begun his dinner when he saw the flames bursting forth. He was quite equal to the occasion. Running to the burying ground on the Common, not far away, he seated himself, frying pan in hand, upon a tombstone and calmly finished his meal. Thirty or more buildings were burned, among them being the edifice of the Church of England, Saint Michael’s Church. This last structure was destroyed through a mistake, the incendiaries supposing that they were burning the Dissenters’ Meeting House. The sexton of Saint Michael’s refused to believe that his church was burned. “It can’t be,” he said, “for I have the key in my pocket.” From this time until the close of the war the tread of marching feet was heard almost daily. The soldiers, however, were only militiamen summoned hastily together to defend their homes. They were poorly drilled and still more poorly armed, the kind of soldier that springs to arms at an instant’s call. The immediate danger having passed, they returned to their farms and their workshops.
Until October 25, 1779, when the British forces left Newport, the fortunes of those who dwelt upon the Mount Hope Lands were hazardous in the extreme. Lafayette had established his headquarters in the north part of the town but was soon forced to remove them to “a safer place behind Warren.” The peninsula was so easily accessible that raids upon its shores were frequent. One result of the marauding expeditions was the cutting down of the forests that had lined the shores of Narragansett Bay. This was especially notable in the case of the island of Prudence, just at the mouth of Bristol harbor. Today the island is almost treeless, no attempt at reforestation having been made. The people of Bristol were wise in their generation and now from the harbor the town seems to nestle in a forest.
The winter of 1779-80 was one of the most severe ever known in the Colonies. For six weeks the bay was frozen from shore and the ice extended far out to sea. Wood in most of the towns sold for $20 a cord. The prices of all kinds of provisions soared in like manner. Corn sold for four silver dollars a bushel and potatoes for two dollars. What their prices were in the depreciated Rhode Island paper currency we can only imagine. While the bay was still frozen some of the barracks on Poppasquash, that had been used by the French allies, were moved across the harbor on the ice. One of them is still used as a dwelling house. It stands on the west side of High Street just north of Bradford. From 1774 to 1782 the population of the town decreased 14.6 per cent. More noteworthy still, in that same period the percentage of decrease in the case of the blacks was more than thirty per cent.
In 1781 the town was first honored by the presence of George Washington. He passed through it on his way to Providence. It was a great day for the people of the place. They all turned out to greet the hero, standing in double lines as he rode through the streets. “Marm” Burt’s school children were especially in evidence. This lady was the widow of the Parson Burt who had died during the bombardment. She had sustained herself since her husband’s death by keeping a “dame’s school.” To impress the occasion upon the minds of her pupils she made them learn these lines:
“In seventeen hundred and eighty-one I saw General Washington.”
Imagine the General’s emotions as he heard them singing the verse, at the top of their voices of course, as he passed.
Washington afterward made several visits to the town. In 1793 he spent a week at the home of Governor Bradford, at “the Mount,” Bradford being then a member of the United States Senate. The Bradford house is still standing.
Rhode Island was the last of the “Old Thirteen” to adopt the Federal Constitution. Then as always she chafed at the domination of Massachusetts. Because Bristol had been a part of Massachusetts before it became a part of Rhode Island it was still greatly influenced by the ideas of the “Bay Colony.” When in 1788 the question of adopting the Constitution was submitted to the people of Rhode Island, Bristol and Little Compton (which had also been a part of Massachusetts) were the only towns in which a majority in favor of the adoption was obtained. A great celebration took place in 1790 when the State became a member of the United States of America.
At once the energy which had lain dormant during the Revolutionary War revived. Commerce again became active. Evidence of this was manifested by the building of new distilleries. One, erected by the leading firm of ship owners, was opened in 1792. They were preparing for a renewal of the trade with Africa. For thirty-five years thereafter two hundred gallons of rum were here each day distilled. At one time five distilleries were in active operation. The last of them closed its doors in 1830, the business having ceased to be profitable.
In the first quarter of the last century two great religious revivals transformed the town. They began in Saint Michael’s Church in the rectorship of Bishop Griswold. The town then numbered about two thousand inhabitants, almost all of whom were more or less connected with the sea. The first among the laymen to take part in the movement was a sea captain who had just returned from a voyage to the Island of Trinidad. Before he left Bristol, the unwonted fervor of Bishop Griswold’s sermons and discourses had turned his thoughts toward the attainment of the holier and higher life, whose glories the bishop was ever placing before his people. The awful solemnity of the ocean had completed the lesson. On Saturday night he returned from his voyage. The next day, when the bishop had finished his sermon, the emotions that stirred the soul of the sailor entirely overcame the modesty that usually kept him back from the public notice. Rising from his seat, he went forward to the old wine-glass pulpit in which the preacher was yet standing, and conversed with him earnestly for a few moments, while the congregation looked on with amazement at the unusual interruption. With that benignant smile which marked his gentle nature, Bishop Griswold assented to the request that was preferred; and placing his hand upon the shoulder of the eager enthusiast, he turned to the congregation and said: “My friends, Captain ---- wishes to tell you what the Lord has done for his soul.” Then the quiet sailor told the congregation the story of the change that had been wrought in him; told it without a thought of the unusual part he was assuming; told it in the simplest words, with no attempt at eloquence or effect, but with the wondrous power of God’s love so plainly before his eyes that the minds of all his hearers went with him upon the sea, and felt the struggle which had brought his soul out of darkness into light. Never, even, had the inspired words of their pastor stirred the people of St. Michael’s Church more strongly. When he ceased there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation. Only a few well chosen words did the bishop add to intensify the lesson, and then dismissed his people with the usual benediction.
From that day the revival became general. Through the town it spread, until the minds of all were turned to thoughts of the life that was to come. The sound of the workman’s hammer was unheard for a season, the horses stood idle in their stalls, the noise of merry laughter ceased as the crowds of serious worshippers poured onward to the churches. For days these remarkable scenes were to be witnessed; their effect could be observed for years.
The second revival came in 1820. Like the first it began in Saint Michael’s Church. It lasted for about three months. The first meeting was held in a private house. The Rev. Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, writing sixty years later, said: “It was with unbounded surprise that I went into the house at the hour appointed. It was crowded in every room, staircase and entry, as if some unusually crowded funeral were there. But for ministering to this people, hungry for the bread of life, I was there alone. They had placed a Bible and Prayer-book on the first landing of the stairs. The people were crowded above me and below me, as far as my eye could reach, in the most eager attention to the Word. It was the most solemn assembly I had ever seen, and its impression upon my mind and memory was overwhelming and abiding. But this was the commencement of months of work of a similar description, and from this day we had a similar meeting appointed for every evening. These were held in various rooms and houses throughout the town. The evening meetings were usually held in the Academy Hall. My whole time for about three months was given up to this one work. Three times every day I was engaged in addressing different assemblies in different parts of the town and of the surrounding country, and in conversing with awakened and anxious persons connected with these meetings. Such a scene in human society as Bristol then displayed, I had never imagined. The whole town was given up to this one work. The business of the world was for a time suspended. The stores were in many instances closed, as if the whole week were a Sabbath.”
