Providence Perdition: Book Three of the New England Series

By Gloria H. Giroux

1977. Disco was blasting across the airwaves and the Bee Gees and Donna Summer reigned supreme. Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency after the debacle of the Nixon administration. Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind hit movie screens and birthed a new exploration of cinematic science fiction while Saturday Night Fever became the biggest dancing movie of all time. Elvis Presley, the King of Rock & Roll, died at age 42. Egypt and Israel made significant progress in peace talks. Serial killer David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, was captured in New York while another infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy, was still cutting a swath of murders across the country. People were still adjusting to the end of the Vietnam war and looking forward to a new prosperity and social stability.
In Providence, Rhode Island, private investigator and Scottish expatriate Nick MacKenzie is inexplicably drawn into a crime mystery when two skeletons fall out of a demolished old house and an investigation opens that reaches back to the era of the Great Depression and Prohibition. As Nick digs deeper into the crime, he uncovers evidence that that takes on a personal meaning. Along the way he acquires new and very unexpected friends as well as an enemy that will do anything to keep the past hidden, even kill. Through strange circumstances Nick also acquires a young foster son with a hidden past.
As the mysteries and discoveries progress Nick and his circle become not only fast friends but an odd sort of family that redefines the very concept. He is joined by a gung-ho cop whose professional aspirations take a shocking turn; an elderly man who knows more than he’s saying about the lynchpin year of 1933; an old woman who is far more than she presents to the world; a scion of a mob family that seeks to forge a decent future; and a young lawyer whose personal demons lead him to an unexpected life path.
As the end games of the mysteries count down to their climaxes, the only question is – who will survive, and at what cost?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9781663253750

Gloria H. Giroux

Gloria H. Giroux was born in North Adams, MA. Raised in Hartford, CT, she graduated from Bulkeley High School, the University of Connecticut and the Computer Processing Institute subsequently embarking on a double career of IT and writing. The author of nineteen fiction novels, Keene Retribution is homage to a special place in her life in New England. She currently lives in Arizona where she is working on her next book.

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Copyright © 2023 Gloria H. Giroux.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-5374-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5376-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-5375-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023910968

iUniverse rev. date: 06/13/2023

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

By the author

Fireheart, Volume One of the Chay Trilogy

Whitefire, Volume Two of the Chay Trilogy

Firesoul, Volume Three of the Chay Trilogy

Bloodfire, Prequel to the Chay Trilogy

BY%20THE%20AU%20IMG.JPG

Copper Snake, Volume One of the San Francisco Trilogy

Voices of Angels, Volume Two of the San Francisco Trilogy

Out of the Ash, Volume Three of the San Francisco Trilogy

Bloodline in Chiaroscuro, Prequel to the San Francisco Trilogy

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Saguaro, Volume One of the Arizona Trilogy

Crucifixion Thorn, Volume Two of the Arizona Trilogy

Devil Cholla, Volume Three of the Arizona Trilogy

Ironwood, Sequel to the Arizona Trilogy

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Santa Fe Blood, Volume One of the New Mexico Trilogy

Santa Fe Bones, Volume Two of the New Mexico Trilogy

Santa Fe Heat, Volume Three of the New Mexico Trilogy

Santa Fe Secrets, Sequel to the New Mexico Trilogy

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Hartford Wicked, Book One of the New England Series

Salem Sinners, Book Two of the New England Series

Providence Perdition, Book Three of the New England Series

New%20England%20Series.jpg6.jpg7.jpg9.jpg10.jpg11.jpg12.jpg13.jpg14.jpg15.jpg16.jpg17.jpg

This book is

dedicated to my parents, George and Helen.

Daddy – I wish I knew you better. So much I’d want to ask you.

Mom – Mom, Dad, Best Friend, Brother, Sister, Cheerleader, Chief Cook, Taskmaster, Light in the Darkness, Occasional Annoyance, and pretty much the architect of my life. Thank you for being the oak tree to my acorn and showing me how to make my dreams come true. I hope I’ve made you proud.

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"The New England spirit does not seek solutions in a

crowd; raw light and solitariness are less dreaded than

welcomed as enhancers of our essential selves."

—John Updike

New England is comprised of six states in the farthest northeastern region of the United States: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. In terms of size, they range in the lower 25% of percentages, and include the smallest state in the Union:

In terms of proportional size, four New Englands could fit into the state of Texas. The region borders the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island Sound, Canada, and New York.

The earliest inhabitants of New England were not the European colonists but the Native Americans that lived there for many hundreds of years. The region was populated with many diverse tribes including the Abenakis, Mi’kmag, Penobscot, Pequots, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Pocumtucks, Androscoggin, and Wampanoag.

Population-wise, New England began burgeoning in the 17th century. The regional economy grew rapidly in the 17th century, thanks to heavy immigration, high birth rates, low death rates, and an abundance of inexpensive farmland. The population grew from 3,000 in 1630 to 14,000 in 1640; 33,000 in 1660; 68,000 in 1680; and 91,000 in 1700. Between 1630 and 1643, about 20,000 Puritans arrived, settling mostly near Boston; after 1643, fewer than 50 immigrants arrived per year. The average size of a family between 1660-1700 was 7.1 children; the birth rate was 49 babies per year per thousand people; and the death rate was about 22 deaths per year per thousand people. About 27% of the population was composed of men between 16 and 60 years old. Currently, New England boasts a population of over fifteen million.

The etymology of each state’s name found its source either in names associated with the first colonists or the Native American tribes already occupying the land that someday soon would no longer be theirs. This stands true of many towns, which share their etymology with names derived mainly from Great Britain.

The history of New England revolves around the first colonists coming to the new world and settling in what became the Massachusetts coast and spreading out north, west, and south. In 1620 the Pilgrims set anchor at Plymouth, formerly found and named by Captain John Smith. The group of Puritan Separatists was initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. The colony spread out into a wide range of related towns:

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The Revolutionary War began in the thirteen original colonies and resulted in the creation of an independent country replete with opportunities to actualize manifest destiny. White settlers clashed with tribes in what was called the Indian Wars to solidify their hold on land that never should have belonged to them. Colonists were far from righteous; they held slaves and indentured servants and discriminated against their own race— No Irish Need Apply was a familiar sign in towns. White settlers were separated by class and ethnicity.

By the end of the eighteenth century the boundaries of New England were well-defined.

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1795, John Russell & H.D. Symonds

New England is famous for its rocky coastline; its splendid autumn colors; its crystal-clear lakes, rivers, and streams; its dense forests; its stunning mountain ranges; its magnificent Victorian, Georgian, and Cape Cod houses; its population centers ranging from the large and cosmopolitan (Boston, MA) to its quaint little towns (Troy, NH) to its towns soaked in history and spiritualism (Salem, MA) to its seaside villages (Madison, CT) to its exclusive enclaves reeking of wealth and old money (Newport, RI). People enjoy pumpkins and Halloween and leaf-peeping and skiing and hiking and driving on backroads that seem stuck in time. New England people are often referred to as Yankees and rather than an insult that term is a source of pride. The most plausible theory of that term’s origin comes from the Dutch, where "Jan Kees" was a term used in a derogatory manner by southern Dutch towards northern Dutch, and then adopted as an insult by British colonists.

New England has produced a swarm of famous people who have made their marks in academia, politics, the military, the legal arena, medicine, entertainment, literature, and film.

Connecticut: Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, P.T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathan Hale, Samuel Colt, Dorothy Hamill, Adam Clayton Powell, Ella Grasso, Charles Ives, Totie Fields, Meg Ryan, Treat Williams, Noah Webster, Brian Dennehy, Paul Giamatti, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Bolton, Glenn Close, and the inimitable Katharine Hepburn.

Massachusetts: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Louisa May Alcott, Elmer Bernstein, Alexander Graham Bell, George H. W. Bush, Bette Davis, James Spader, Kurt Russell, Matt Damon, Emily Dickinson, Dr. Seuss, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Edgar Allen Poe, Paul Revere, Winslow Homer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Henry David Thoreau.

Rhode Island: Harry Anderson, Ruth Buzzi, Viola Davis, Nelson Eddy, David Hedison, Van Johnson, Ted Knight, George M. Cohan, Julia Ward Howe, H.P. Lovecraft, Mr. Potato Head, Horace Mann, Gilbert Stuart, Henry Giroux, and Roger Williams.

Maine: Dorothea Dix, Dustin Farnum, Hannibal Hamlin, Stephen King, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Margaret Chase Smith, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Patrick Dempsey, Judd Nelson, Linda Lavin, and John Knowles Paine.

New Hampshire: Robert Frost, John Irving, Christa McAuliffe, Franklin Pierce, Alan B. Shepard, Earl Silas Tupper, Samuel Bode Miller, Mandy Moore, Adam Sandler, Seth Meyers, Steven Tyler, and Eleanor Porter.

Vermont: Chester A. Arthur, Orson Bean, William H. Macy, Calvin Coolidge, John Deere, John Dewey, Brigham Young, Rudy Vallee, Elisha Graves Otis, Henry Wells, and Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield (Ben & Jerry).

New England has also had its share of notoriety in both solved and unsolved murder and disappearance cases.

• Lizzie Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts

• The murders on Smuttynose Island off the coast of New Hampshire

• The massacre of colonists in Prouts Neck, Maine

• The woodchipper murder in Connecticut

• A swath of unsolved murders in Vermont such as Lynne Shulze, Annette Maxfield, Leslie Spellman, and the I-91 serial murders of six women

• In Rhode Island, the unsolved murders of Benjamin Bailey, Wendy Lee Madden, and Kathy Perry

New England has a wealth of history and mystery, of the old and new, of wealth and poverty, of a population of every race, ethnicity, and religion. It experiences all four seasons, from brutal winters to mild springs, humid summers, and refreshing autumns. Each state has its own accent, with most Massachusetts people dropping their R’s. As Chief Brody once said, They’re in the yahd not too fah from the cah. There are many instances of slang that relates only to New England. For example, it’s a GRINDER, not a hoagy or a sub! People in New England bang a uey (instead of making a U-Turn), applaud people who are wicked smart, and remote controls are clickers. People from more than one state often tack an R onto the ends of words; for example, they don’t have ideas, they have idears. And when they need to acquire alcohol they make a packie run.

One can start out driving in the early morning in Hartford and return there after driving through all six states. One can be at a Rhode Island beach in the morning and near the top of Mount Washington later in the day. One can find unique little antique stores where some merchandise could easily be a hundred years old.

Hollywood has used the region for a plethora of films, documentaries, and TV shows including Christmas in Connecticut, The House of the Seven Gables, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Thomas Crown Affair, Love Story, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Other, The Paper Chase, The Dead Zone, Baby Boom, Judging Amy, Pet Sematary, Boston Legal, Newhart, Murder She Wrote, Breaking Bad, and, of course, the inimitable daytime soap opera Dark Shadows with its loyal fans devoted to the one and only New England vampire, Barnabas Collins.

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New England is a place of creation and dreams, of sturdiness and flexibility, of tradition and acceptance of innovative ideas.

It is a place to proudly call home.

And proudly call oneself a Yankee.

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Rhode Island does not compute. Look at the way it cringes there, occupying a sliver of land so inconsequential that the names of its cities and towns have to be entered vertically on the map. It is foolish for something so microscopic to go around posing as a state. Anyone who has ever been there knows what I mean. You drive into Rhode Island, nod off for 10 or 20 minutes or embark on an interesting conversation and — zap — you’re in Massachusetts. You’re out of the place before you can settle into it. Flying over Little Rhody is absurdity itself; you can traverse it in the middle of a sentence.

—Donald Dale Jackson, Good-bye Rhode Island

Little Rhody.

    The Ocean State.

        The Plantation State.

Most states in the country have more than one nickname and Rhode Island is no exception. The thirteenth state to be admitted to the union on May 29, 1790, it holds the distinction of being the smallest of the country’s fifty states. Those less knowledgeable about the country’s states might think that Hawaii would be the smallest, but it’s official square miles exceed Rhode Island’s by 9,000 and ranks 43rd in size.

In 1636, Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, and he settled at the top of Narragansett Bay on land sold or given to him by Narragansett sachem Canonicus. He named the site Providence, having a sense of God’s merciful providence unto me in my distress, and it became a place of religious freedom where all were welcome. Providence was the first English settlement in the colony and remains today as the state’s capital city.

The etymology of the state’s name has changed since its inception. Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano noted the presence of an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay in 1524 which he likened to the island of Rhodes off the coast of Greece. Subsequent European explorers were unable to precisely identify the island Verrazzano described, but the colonists who settled the area assumed it was this island. Dutch privateer Adriaen Block passed by the island during his expeditions in the 1610s, and he described it in a 1625 account of his travels as an island of reddish appearance, which was "een rodlich Eylande" in 17th-century Dutch, meaning a red or reddish island, supposedly evolving into the designation Rhode Island. Historians have theorized this reddish appearance resulted from either red autumn foliage or red clay on portions of the shore.

After the American Revolution the colony became a state named State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Quite a mouthful, it became simply known as Rhode Island. In June 2020, State Senator Harold Metts introduced a resolution for another ballot referendum on the subject, saying, Whatever the meaning of the term ‘plantations’ in the context of Rhode Island’s history, it carries a horrific connotation when considering the tragic and racist history of our nation. Governor Gina Raimondo issued an executive order to remove the phrase from a range of official documents and state websites. In July, amidst the George Floyd protests and nationwide calls to address systemic racism, the resolution referring the question to the voters was passed by both houses of the Rhode Island General Assembly: 69–1 in the House of Representatives, and 35–0 in the Senate. The change was then approved by voters 52.8% to 47.2% as part of the 2020 United States elections, taking effect in November 2020 upon certification of the results.

The residents of Rhode Island are called Rhode Islanders or Rhodians.

The state’s motto is a simple one: Hope. The biblical phrase (Hebrews 6:19), We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, firm and secure, is considered the main inspiration and background for the motto.

Rhode Island borders Connecticut to the west, Massachusetts to the north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound; it also shares a small maritime border with New York. The state includes twenty-four islands within its established borders, the most well-known of which is Block Island; that island is nine miles south of the mainland. Twenty-two of the islands are located within Narragansett Bay. The state has a tidal shoreline on Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean of 384 miles.

The state has a number of oceanfront beaches. It is mostly flat with no real mountains, and the state’s highest natural point is Jerimoth Hill, 812 feet above sea level. The state has two distinct natural regions. Eastern Rhode Island contains the lowlands of the Narragansett Bay, while Western Rhode Island forms part of the New England upland. Rhode Island’s forests are part of the Northeastern coastal forests ecoregion.

Of the thirty-nine cities and towns in Rhode island the ten largest are Providence, Cranston, Warwick, Pawtucket, East Providence, Woonsocket, Cumberland, Coventry, North Providence, and South Kingston. Wickford is the smallest village in the state at a mere 380 acres.

Brown University in Providence is a world-famous institution of higher learning and is the founding member of the Ivy League. There are fifty-five colleges or universities in the state including Bryant University and the University of Rhode Island, which has the distinction of being close to the ocean.

Despite its size Rhode Island is still rife with recreational opportunities. Sharing a coastline with the ocean and the bay there are enviable chances for swimming, fishing, and boating. The forested areas support camping and picnicking. The state also offers non-aquatic tourism sites:

58309.jpg The Breakers, Newport

58309.jpg Cliff Walk, Newport

58309.jpg Roger Williams Park Zoo, Providence

58309.jpg WaterFire, Providence

58309.jpg The Elms, Newport

58309.jpg RISD Museum of Art, Providence

58309.jpg Marble House, Newport

58309.jpg Rosecliff, Newport

58309.jpg Ocean Drive, Newport

58309.jpg Narragansett Bay Beaches

58309.jpg Colt State Park, Bristol

58309.jpg Providence Performing Arts Center

58309.jpg Herreshoff Marine Museum, Bristol

Rhode Island has two professional sports teams, both of which are top-level minor league affiliates for teams in Boston. The Pawtucket Red Sox baseball team of the Triple-A International League is an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. They play at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket and have won four league titles, the Governors’ Cup, in 1973, 1984, 2012, and 2014. McCoy Stadium also has the distinction of being home to the longest professional baseball game ever played: The Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings, two teams from the Triple-A International League, played the longest game in professional baseball history. From April 18th to the 19th of 1981 it lasted 33 innings, with 8 hours and 25 minutes of playing time. 1,740 people were in stands at the beginning, 20 at the end (and the players were delirious from exhaustion). The game set thirteen professional records.

The other professional minor league team is the Providence Bruins ice hockey team of the American Hockey League, which is an affiliate of the Boston Bruins. They play in the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence and won the AHL’s Calder Cup during the 1998–99 AHL season.

Some Rhode Islanders speak with the distinctive, non-rhotic, traditional Rhode Island accent linguists describe as a cross between New York City and Boston accents (e.g., water sounds like watuh). Many Rhode Islanders distinguish a strong aw sound much like one might hear in New Jersey or New York City. Rhode Islanders sometimes refer to drinking fountains as bubblers, milkshakes as cabinets, and overstuffed foot-long sandwiches as grinders.

The Rhode Island economy had a colonial base in fishing. The Blackstone River Valley was a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. It was in Pawtucket that Samuel Slater set up Slater Mill in 1793, using the waterpower of the Blackstone River to power his cotton mill. For a while, Rhode Island was one of the leaders in textiles. However, with the Great Depression, most textile factories relocated to southern U.S. states. The textile industry still constitutes a part of the Rhode Island economy but does not have the same power. The Slater Mill is considered the start of America’s industrial revolution.

Other important industries in Rhode Island’s past included toolmaking, costume jewelry, and silverware. An interesting by-product of Rhode Island’s industrial history is the number of abandoned factories, many of which are now condominiums, museums, offices, and low-income and elderly housing. Today, much of Rhode Island’s economy is based on services, particularly healthcare and education, and still manufacturing to some extent.

Rhode Island, like all New England states, did not a get a free pass in infamy.

Well-known murderers in the state include Michael Woodmansee, James Soares, Craig Chandler Price, John Gordon, and Esteban Carpio.

On February 1, 1947, four days before the full moon, seventeen-year-old mill worker Rita Bouchard was found dead along Ten Mile River. She was soaked in blood having had her throat slashed from ear to ear, a wound accompanied by thirty stab wounds in her back, breasts, and neck. The medical examiner that performed the autopsy called it a fiendish murder. The investigation was thorough for the times, and the murder weapon was found, but in the end no one was ever arrested or convicted.

Rhode Island detectives searched for three missing women and soon uncovered a serial killer who admitted to having an uncontrollable urge for murder. The cozy, small-town vibe of Woonsocket was turned upside down in the early months of 2003 by a series of crimes targeting women. A suspect named Jeffrey Mailhot was arrested and confessed to killing and dismembering multiple women. Not all of the victims were found. He is serving life.

Perhaps the most notorious of crimes associated with the Ocean State was the case of Sunny and Claus von Bülow. Claus von Bülow was a Danish-born British lawyer, consultant and socialite. In 1982, he was convicted of both the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow (born Martha Sharp Crawford; 1932–2008) in 1979, which had left her in a temporary coma, as well as an alleged insulin overdose in 1980 that left her in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of her life. On appeal, both convictions were reversed, and von Bülow was found not guilty at his second trial. It was one of the first cases covered by CNN. In the second trial von Bülow was defended by Alan Dershowitz, who was also part of the so-called Dream Team that helped O.J. Simpson get off. Sunny finally passed away in 2008; von Bülow in 2019.

Dershowitz made even more money by writing a book about the case, Reversal of Fortune. Jeremy Irons won the Academy Award for portraying von Bülow.

And, of course, what eastern state would be complete without a Mafia connection? The Patriarca crime family has factions in both Providence and Boston.

Let’s not forget the robust and lucrative bootlegging trade during the 1920-1933 Prohibition era. With its lengthy coastline and proximity to multiple large cities craving alcohol, Rhode Island helped provide luscious alcohol enjoyment to private individuals, businesses, and the infamous speakeasies.

Rhode Island is or has been home to a number of famous (or infamous) persons including Viola Davis, H.P. Lovecraft, Meredith Vieira, Will Blackmon, George M. Cohen, James Woods, Debra Messing, Wendy Carlos, Harry Anderson, Ruth Hussey, Cormac McCarthy, and Van Johnson.

The only real battle fought in Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War took place in Portsmouth 245 years ago. Also known as the Battle of Quaker Hill, the Battle of Rhode Island took place on only one day, August 29, 1778. The battle was the first attempt at cooperation between French and American forces following France’s entry into the war as an American ally. Operations against Newport were planned in conjunction with a French fleet and troops, but they were frustrated in part by difficult relations between the commanders, as well as by a storm that damaged both French and British fleets shortly before joint operations were to begin.

The battle was also notable for the participation of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment under the command of Colonel Christopher Greene, which consisted of Africans, American Indians, and white colonists. Major Samuel Ward, Jr, was another notable participant. The regiment was organized on May 8, 1775 under Colonel James Mitchell Varnum, and was therefore often known as Varnum’s Regiment. It originally consisted of eight companies of volunteers from Kent and Kings Counties.

Hollywood has used the state for a number of films, documentaries, and TV shows including the aforementioned Reversal of Fortune, Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary, American Buffalo, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Kiss the Bride, Quahoggers, Getting Out of Rhode Island, 41, Hall Pass, Pawtucket Rising, Federal Hill, Conviction, Outside Providence, The Mulberry Tree, Brotherhood, Providence, Eastwick, Another Period, Canterbury’s Law, and Doctor Doctor.

Rhode Island is a tiny state in a small part of the country, but it’s contributions are integral to the success and pleasure of New England, and its heart is as big as Texas. It has food ranging from Italian to French to Asian along with some of the very best seafood on the east coast. The state has four seasons and its foliage rivals anything in the other five New England states. There are miles and miles of beautiful public beaches, and the educational system has great public schools as well as colleges and specialized institutions such as the Johnson & Wales culinary arts school.

It has some of the oldest buildings and streets in the country. Newport is home to the country’s oldest synagogue and Providence has the nation’s first Baptist Church. It has the oldest library, the first state-run airport, the first automated post office, and the oldest carousel. Rhode Island is historically known for its acceptance of all religions, races, and orientations.

In short, Rhode Island is a very special place to call home, even if it is rather itty-bitty…

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"I am Providence, & Providence is myself—together,

indissolubly as one, we stand thro’ the ages; a fixt monument

set eternally in the shadow of Durfee’s ice-clad peak!"

—H.P. Lovecraft

In theology, Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is God’s intervention in the Universe. The term Divine Providence (usually capitalized) is also used as a title of God. A distinction is usually made between general providence, which refers to God’s continuous upholding of the existence and natural order of the Universe, and special providence, which refers to God’s extraordinary intervention in the life of people. Miracles generally fall in the latter category.

Divine evolved in the late 14th century to mean pertaining to, in the nature of or proceeding from God or a god. This came from the Old French devin, with a similar meaning, and that from the Latin divinus, meaning of a god, in turn from divus, with similar meaning, which was related the Latin deus, meaning god or deity. The word providence comes from Latin providentia meaning foresight or prudence, and that in turn from pro-, ahead and videre, to see. The current use of the word in the secular sense refers to foresight, or timely preparation for eventualities, or (if one is a deist or an atheist) nature as providing protective care.

Roger Williams was born in or near London between 1602 and 1606, with many historians citing 1603 as the probable year of his birth. The exact details of Williams’ birth are unknown as his birth records were destroyed when St. Sepulchre’s Church burned during the Great Fire of London in 1666. His father was James Williams (1562–1620), a merchant tailor in Smithfield, and his mother was Alice Pemberton (1564–1635). At an early age, Williams had a spiritual conversion, of which his father disapproved. As an adolescent, he apprenticed under Sir Edward Coke, (1552–1634) the famous jurist, and was educated at Charterhouse School under Coke’s patronage. Williams later attended Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1627.

Williams took holy orders in the Church of England in connection with his studies, but he became a Puritan at Cambridge and thus ruined his chance for preferment in the Anglican church. After graduating from Cambridge, he became the chaplain to Sir William Masham. Williams knew that Puritan leaders planned to migrate to the New World. He did not join the first wave of settlers, but later decided that he could not remain in England under the administration of Archbishop William Laud. Williams regarded the Church of England as corrupt and false, and he had arrived at the Separatist position by 1630; on December 1st Williams and his wife boarded the Boston-bound Lyon in Bristol.

Espousing his often controversial views he bounced from Plymouth to Salem and before long he was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his incendiary views on the crown and the Massachusetts Bay charter. He wound up in Narragansett Bay and planned to settle in Rumford, Rhode Island where he had purchased land from the Massasoit. Harassed by his former enemies in the colony he moved across the Seekonk River and moved up another river to where they found a cove and freshwater spring. There, in 1636, Williams founded Providence.

He named the area in honor of God’s merciful Providence which he believed was responsible for revealing such a haven for him and his followers. The city is situated at the mouth of the Providence River at the head of Narragansett Bay.

Williams was quite a modern thinker and came to build and respect relationships with various Native American tribes, which benefitted his new colony and others in neighboring areas. In fact, when he returned to England he wrote and published a book on indigenous languages that went a great way in showing people that the earliest inhabitants of the new world were anything but savages. He was also a steadfast proponent of a rather radical concept that there must be a separation between church and state.

Easily accessible by water, Providence became a major New World seaport although in its infancy it was secondary to Newport. During the Revolutionary War, Providence’s craftspeople and merchants supplied goods to the Continental and French armies. Ever the entrepreneurs, Providence businesses were financing expeditions to the Mediterranean, Middle East and Far East by 1781. With trade booming, the city grew and flourished. Traditional wooden homes began yielding to ornate brick mansions, and citizens constructed elaborate testaments to business, government and learning. Many of these, like the Rhode Island State House and the Providence Public Library, can be toured today.

As in most embryonic towns Providence at first depended on trading and farming, but by the turn of the century had made its mark as a primary seaport economy not only with England but with European countries and those from Asia. A large part of the seagoing economy revolved around the African slave trade since the enslavement of Native Americans didn’t satisfy the growing colonial needs.

Slavery was part of New England history from the outset of English settlement. Colonists sought to relieve an acute labor shortage in the early decades by enslaving Native Americans—Pequot, Narragansett, and Wampanoag captives sold into slavery after the Pequot War in 1637 and King Philip’s War in 1676. The women and children were sold to labor in English households in Rhode Island and elsewhere in New England, while most of the adult men—deemed too dangerous to remain in the New England colonies—were shipped to the British West Indies to labor in the sugar cane fields, where the average life expectancy of an enslaved person was five to seven years.

The first slaving voyage to bring captive Africans to Rhode Island took place in 1696, when a Boston ship, the Seaflower, brought forty-seven captives from the coast of Africa and sold fourteen of them in Newport. The first recorded slaving voyage to depart from Rhode Island took place in 1700, when three sailing vessels from Newport went to Africa and brought captives from there to Barbados.

Rhode Islanders played a central role in the American slave trade during the 1700s. A total of about one thousand slave-trading voyages, or one-half of all American slaving voyages, sailed from Rhode Island to the coast of Africa, in what has been called the triangular trade. Rum was exchanged for captives in Africa, captives were traded for slave-grown sugar and molasses in the West Indies, and the molasses was processed in New England to make rum. Newport was the primary slaving port until the Revolution, after which Bristol assumed preeminence.

Despite its so-called religious name the city had its dark side in addition to the slave trade. During Prohibition, for example, the city was a goldmine for bootlegging. From its inception to today Providence has had its share of bad guys.

As in many small or large towns during earlier centuries there were the common crimes of thievery, prostitution, and murder. These crimes ebbed and flowed with not only economic downturns and upturns but also as a result of the country breaking free of England and journeying on to natural growth and expansion of industries. Also, ethnic tensions rose and produced what such hatred could inflict on people; in this case, the major tension was between the established Irish and the newly arriving Italians.

In 1888 an 82-year-old merchant named Waterman was murdered by Dennis Spiker Murphy and Pete Hackett in his little shop on High Street.

With tensions brewing in Europe near the start of World War I prices were going up, especially grocery prices. In 1914 the city of Providence was convulsed with riots. Starting in late August and lasting into September the streets of the city’s Federal Hill section (the hub of mob activity) came alive with violence and social unrest. Ostensibly caused by an increase in the price of macaroni, this predominately Italian immigrant neighborhood was the flash point where Marxists, anarchists and others fanned the frustration that lay beneath the community’s calm veneer. The unrest became known as the Macaroni Riots.

On September 24, 1932 African-American numbers boss Arthur (Big Daddy) Black was shot to death inside his office on Cranston Street. The WWI hero was the richest man of color in the state of Rhode Island and slain in a feud with Italian mafia leaders over sharing proceeds of his policy lottery.

In the 1960s mobster Raymond Patriarca initiated a number of murders of enemies and people he thought would turn on him: Raymond (Baby Ray) Curccio, Willie Marfeo, Bobby Candos, and Rudy Marfeo just to name a few.

More recently is the crime spree of Raymond J. Lassor. In the span of two months in 1984 this serial killer murdered three women and came close to claiming a fourth. In the summer of 1984, three women were killed in a remarkably similar fashion in Providence’s downtown area: all were found within a five-block radius, near a bus depot, were strangled to death and left only partially clothed. The first murder occurred on June 26th with the victim being 22-year-old prostitute Lori Carlucci, whose body was found in a vacant parking lot. Weeks later, on August 17th the body of 18-year-old aspiring model-gospel singer Wanda Sue Adams, of Columbia, South Carolina, was found floating in the Woonasquatucket River. Adams had been visiting relatives in Providence at the time of her murder. The final killing occurred on August 30th when the body of 58-year-old transient Delores Neuser was found battered in a parking garage. The murders raised fears of a serial killer in Providence, and local police formed a special group to catch the perpetrator as fast as possible.

Lassor became the first criminal to be successfully prosecuted under the newly enacted Rhode Island Life Without Parole Statute, headed by prosecutor Jeffrey B. Pine, and promptly received life imprisonment without parole for his crimes.

As the country grew so did the population of Rhode Island’s capital city.

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Providence was incorporated as a town in June 1636, and as a city on November 5, 1832. The city’s motto is What cheer? The city seal has the motto on it as well as an image of Roger Williams being greeted by the Narragansetts.

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The city is not especially large at 20.58 square miles of which only 2.18 square miles is water. Providence is located at the head of Narragansett Bay, with the Providence River running into the bay through the center of the city, formed by the confluence of the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers. The Waterplace Park amphitheater and riverwalks line the river’s banks through Downtown. Providence is one of many cities claimed to be founded on seven hills like Rome. The more prominent hills are: Constitution Hill (near Downtown), College Hill (east of the Providence River), and Federal Hill (west of Downtown and containing New England’s largest Italian district outside of Massachusetts). The other four are: Tockwotten Hill at Fox Point, Smith Hill (where the State House is located), Christian Hill at Hoyle Square (junction of Cranston and Westminster Streets), and Weybosset Hill at the lower end of Weybosset Street, which was leveled in the early 1880s.

Providence has given the world quite a number of famous or infamous or not so famous people who have either been born there or lived there. These include:

58309.jpg H.P. Lovecraft, American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction

58309.jpg Tom Adams, illustrator most famous for his Agatha Christie paperback cover designs

58309.jpg Daniel Adel, painter and illustrator

58309.jpg Chester Holmes Aldrich, architect and director of American Academy in Rome

58309.jpg Damien Chazelle, director and screenwriter, Whiplash and La La Land

58309.jpg Nicole Chesney, artist

58309.jpg George M. Cohan, songwriter and entertainer, composer of I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy and You’re a Grand Old Flag

58309.jpg David Hedison, actor, star of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and the original The Fly

58309.jpg Greta Hodgkinson, ballet dancer

58309.jpg Ruth Hussey, actress, Oscar-nominated for The Philadelphia Story (1940)

58309.jpg Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, The Road, No Country for Old Men

58309.jpg Israel Angell, colonel in the American Revolution

58309.jpg Richard Arnold, Civil War general

58309.jpg William Seaman Bainbridge, military physician, surgeon and gynecologist

58309.jpg Charles L. Hodges, U.S. Army major general

58309.jpg Albert Martin, defender of the Alamo

58309.jpg Philip Allen, 22nd Governor of Rhode Island and U.S. Senator

58309.jpg William Henry Allen, naval officer during War of 1812

58309.jpg Zachariah Allen, scientist and inventor

58309.jpg John Brown, co-founder of Brown University, U.S. Representative

58309.jpg Georges Henri Giroux, Petty Officer on the USS Maddox during World War II

58309.jpg Christopher Giroux, Bootlegger during Prohibition

Providence is not usually thought of as a tourist or vacation destination, but it is a city saturated with history, good and bad, and should be anyone’s stop on a tour of America’s birth.

America’s Renaissance City

Beehive of Industry

The Creative Capital

The Divine City

PVD

Prov

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NOTE: Several descriptive sections are attributed to Wikipedia, which specifies the sources, as well as other researched sites. This includes the sections on New England, Rhode Island, Providence, and other textual components for locations and events.

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1933 was a watershed year in the history of America. The country was in the middle of a devastating Great Depression but on the plus side by year’s end Prohibition had also ended and people were free to drink alcohol in the light. A new administration took over the White House and the government with the promise of hope. Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his inauguration speech with famous words:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life, a leadership of frankness and of vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. And I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

To understand this time period and the events that characterized it, one must go back and understand what happened to percolate the Great War (World War I, but not considered so until after World War II began). This includes the country as it stood and progressed from 1919 to 1930.

The catalyst of what caused the Great War is generally considered to be the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on June 28, 1914 by Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip (the Archduke’s wife, Sophie, was also killed) who used an FN 1910 semi-automatic handgun. But historians state that World War I actually was the culmination of a long series of events, including:

58309.jpg Franco-Russian Alliance (1894)

58309.jpg First German Naval Law (1898)

58309.jpg The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

58309.jpg Austria-Hungary’s Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908)

58309.jpg The Second Moroccan Crisis (1911)

58309.jpg Italy’s Invasion of Libya (1911)

58309.jpg The Balkan Wars (1912-13)

By the time the Archduke was assassinated Europe had been layered with accelerant and the Serbian assassin, aided by the infamous Black Hand, a Serbian secret nationalist group, lit the match. The assassination highlighted the nationalism that was pulling the Austro-Hungarian Empire apart at the seams. The Serbian extremists actually wanted Franz Ferdinand dead because they feared he was too moderate and would promote a power-sharing arrangement that would keep Slavic peoples in the empire. Tension between European powers increased, as they took different sides in the crisis.

Since this was a European conflict America stayed out of the war until 1917. President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality. Still, by April 1917 the U.S. was dragged in due to the status of the U.K. (isolated by German aggression and weaponry) and the fact that attacks on American merchant ships and associated casualties were mounting. On April 6th Congress voted to declare war on the primary aggressor, Germany.

The war was not popular in the U.S. but everyone did their duty both in the battles and on the home front. Eighteen months later, on November 18, 1918, Germany capitulated and the war formally ended.¹ The men in uniform came home; some did not with deaths reaching 117,000. Many came home badly damaged both physically and psychologically. In addition to the devastation wreaked by the war another monstrous burden was dropped on the world: the Spanish Flu. Across the globe the disease claimed over 21 million lives; the United States lost 675,000 people to the Spanish Flu in 1918, more casualties than World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.

The war exhausted the country but the promise of a new beginning was on the horizon. Women fought hard to get the vote and did, voting in 1920 for the first time; Republican Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge were elected president and vice president. Harding’s conception of normalcy (a word he created) for the 1920s included deregulation, civic engagement, and isolationism. He rejected the idealism of Woodrow Wilson and the activism of Teddy Roosevelt, favoring the earlier isolationist policy of the United States.

Even with the aftereffects of war, disease, and the new administration, the 1920s were, to coin a well-known word, a roaring decade. Women were gaining rights. Fashions were changing (Gasp! Those flapper dresses!). Technology was developing and radios were becoming a mainstay in many homes. Phonograph records were burgeoning. Businesses were flourishing and the Stock Market was becoming more diverse and robust. Social attitudes were changing (slowly).

Crime was, well, increasing because of one aspect of that decade:

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Why Prohibition? The answer is simple and complex.

The concept of Prohibition actually goes back in time to the Code of Hammurabi (1772 BC). Banned was the selling of beer for money. It could only be bartered for barley: If a beer seller do not receive barley as the price for beer, but if she receive money or make the beer a measure smaller than the barley measure received, they shall throw her into the water. 49484.jpg

Even in the mid-1800s people were massing to educate the population about the evils of liquor. In 1846 Nathaniel Currier, who was one half of the company Currier & Ives, created a lithograph that presented a harrowing series of effects of sliding down the liquor ladder to doom.

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In the early twentieth century, much of the impetus for the prohibition movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from moralistic convictions of pietistic Protestants. Prohibition movements in the West coincided with the advent of women’s suffrage, with newly empowered women as part of the political process strongly supporting policies that curbed alcohol consumption.

The first half of the 20th century saw periods of prohibition of alcoholic beverages in several countries:

58309.jpg 1918 to 1920: Prohibition in Canada nationally, as well as in most provinces including:

o 1901 to 1948 in Prince Edward Island

o 1919 to 1919 in Quebec

58309.jpg 1907 to 1992 in the Faroe Islands; limited private imports from Denmark were allowed from 1928 onwards

58309.jpg 1914 to 1925: Prohibition in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union

58309.jpg 1915 to 1935: Prohibition in Iceland (wine was legal from 1922, but beer was still prohibited until 1989)

58309.jpg 1916 to 1927 in Norway (fortified wine and beer were also prohibited from 1917 to 1923)

58309.jpg 1919 in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, March 21st to August 1st called szesztilalom

58309.jpg 1919 to 1932 in Finland (called kieltolaki, ban law)

Via the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from January 20, 1920 to December 5, 1933. The anti-alcohol mindset was evident much earlier than 1920, however. In spurts and mainly isolated events temperance leaders, some men but mostly women, assaulted saloon and liquor distributors to make their point. Some became famous, like Carry Nation or, as she was known for the weapon she wielded, Hatchet Granny.

Organization of efforts was a must if the women had any true chance at achieving their goals. To that end in 1873 in Hillsboro, Ohio the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was formed. They focused on multiple concepts, especially the Americanization of new immigrants. They campaigned for local, state, and national prohibition, women’s suffrage, protective purity legislation, scientific temperance instruction in the schools, better working conditions for labor, anti-polygamy laws, and a variety of other reforms.

In 1893, however, their main focus became the prohibition of selling, making, or imbibing alcohol. It took twenty-seven years but their (and others’) efforts bore fruit and the 18th Amendment, also known as the Volstead Act, was passed. This kicked the door open wide for criminals to make a fortune through illegal production, distribution, and selling of booze. The business went underground and in many respects added to liquor consumption.

Bootleggers ranged from neighborhood thugs to famous criminals. The biggest bootlegger in the 1920s was, of course, Al Capone. With stunning brutality and violence (remember the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929?) he secured his position as the top mob guy in Chicago by the age of twenty-six. He might have been the most famous rum-runner, but he certainly wasn’t alone. Competition included:

58309.jpg Arnold The Brain Rothstein

58309.jpg Dutch Schultz

58309.jpg Lucky Luciano

58309.jpg Meyer Lansky

58309.jpg Bugsy Seigel

58309.jpg Legs Diamond

58309.jpg Bugs Moran

58309.jpg Johnny Torrio

58309.jpg George Remus

58309.jpg Lee Petty

58309.jpg Nucky Johnson

Also on the list could possibly be a certain Irish-American Patriarch whose sons eventually rose to high political positions, although there was no direct evidence to prove this. But—come on. People knew. The east coast was a very lucrative route because of its proximity to open water and many different river ways. Cleverly disguised land routes transported a vast amount of illegal alcohol. Some trucks were set up as hauling lumber although at the very back where the board ends stuck out a cutaway section was actually an opening to carry the barrels and bottles.

Speakeasies, or underground clubs where consuming alcohol was a very vibrant experience, sprang