Beyond the Mansions

George T. Downing, center, pictured with his family. Photo courtesy of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and the Stokes family collection.

Though Bellevue Avenue tends to get the attention (and the tourists), Newport in the Gilded Age was far more than mansions and parties. Among the city’s entrepreneur class, business owners of color played a prominent role, using the era’s prosperity to elevate their neighborhoods and social status. Keith Stokes, a historian and consultant who holds titles with several local organizations, has spent much of his career researching the stories of these former residents. For Stokes, it’s more than a hobby: A tenth-generation Newporter, he counts Gilded Age business owners among his ancestors.

Blanche Forrester Walton fishing off Ledge Road near the Cliff Walk, c. 1915. Photo courtesy of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society and the Stokes family collection.

“When people think about Black history in America, they tend to think of the American South. They think of the Civil War, or they think of the Civil Rights era of the 1960s and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. But in fact, the first emancipation, the first Black institutions are right here in New England,” he says.

After the Civil War, African heritage families began moving into Newport in larger numbers to take advantage of the city’s growing economic opportunities. Previously a major seaport, Newport was experiencing a renaissance as a playground of the nouveau riche, and business owners jumped at the chance to benefit from this new money-spending class. African heritage residents became successful entrepreneurs in industries like catering, dressmaking and delivery services, often counting the wealthiest families among their best customers.

With their newfound capital, business owners invested back into their communities. The Jim Crow laws of the South were echoed in the North by discriminatory traditions, but Newport’s African heritage people came together to further their own communities through business development and by creating opportunities for social and recreational gatherings, the legacy of which are still felt today.

“They took their wealth and their financial security and they put that back into their communities through organizations and institutions,” Stokes says.

Through their 1696 Heritage Group, Stokes and his wife, Theresa Guzman Stokes, have identified the places where residents of color lived and worked during the Gilded Age. While there was no one “little Harlem,” peopled tended to cluster close to where they worked and worshipped. These neighborhoods included Top of the Hill off Bellevue Avenue, Historic Hill, West Broadway, the Point and along Levin Street and Bath Road. Today, many of those houses remain, the history of their residents recorded in stories and photographs.

George T. Downing

George T. Downing was one of the earliest hospitality entrepreneurs to move into Newport during the Gilded period. The son of a successful New York oyster house owner, he came to Newport in 1845 and established the Sea Girt House hotel. He went on to run successful catering companies in several cities and was instrumental in bringing African heritage families to Newport from the South. “Downing becomes this pipeline. And in fact, a lot of old African heritage families in Newport trace their heritage to Culpeper County, Virginia,” Stokes says. Downing was also instrumental in the founding of the Colored National Labor Union. Downing Block on Bellevue Avenue is named for him.

Mary H. Dickerson

Mary Dickerson was more than a dressmaker. In addition to running a “Fashionable Dressmaking Establishment” on Bellevue Avenue servicing the needs of summer residents, she belonged to several women’s groups and was a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. She owned more than ten properties on Aquidneck Island, and in 1899, formed her own child care company as an extension of the Women’s League Newport to meet the needs of residents of color. “She knew African heritage working women needed a place to place their kids safely,” Stokes says.

Rev. Mahlon Van Horne

The Rev. Mahlon Van Horne (Stokes’ great-great-uncle) came to Newport from Princeton, New Jersey, in 1868 to serve as pastor at the Union Colored Congregational Church. Like others, he was involved in efforts to improve conditions for African heritage workers through the Colored National Labor Union and was the first African heritage person to serve on the Newport School Board. He was also the first African heritage person to serve in the Rhode Island General Assembly and was later appointed general counsel to the Danish West Indies by President William McKinley during the Spanish-American War. His son carried on his legacy: Dr. M. Alonzo Van Horne (Stokes’ great-uncle) was the state’s first African heritage dentist and founded the Newport branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1919.

Dr. Harriett A. Rice

After growing up in Newport, Dr. Harriett A. Rice became the first African heritage person to graduate from Wellesley College in 1887 and studied medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and the Women’s Medical College of New York. She was shut out of practicing at many American hospitals and instead worked at Hull House in Chicago and treated patients at French military hospitals during World War I. For her services, she received the Medal of French Gratitude. Her brother, Dr. George Rice, also worked as a physician in Scotland after graduating from Dartmouth College.

Dr. Marcus F. Wheatland

Dr. Marcus F. Wheatland graduated from Howard University Medical School and set up his practice in Newport in 1895. He was a popular choice of physician among the island’s elite, possibly because he was one of the earliest doctors of any race to use the X-ray machine as a diagnostic tool. He served as president of the National Medical Association and was elected to the Newport City Council.