NAVAL HISTORY IN NEWPORT

     On 12 June, 1775 the general assembly of the Crown Colony of Rhode Island met at the Kent County Courthouse in East Greenwich and created the very first Navy in the Western Hemisphere.  Now many recognize that Narragansett Bay is often referred to as the "Cradle of the American Navy." Well, if the Bay was the cradle, then Newport has to be considered the womb. For it was here, in Newport Harbor, that the seed for the concept of America as a maritime power was planted.

President Theodore Roosevelt

Visits Newport Naval Station

Goat Island Circa 1910

This led to the first purely naval engagement of the Revolution, in June of 1775, when the Rhode Island sloop KATY, under Captain Abraham Whipple, engaged the Royal Navy Schooner DIANA. The DIANA was subsequently driven onto Conanicut Island, off the Jamestown beach. The Rhode Island Navy never did accomplish its initial objective of driving off the ROSE, which finally met her end in Savannah, Georgia when she was scuttled in 1779.

The Rhode Island delegates to the Continental Congress next moved to create a Federal navy. The Colony's General Assembly instructed its delegates to the Continental Congress to introduce a resolution in favor of a continental navy. The Congress adopted this resolution, and authorized the fitting out of two vessels to interdict British trade.

The so-called "Rhode Island Plan" to construct thirteen frigates for the new Continental Navy was enacted in December of 1775. One of these ships was the aforementioned KATY, which was then renamed PROVIDENCE.

This is the ship that became the first command of a young John Paul Jones, acknowledged as the "Father of the American Navy." The PROVIDENCE was also noted for being the first ship to land U.S. Marines for combat, in March, 1776. Unfortunately, the original ship was scuttled in Penobscot Bay in August, 1779. Those who frequent Narragansett Bay today often see a replica of this vessel, the pride of the Yankee navy, making its way up and down the Bay in the summer months.

1776 was notable for many things, not the least of which was Rhode Island's Renunciation of Allegiance to King George III on May 4 of that year. However, that springtime celebration gave way to a winter horror, as Newporters realized their worst fears in December when the British seized and occupied the city.

Their original fear of vulnerability from the sea, which had led to the purchase and fortification of Goat Island more than 100 years earlier, had come to fruition. The main difference was that originally the Newporters, principally of British stock, had feared attack by the French or the Dutch. It was ironic that the invasion, when it finally did come, was led by a British commander, Sir Henry Clinton.

The Continental Navy mounted a blockade and siege of Aquidneck Island in an effort to roust the English, which culminated in the large but inconclusive Battle of Rhode Island in 1778.

This contest was the first combined effort of the Americans and their new French allies. Unfortunately, reinforcement of the Newport garrison by a large British fleet, coupled with an ill-timed hurricane in April 1778 which severely damaged the French fleet commanded by Comte Charles Hector D'Estaing, left the British still in control of Newport.

Sir Clinton left Aquidneck of his own accord one year later, when he decided that his troops would be more militarily useful in pacification of the southern colonies.

When the war ended, Newport faced a devastation like nothing ever seen. The city's timber wharves had been burned as firewood. Businessmen and trading firms moved their headquarters to Providence or Boston.

One would think that, in the attempts to recover from the ravages of war, all things naval would have had a bright future in Narragansett Bay in general, and Newport in particular. This was not the case, however, and Rhode Island played almost no part in the growth of the American Navy after the revolution.

There was an attempt to build a Navy shipyard at Newport in 1798. The politicians of the day were unable to persuade the Federalist Congress, however, and shipyards were built in Boston and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Political pressure was no less a factor then, as it is today.

In 1799, the town of Newport ceded Goat Island to the federal government for $1,500, with the express purpose of maintaining a military fort to defend Newport Harbor. The fortification had been named Fort Wolcott, in commemorate the services of Rhode Island's War Governor, Oliver Wolcott. The fact that his son was then Secretary of the Treasury of the United States didn't hurt, either.

Things remained pretty quiet in Newport up until the time of the Civil War. Fort Wolcott, along with Fort Adams across the harbor, had fallen into disrepair in the intervening years. Tension and apprehension among coastal residents again began to rise in the middle of the 1800's, however, as it became more and more apparent that discord between the states on the subjects of slavery and state's rights would not be settled peaceably. It was on the 8th of May, 1861, that the calm of the afternoon was shattered by the sound of heavy cannon fire. All Newport rushed to the wharves and hills, concerned that the often-rumored rebel attack on Fort Adams had begun.

But much to their surprise they saw that it was the old frigate CONSTITUTION, "Old Ironsides," her guns thundering an answer to the 24-gun salute from Fort Adams. On board were 130 midshipmen from the recently evacuated Naval Academy at Annapolis.

A few hours later the steamer BALTIC entered the harbor; on board were the professors, their families, and every book and piece of equipment that they could carry from the Academy. They were supposed to go to Fort Adams, but the staff took one look at the place and quickly began looking for a location in Newport, in a nicer part of town.

In August of that year, the Naval Academy leased the Atlantic House Hotel, which was at the corner of Bellevue Avenue and Pelham Street, just up the street by Touro Park. There the Academy remained for the duration of the war. It was no accident that the Navy chose Newport as the wartime location of the Academy. George Bancroft, who as Secretary of the Navy founded the Academy at its original location in Annapolis in 1845, was a life-long summer resident of Newport. To Secretary Bancroft, Newport seemed to be the perfect wartime location for the Academy.

Life in Newport for the students was memorable, though there were certain misgivings on the part of the citizenry in the beginning. But they soon came around, and it wasn't long before many of the upperclassmen and faculty soon found themselves involved in the Newport social scene. Many of these Naval Academy Midshipmen at Newport did make a name for themselves, as they continued in their naval careers.

The first military governor of Guam, Benjamin Tilley, was also a resident of Bristol. Charles V. Gridley, who at the battle of Manila was given the famous order by Admiral Dewey: "You may fire when ready, Gridley." Rear Admiral Charles Sperry, class of 1862, would later go on to be President of the Naval War College, and was directly responsible for the establishment of the first Boy Scout troop in Newport in 1911.

The CONSTITUTION was soon joined by the USNA school ships MACEDONIAN and SANTEE, and these tall ships soon became a familiar part of the Newport skyline. At the end of the Civil War, however, political reality reared its head and the Naval Academy was returned to its original site in Maryland. Politics, then as now, played a decisive role in determining who got what after the war.

Any fears that the Navy would abandon Newport altogether were quickly dispelled, however. Soon after the war a series of events were set into motion which has led to more than a century of continuous Navy presence as part of the Newport community. In 1869 the Navy gently shoved the Army off Goat Island and built the Naval Torpedo Station in it's place. The original mission for the Torpedo Station was to serve as the Navy's experimental center for the development of torpedoes and torpedo equipment, explosives, and electrical equipment. The Navy's initial presence in those days consisted of a few wooden buildings and three civilian employees.

Newport had also gained some important advocates in the Navy while the Academy was here. Chief among these was Admiral Stephen B. Luce, who had agitated long and hard for some sort of naval training facility in Newport. In 1882 the Newport Poor House and Farm on the 92-acre Coasters Harbor Island was donated to the Navy by the City of Newport and the State of Rhode Island. This was done on the condition that the site be used for the training of recruits.

On June 4, 1883, the U.S. Naval Training Station was formally established; this eventually evolved into the Naval Education and Training Center, or NETC. The Naval War College was established on Coasters Harbor Island a year later. It was originally located in a recently vacated public asylum. An interesting point here is that, since the fleet was not located in close proximity to the College, the school had to come up with some method to test theories and concepts. This was how what we now call "war gaming" was born, and it has evolved into a highly sophisticated analytical and educational tool. War gaming continues to be part of the College's curriculum.

The association between the Navy and Newport, which had all but disappeared after the end of the revolution, now began to blossom during the second half of the 19th century.

In 1885, the nation's first torpedo boat, the STILLETO, was built at the Herreshoff boat yard in Bristol. These torpedo boats were the progenitors of today's fast destroyers and frigates. Another Herreshoff-built torpedo boat, the PORTER, made history in 1897 when it made a record breaking run from New York to Newport in six hours.

In that same year the first US Naval Hospital in Newport was built on Coasters Harbor Island. The hospital subsequently moved to its present site, just off Admiral Kalbfus Road, in 1909.

There was also a very large naval presence that was just up the coast on Aquidneck Island, at a site called Melville, near the town of Portsmouth. Established in 1901 as the Navy's first coaling station (first known as the Bradford Coaling Station), the site at Melville grew rapidly in size and importance in the first half of this century.

This growth culminated in the establishment of large Motor Torpedo Boat training center in World War II, where a young John F. Kennedy trained in PT Boat operations in the fall of 1942. Coincidentally enough, an equally young Richard M. Nixon was undergoing basic officer training earlier that same year, spending two months at the Quonset Point Naval Air Station just across the Narragansett Bay. It is doubtful that they ever met.

The requirements of the fleet and world events soon dictated that expansion of the Torpedo Station on Goat Island would be necessary, and by 1906 the Navy Torpedo Factory was established, also on Goat Island. This industrial facility became the sole manufacturer of torpedoes for the fleet, and Newport soon found itself to be the Navy's headquarters for torpedo research, development, and overhaul.

The first half of the 20th century saw a period of unprecedented growth in the Naval presence in Narragansett Bay. World Wars I and II resulted in a huge influx of military and civilian employees in Rhode Island, with a peak of more than 162,000 personnel in 1944. The reader is encouraged to think about that last figure for a moment. This is Rhode Island -- where in the world did we put them all?

One of the largest commands during this period was the Quonset Point Naval Air Station, located alongside the home of the Seabees, the Naval Base at Davisville. These commands, combined with the cruiser and destroyer commands based in Newport, resulted in over a hundred capital ships being homeported in Narragansett Bay in the 1960's. And that doesn't count all the innumerable support vessels, oilers, tenders, and the like, all manned by thousands of hot-blooded young men, many of whom passed through the Naval Training Station in Newport.

Long time residents and old salts will recall that Newport used to be considered the stereotypical old time Navy town - with places like "Leo's First and Last Stop" at the end of Long Wharf, the "Blue Moon", and the infamous "Blood Alley" of West Pelham Street. The stuff legends and tall tales were made of. When the Fathers of Newport kept a close eye on the daughters of Newport.

All of that is gone now, and the Naval military and civilian population that exists today is quite different from that of the previous era. The military presence throughout Rhode Island began to decrease in the 1960s, with a dramatic change resulting from the closure of Quonset Point in the early 1970s. Today, the total population of all the Naval commands in Narragansett Bay has now decreased to less than a tenth of what it was during its heyday (now approximately 15,000 military and civilian employees remain).

Courtesy of Naval Undersea Warfare Center [www.nuwc.navy.mil]