Over the past seven years, NHS staff and interns, preservation professionals, and archaeologists from Salve Regina University, U. Mass. Boston, and Boston University have learned much about this ca. 1697 house and its many inhabitants.  Now, with funding from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the NHS is developing new programs at the house to share this information with the public and offer a fresh look at the history of Newport during the American Revolution. 

During a one-hour interactive house tour, learn about the house’s tumultuous revolutionary history, including riots and military occupation, loyalist declarations and patriot fervor, Quaker pacifism and congregational divisions, as well as slavery and emancipation.  

See the evidence from recent archaeology, dendrochronology, paint analysis, and documentary research.  Learn how the wide-sweeping changes of the 1760s, 70s, and 80s affected the Howard and Wanton families in the house.  Finally, get a personal view of the war’s effects when you meet a "first-person" costumed role-player portraying house inhabitant Polly Wanton, who lived in the house as a teenager and young adult during the war.

Student field trips focused on Newport during the American Revolution will also be offered at the house this fall, with a limited number of programs available free of-charge to Rhode Island classrooms in grades four through seven.  For more information, contact Jessica Files at the Newport Historical Society. 

This project is made possible through major funding support from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, an independent state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.