Dr. Benjamin West of Providence, Rhode Island

One of my favorite ancestors is Dr. Benjamin West (1730-1813) of Providence, Rhode Island.¹ That’s his marble bust at the top of the page. Brown University has it.²

The 1822 obituary of my 5th great-grandmother, Mary “Polly” Smith West Pearce, referred to her father as “the eminent Dr. Benjamin West” of Providence. I had not known who her parents were before I found that obituary. What followed were several days of frantic discovery on my part, each one better than the last. The man was phenomenal, and I don’t understand why every generation after him hasn’t continued to hold him up as the pinnacle of the Enlightenment. (Actually, there are many males named “Benjamin West” in the Robinson branch of our family, so someone clearly remembered him. My line from him has been daughter-intensive for the last four generations, so I suppose there’s a reason for it to be missing.)

Dr. Benjamin West Brown University Portrait Collection — Dr. Benjamin West, Brown University Portrait Collection

Benjamin West was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American equivalent of England’s Royal Society. Although he was a merchant for about 25 years, he earned great respect as a teacher and a university professor. He taught at Philadelphia’s eminent Protestant Episcopal Academy and at the College of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (now Brown University) in Providence. Brown University owns his portrait.³ His life and work are fabulous examples of the Enlightenment in North America.

Benjamin West was born in March 1730 in Rehoboth, in Massachusetts Bay, one of the New England Colonies. His father was a farmer. When Benjamin was a young child, the family moved to Bristol. At the time, both Massachusetts and Rhode Island claimed jurisdiction over Bristol.

Benjamin was an autodidact. After a mere three months of formal education and without the means to buy books, Benjamin borrowed every book he could. His most significant benefactor during his childhood was a fiery Congregationalist minister in Bristol named John Burt.⁴ Around the time of his 1753 marriage to Elizabeth Smith when he was 23, he moved to Providence, Rhode Island (population ~3,300⁵). He lived most of the rest of his life in Providence.

By 1758, Benjamin found backers to help him open a dry goods store. A couple of years later, he opened the first bookstore ever to grace the commercial avenues of Providence, now paying for the books he wanted by selling them to other people. He published almanacs for Providence, Bristol, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, to supplement his income for nearly 40 years. His work in plotting and recording the transit of Venus across the sun in 1769 was recognized in 1770 when the College of Rhode Island, then newly established on College Hill in Providence, awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Letters.

During the Revolutionary War, he manufactured clothing for soldiers in the Continental Army while publishing his almanac and pursuing his scientific studies. The Royal Society of London published his paper on the transit of Venus and Mercury. In 1781, Benjamin West became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1786 began to teach mathematics and astronomy at the College of Rhode Island. In later years he added natural philosophy to the curriculum.

His friends were early backers of the College of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which later became Brown University. Providence was a small town in those days, so he naturally came into regular contact with the progenitors of the school: Stephen Hopkins (a signer of the Declaration of Independence), the famous four Brown brothers (Nicholas, Joseph, John, and Moses), Judge Daniel Jenckes, and others. He loved mathematics and astronomy and conferred with some genuinely great minds of his day. He tutored students privately throughout his life.

Benjamin West was a member of an active abolitionist group in Providence. This position pitted Benjamin against his friend John Brown, who actively engaged in the slave trade. Except for John, the Brown brothers’ thoughts on slavery shifted after a disastrous series of events on their slave ship Sally. Of 196 people purchased on its two-year voyage to Africa, only 87 survived to be sold as slaves in Antigua. The inhumanity of the Sally debacle especially shattered Moses Brown. He manumitted the people he had enslaved and became one of the most outspoken abolitionists of his time.

Purple prose and flowery metaphors abound in the contemporary biographical accounts, some written around the time of his death. They all reach one conclusion: Benjamin West was a genius who contributed considerably to science and mathematics. He was indeed a product of the Age of Enlightenment.

Astronomical Genius

An event in 1766 opened some gilded doors for him. A comet appeared in the constellation of Taurus on the evening of April 9. Being an excellent self-taught astronomer, Benjamin took careful measurements. He wrote a letter to a Boston astronomer named John Winthrop,⁶ who was at Cambridge College (now known as Harvard University). He had never met or corresponded with Winthrop but was so excited about his observation he simply had to share it – and shared it with one of the foremost astronomers in North America.

Providence, April 10, 1766

Dear Sir:

For the improvement of science, I now acquaint you, that the last evening, I saw in the West, a comet, which I judged to be about the middle of the sign of Taurus; with about 7 degrees North latitude. It set half after 8 o’clock by my watch, and its amplitude was about 29 or 30 degrees. Nothing, Sir, could have induced me to this freedom of writing to you, but the love I have for the sciences; and I flatter myself that you will, on that account, the more readily overlook it.

I am, Sir, yours,

Benjamin West

This flowery language essentially says, “Sorry to bother you, but wow! I saw a comet last night!” He and Winthrop became great friends and continued to write to each other. For the rest of their lives, they would share observations about the night sky.

1769 Transit of the Planets

In 1716, building on the work of Johannes Kepler a century before, Edmund Halley figured out how to apply the theory of parallax to determine the distances between astronomical bodies. With both Mercury and Venus predicted to pass between Earth and the sun in 1769, astronomers worldwide were anxious to test the theory. Since this was the first opportunity to view the transits of both inner planets since Halley’s theory was published, everyone in the field of astronomy was excited. Captain Cook would observe the 1769 transit of Venus from Tahiti on his ill-fated circumnavigation. At the time of the last transit of Venus in 1761, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who had just finished their survey of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, had traveled to the Cape of Good Hope to observe it. These men used astronomy as an essential tool in their lives – navigating the oceans and surveying the land required precise measurements, and measurements started with the stars.

Telescope used by Benjamin West to observe the transits of Mercury and Venus in 1769, Brown University Collection. Photo credit: Brown University

There was no telescope in Providence in 1769. Benjamin West, Stephen Hopkins, Joseph Brown, and Moses Brown were determined to see the phenomenon, though, so they managed to import a telescope from England at the incredible expense of 500 pounds. The men set up on the outskirts of Providence and watched the celestial event. Transit Street in Providence is named after the spot where they viewed the transit on June 3, 1769. There are photos of the telescope on the Brown University website – the school still has it and displays it.

As was his habit, Benjamin West made careful measurements of the transit.⁷ He published a tract (and dedicated it to his friend Stephen Hopkins) about the event.⁸

Benjamin West’s diagram of the transit of Venus, 1769, from the Ladd Observatory, Brown University

In July 1770, he and other astronomers observed the new;y-discovered Lexell’s Comet, which passed closer to earth than any known comet before or since. His observations contributed to a theory about the tails of comets. Because of his astronomy observations and publications, Benjamin West, a man with only three months of formal education, was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from Harvard on July 18, 1770. Here’s the text of the notification letter from his friend John Winthrop:

Cambridge, July 19, 1770

Sir —

I have the pleasure to acquaint you that the government of this college were pleased, yesterday, to confer upon you the Honorary degree of Master of Arts; upon which I sincerely congratulate you. I acknowledge the receipt of your favour, and shall be glad to compare any observations of the satellites.

Yours,

John Winthrop

Honors and degrees

Benjamin West primarily worked as a merchant during the 1760s and 1770s. When the Revolutionary War finally arrived, commerce dried up. He went to work manufacturing clothing for the American troops, but he continued his studies and correspondence with the other great minds and kept publishing his almanacs. In 1772, Dartmouth College awarded him an honorary degree for his work in astronomy. Then, in 1781, he was elected in the first class of honorees to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Some of his correspondence survives in the Academy’s archives. Two articles by Benjamin West appear in the Academy’s inaugural journal. First was the three-page article, “An Account of the Observations Made in Providence, in the State of Rhode-Island, of the Eclipse of the Sun, Which Happened the 23d Day of April, 1781.” He and Joseph Brown observed the eclipse together, and they would continue to share observations of the sky their entire lives.

Mathematics seems to have been Benjamin’s first love. In 1773 he wrote to a friend in Boston of a theorem he had developed to extract “the roots of odd powers” that was probably his most significant contribution to the field of mathematics. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences published a copy of his letter in its first journal. This article was entitled “On the Extraction of Roots.” It caused a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. He created theorems in quadratic equations to extract the third, fifth, and seventh roots of numbers. Some skeptics claimed his theorems were no different from those already in use; others praised their clarity and simplicity.

He didn’t stop at math and astronomical observations, though. One surviving biography explains a physics problem he cogitated upon for more than two years in conjunction with John Winthrop and a Mr. Oliver. It had to do with the properties of air in a copper tube that was then placed into an otherwise airless container. The qualities of invisible gases – basically, the scientific understanding of the very concept of the physical nature and properties of “air” – were in their infancy. Benjamin West speculated about the attractive and repulsive nature of the tiny particles that made up the matter of air and how they would behave under different conditions. (We now call these particles “molecules.”) Gravity, matter, magnetism, and ultimately the behavior of the tails of comets played into his understanding of the question.

Benjamin West’s mind was at the peak of its illuminating brilliance as the world around him heaved. His most important discoveries and writings happened as the American Revolution was about to explode. By the end of the Revolution, he had returned to academic pursuits. He tutored students in math and astronomy. In 1786, the College of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations offered him a full professorship.

For some reason, he did not begin teaching at the college for a couple of years. Leaving his wife and family in Providence, Benjamin West moved to Philadelphia temporarily to teach at the illustrious Protestant Episcopal Academy. While there, he solidified relationships with the influential minds of that city, including Benjamin Franklin and David Rittenhouse. He assumed his post at Brown in 1788.

Benjamin West on the Committee for the Providence Library Providence Gazette, 29 March 1783

Brown University awarded Dr. West his first non-honorary degree, his Doctor of Laws, in 1792. He taught mathematics and astronomy there from 1788 until 1799. After leaving the university, he opened a navigation school and taught seafaring men astronomy. He clearly felt called to teach other people the wonders of the universe. I found an advertisement in the Providence Gazette published 29 March 1783 in which he and other influential men of Providence were reconstituting the local library and organizing its books.

The Almanacs and Revolution

Almanacs are annual publications that include helpful information on many practical subjects. People in farming, fishing, sailing, and other trades relied on their weather forecasts, high and low tides tables, ferry times, stagecoach times, and planting dates. Astronomical events like the phases of the moon and eclipses could be found within their pages, as could folklore, proverbs, poetry, essays, recipes, religious calendars, and more. The Franklin brothers (James and his apprentice Benjamin) were famous for their almanacs. Some of the most significant competitors to Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac were the New England almanacs published by Benjamin West.

One of Franklin’s chief rivals was Benjamin West, who published his almanacs in Boston … West usually used the pseudonym “Isaac Bickerstaff,” a name famously used by Jonathan Swift several years earlier. “Abraham Weatherwise” was also a pseudonym [used by West], and likely used by a number of different almanac printers, and he “ushered in the healthiest and most interesting period of almanac making.”⁹

Benjamin West’s first almanac was published for 1763 on Providence’s first printing press by William Goddard. It was published continuously for 118 years – continued under the pseudonym “Isaac Bickerstaff” and with various titles until 1881. “From 1763 to 1781, Benjamin West was the author, with the exception of the year 1769 when “Abraham Weatherwise” took his place. From 1781 to 1881 “Isaac Bickerstaff” was given as the author, except in 1833, when the name of R. T. Paine appeared on the title page.”¹⁰

John Carter published the almanacs from 1770-1814.¹¹ John Carter was the father-in-law of Nicholas Brown, Jr., after whom Brown University was named. Nicholas’s uncle Joseph had secured the telescope to observe the transits of Mercury and Venus and observed them with Benjamin West in 1769.¹² The two men engaged in a conflict over publication rights in 1766. Carter continued publishing (and complaining when others published the same almanac, apparently with West’s consent). Around 1781 the men resolved their conflict. Their relationship continued for the rest of Benajmin West’s life.¹³

Benjamin West’s New England Almanack for 1775. Note the pro-liberty poem on the cover.

Benjamin West did not limit his almanacs to dry data and noncontroversial proverbs. Almanacs during the Revolution and the period leading up to it often included political essays and even propaganda. Since nearly every literate household owned and used almanacs regularly, the political leanings of the publishers and almanac writers influenced the sentiments of the people reading the almanacs. When George III ascended the throne in 1762, Benjamin West’s almanac praised him.¹⁴ However, the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765 changed everything, and, as it turned out, Benjamin West did not hesitate to share his passionate political opinions. He was one of the “notable patriots” publishing popular almanacs throughout this period.¹⁵

Benjamin West, mathematician and Brown University professor, was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. From 1763 through 1781 he published almanacs in Providence, Rhode Island. That West calculated the almanacs does not necessarily mean that he wrote the contents. The printers often hired a calculator, whose name, if it were prestigious, was given to the almanac. Frequently the printer himself furnished the additional text. For 1766 in “A Short View of the present State of the American Colonies, from Canada to the utmost Verge of His Majesty’s Dominions,” the author clearly states that his description of the general despair in English America is to propagandize: “such being the deplorable Situation of this Country, once renown’d for Freedom, it is hoped a Review thereof will excite such a universal Spirit of Patriotism in every Inhabitant, that our Liberty and Property may be yet rescued from the Jaws of Destruction.”¹⁶

His 1767 almanac contained an essay protesting strongly against the Stamp Act and is credited with being one of six critically important almanac-based essays on the topic.¹⁷

His 1775 almanac contained “A brief view of the present controversy between Great Britain and America, with some observations thereon.” It filled three pages of the 25-page almanac. Benjamin West’s friend and mentor, Rev. John Burt, would die on October 7, 1775, during the British bombardment of Bristol.

Rev. John Burt was the fifth pastor of the Congregational Church in Bristol, R.I. He assumed his duties on 13 May 1741. He died at the age of 50, on 7 October 1775,¹⁸ as the British bombarded the town in the first year of the Revolution.¹⁹ At the time of the 1790 census, only 3,211 lived in Bristol county, a little less than half of which lived in the town of Bristol.

It takes little imagination to believe that Rev. Burt’s death during the shelling of Bristol by the British inspired Benjamin West to take action on the American side, even if he had not been inclined that way before. However, Benjamin West’s published almanacs make clear that his sentiments lay strongly with the American cause long before the first official shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.

Benjamin West’s Family

Since I discovered him as Mary Smith West’s father, the rest of Benjamin’s family has been a brick wall for me. “Brick walls” in genealogy research refer to those ancestors whose origins and relations are shrouded in seemingly impenetrable mystery. Of course, I may have gotten so wrapped up in researching the man that I haven’t put enough energy into the rest of the family!

Most secondary sources list Benjamin’s father as a farmer named John and his wife as Elizabeth Smith. A couple of these sources say Ben’s grandfather was an immigrant to America, but his name is not given. Several sources claim he had eight children and was survived by three of them, but as of March 2022, I have found names for only four or five: Elizabeth, Nancy (Anne?), Benjamin, Mary “Polly” Smith, and Joseph.²⁰ Where his wife’s maiden surname is mentioned, it is given as Smith. His birthplace is given as Rehoboth, Massachusetts, or Bristol, Rhode Island. In 1730 Bristol was claimed by Massachusetts as part of the original Plymouth colony. It became part of Rhode Island in 1746, when the border between Rhode Island and Plymouth colonies was finally settled. Bristol was where King Philip’s War had started in 1675, and served as the primary base of operations for Metacomet, or King Philip. If Benjamin’s family was in the area at the time, they would have endured the first (and worst) of the wars between Native Americans and European colonists. The town was started in 1680, after the war.

Many online trees confuse and conflate Benjamin West the astronomer with another Benjamin West born in Rhode Island around 1730. The other Benjamin West (c. 1730-1782) was the son of William West (1681-aft 1742) of Kingstown, Rhode Island. William was the son of Susannah Soule (c. 1642-c. 1684) and Francis West (c1632 in England – 1696 in Kingstown). Susannah was the daughter of Mayflower passenger George Soule (c1601 in Holland – c. 1680 in Duxbury, Plymouth Colony). The descendant of George Soule is said to have been born in North Kingstown or Newport, Rhode Island, around 1730. He is said to have lived in Farmington, Connecticut, and died in Rensselaer, New York in 1782. The “Silver Books” of the Mayflower Society list the 1753 marriage record of Benjamin West and Elizabeth Smith as belonging to George Soule’s descendant, not to the astronomer. Since the astronomer was from Bristol, and the Soule descendant was from Kingstown, it seems more likely that the attribution of the marriage record to the Soule descendant is incorrect.

There is a marriage record for Benjamin West and “Mrs. Elizabeth Smith” in Bristol, County, Rhode Island, on 7 June 1753.²¹ Rev. John Burt performed the marriage ceremony. Based on the title she was given in the marriage record, she may have been married to a man named Smith prior to marrying Benjamin West. However, no other records in Bristol show a man named Smith marrying a woman named Elizabeth in the 10 years prior to this. It is possible that she married elsewhere. It is also possible that “Mrs.” was simply an abbreviation for “mistress” and did not denote her previous marital status.

In 1767, Benjamin West was a commissioner for the insolvent estate of Joseph Smith, deceased, of North Providence (Pawtucket). He valued the estate and filed papers confirming the portion that should be allowed to Joseph Smith’s widow, Marcy or Mercy Smith.²² Joseph may have been a brother or another relative of Benjamin’s wife.

Elizabeth Smith West may have been a daughter of Anne Arnold, the widow of Benjamin Smith who married Stephen Hopkins in 1755. Hopkins was a signer of the Declaration and a colonial governor of Rhode Island, among his many other accomplishments, and was known to be a close friend of Benjamin West.

Benjamin’s wife Elizabeth died in 1810 in Providence. When Benjamin died in 1813, the probate court appointed two administrators: his daughter Elizabeth, who apparently never married, and his son-in-law Gabriel Allen, who was married to Benjamin’s daughter Nancy. Nancy was a nickname for Anne, so her name appears as both in records. It appears that Joseph, Elizabeth, and my 5th great-grandmother, Mary “Polly” Smith West Pearce, were the children who survived him.

In the first Decennial Census of the United States in 1790, Benjamin West lived next door to his son-in-law, Oliver Pearce. Oliver was married to Benjamin’s daughter Mary Smith West, who was called Polly. They were my 5th great-grandparents. In 1800, the Pearces had moved, but Gabriel Allen, who married Ben’s daughter Nancy (or Anne), lived next door. In Ben’s home were four white adults: a man and a woman over 45 and a man and a woman between the ages of 26-44. The younger couple may have been one of their children and a spouse or possibly two adult unmarried children.

Oliver Pearce and Polly West moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, sometime between 1793 and 1807. By 1800, Oliver’s brother Nathan was already living in Fayetteville, North Carolina with another adult male and two enslaved people.

A man named Benjamin West died in Providence in 1801 and may have been Benjamin and Elizabeth’s son. One of Benjamin’s sons also may have been named Joseph. Joseph West, a Revolutionary War veteran from Rhode Island, married Violetta Howard of Baltimore County, Maryland, and died there in 1840. I’ve gone a bit back and forth as to whether he’s the right Joseph Smith, and have found nothing definitive to connect him to the astronomer despite the repeated insistence of quite a few unsourced online trees.

More information is out there, but not accessible to me online. Brown University’s John Hay Library has in its special collections letters from Benjamin and Joseph West to Dr. Solomon Drowne²³. The Rhode Island Historical Society has documents in its special collections relating to Benjamin West’s mercantile business and a narrative of his 1769 observations of the transits.²⁴ There are references to him in the papers of Moses Brown at the same repository.²⁵ Letters from Benjamin West to one of his granddaughters, Cecilia Pearce Newby (a daughter of my 5th great-grandmother), are in the special collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with the papers of her husband, Larkin Newby.²⁶

Bibliography:

American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Website (amacad.org : accessed 6 March 2022).

Arnold, James N. Rhode Island Vital Extracts, 1636-1850, Vol. 6: Bristol County, p. 50, citing Bristol Marriage Record Book 1:125. Providence, Rhode Island: Narragansett Publishing Company, 1891-1912. (FamilySearch.org : accessed 6 March 2022).

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of the Harvard Press, 1967, 50th Anniversary Edition, 2017.

“Biography of Benjamin West, L.L.D. A.A.S.: Professor of Mathematicks, Astronomy and Natural Philosophy, in Rhode Island College – and Fellow of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, &c.”, The Rhode Island Literary Repository, Vol I, No. 7 (October 1814): 137-160 (337-360). Google Books (books.google.com : accessed 6 March 2022).

Bliss, Leonard. The History of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts: Comprising a history of the present towns of Rehoboth, Seekonk, and Pawtucket, from their settlement to the present time; together with sketches of Attleborough, Cumberland, and a part of Swansey and Barrington, to the time that they were severally separated from the original town. (Boston: Otis, Broaders, and Company, 1836). The Internet Archive (archive.org : accessed 6 March 2022).

Brown University. Portrait Collection, Office of the University Curator, Providence, Rhode Island. Website (https://library.brown.edu : accessed 6 March 2022).

Find A Grave. Website, database with images (findagrave.com : accessed 6 March 2022).

Hall, Louise. “Family Records: Newby Bible”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 122 (Apr 1968): 125-128, 125. American Ancestors (americanancestors.org : accessed 6 March 2022).

Mitchell, Martha. “Benjamin West”, Encyclopedia Brunoniana (1993).

Newmann’s Ltd. Website (newmansltd.com : accessed 6 March 2022)

Pease, John Chauncey, and John Milton Niles. A Gazetteer of the States of Connecticut and Rhode-Island, (Hartford: William S. Marsh, 1819), 331-333. Biographical entry for Dr. Benjamin West. (Google Books : accessed 6 March 2022.)

The Providence Gazette, various issues, 1763-1802.

Quinn, John F. “From Dangerous Threat to “Illustrious Ally : Changing Perceptions of Catholics in Eighteenth Century Newport,” Rhode Island History Journal, 75:56, 60 (2017). Rhode Island Historical Society (www.rihs.org : accessed 5 Mar 2022.

Raymond, Allan R. “To Reach Men’s Minds: Almanacs and the American Revolution, 1760-1777.” The New England Quarterly 51, no. 3 (1978): 370–95. https://doi.org/10.2307/364614.

“A Revolution is Brewing,” The Rhode Island Slave History Medallion Project, Linden Place newsletter, Bristol, Rhode Island: Linden Place (lindenplace.org : accessed 6 March 2022).

Rhode Island Historical Society Library. Benjamin West Papers. 121 Hope Street, Providence, RI 02906.

Spencer, Mark G. Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of the American Enlightenment, Entry for Benjamin West (1730-1813). London: Bloomsbury (2015). pp. 1096-1097.

Stowell, Marion Barber. “Revolutionary Almanac-Makers: Trumpeters of Sedition.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 73, no. 1 (1979): 41–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24302752.

United States Bureau of the Census. A century of population growth from the first census of the United States to the twelfth, 1790-1900, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. p. 162. The Internet Archive (archive.org : Accessed 6 March 2022).

Wikipedia. (wikipedia.org : accessed 6 March 2022).

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An earlier version of this post originally appeared on Aramink.com.

Last Updated on August 26, 2022 by

Footnotes

1
Not to be confused by the famous English/American painter Benjamin West (1738-1820), who was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1791. Their circles sometimes overlapped, and many genealogies conflate the two.
2
It was recently restored.
3
Dr. Benjamin West (1730-1813), Professor of Mathematics, Astronomy, and Natural Philosophy, 1786-1799. Artist unknown; Watercolor silhouette, 3½” x 7½” from the portrait collection of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Gift of the family of Dr. West. Portrait 156, Brown Historical Property No. 1853, located in the John Hay library 122. From the Brown University website: “The painter of this miniature portrait is unknown … It was a family portrait during Benjamin West’s lifetime and after his death in 1813 it was prized by his descendants for generations until it was ultimately donated to Brown.” Portrait Collection, Office of the Curator, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, website (https://library.brown.edu/cds/portraits/display.php?idno=86).
4
Rev. John Burt died while fleeing the bombardment of Bristol by the British on 7 October 1775, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Benjamin West had known Rev. Burt well for thirty years at that point – from his childhood to his marriage to Elizabeth Smith. We can assume that the bombardment of his hometown and the death of his friend and mentor made the war personal for Benjamin West. See Wilfred Harold Monro, The History of Bristol, Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island: J.A. & R.A. Reid, 1880, 208, digital image, The Internet Archive (www.archive.org : accessed 6 Mar 2022); and “A Revolution is Brewing,” The Rhode Island Slave History Medallion Project, Linden Place newsletter, Bristol, Rhode Island: Linden Place (www.lindenplace.org : accessed 6 March 2022).
5
United States Bureau of the Census. A century of population growth from the first census of the United States to the twelfth, 1790-1900, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909. p. 162. The Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/centuryofpopulat00unit/page/162/mode/2up
6
The Harvard President was a direct descendant of the John Winthrop whose 1630 fleet began the Great Migration. The earlier Winthrop was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the persecutor of Anne Marbury Hutchinson.
7
See a list of Brown University’s observations of the transits of the planets at the Ladd Observatory.
8
See a copy of the 27-page tract on the Brown University website, complete with diagrams.
9
“Eleven Early American Almanacs, 1733-1795, Including Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard Improved, 1755,” Bauman’s Rare Books, citing Sagendorph, 116. This auction offering, for $15,000, includes two (and possibly five) of Benjamin West’s almanacs.
10
Howard M. Chapin, “Checklist of Rhode Island Almanacs 1643-1850,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 25:19-54 (April 1915), p. 23.
11
Howard M. Chapin, “Checklist of Rhode Island Almanacs 1643-1850,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 25:19-54 (April 1915), p. 23.
12
Howard M. Chapin, “Checklist of Rhode Island Almanacs 1643-1850,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 25:19-54 (April 1915), p. 24.
13
Howard M. Chapin, “Checklist of Rhode Island Almanacs 1643-1850,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 25:19-54 (April 1915), pp. 25-26.
14
Allan R. Raymond, “To Reach Men’s Minds: Almanacs and the American Revolution, 1760-1777, The New England Quarterly, September 1978, 51:370-395, 372 http://www.jstor.org/stable/364614.
15
Marion Barber Stowell, “Revolutionary Almanac-Makers: Trumpeters of Sedition.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 73, no. 1 (1979): 41–61, 42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24302752.
16
ibid, p. 45. The article’s author notes that “The West almanac for 1766 was printed by Sarah Goddard and her son, William. On 21 Sept. 1765 William Goddard published his sensational Constitutional Courant, a patriotic polemic for the Whig cause.” That being said, Benjamin West’s own strongly Whig sentiments are not lost to history.
17
Allan R. Raymond, “To Reach Men’s Minds: Almanacs and the American Revolution, 1760-1777, The New England Quarterly, September 1978, 51:370-395, 374 http://www.jstor.org/stable/364614.
18
Find a Grave memorial # 13165832 for John Burt, at the Congregational Churchyard cemetery in Bristol, R.I. (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13165832).
19
During the Revolutionary War, the British Royal Navy bombarded Bristol twice. On October 7, 1775, a group of ships led by Captain Wallace and HMS Rose sailed into town and demanded provisions. When refused, Wallace shelled the town, causing much damage. The attack was stopped when Lieutenant-Governor William Bradford rowed out to Rose to negotiate a cease-fire. Bristol and the neighboring town of Warren, RI, suffered a second attack by the British on 25 May 1778, when 500 British and Hessian troops marched through the main street (now called Hope Street (RI Route 114)) and burned 30 barracks and houses, taking some prisoners to Newport.

Rev. Burt was born in Boston and educated at Harvard. After the French and Indian War of the 1750s-1760s, Burt was adamantly anti-Catholic and anti-French.¹⁹John F. Quinn, “From Dangerous Threat to “Illustrious Ally : Changing Perceptions of Catholics in Eighteenth Century Newport,” Rhode Island History, 2017, 75:56,60, accessed 6 Mar 2022.
20
Rhode Island Census, 1774, p. 53, Record for Benjamin West in Providence, Rhode Island. Ancestry, website (www. ancestry.com : accessed 6 Mar 2022). In his household, there were two white males over the age of 16, one white male under the age of 16, two white females over 16, and three white females under 16. Assuming he and his wife are two of the people over 16, this report allows for two sons and four daughters in the household. Two others may have died young, been living elsewhere, or not yet born.
21
James N. Arnold, Rhode Island Vital Extracts, 1636-1850, Vol. 6: Bristol County, pp. 50, and citing Bristol Marriage Record Book 1:125. Providence, Rhode Island: Narragansett Publishing Company, 1891-1912.
22
“Probate files, early to 1885 (Pawtucket, R.I.),” Pawtucket (Rhode Island). Court of Probate. Probate files, 1, 5-85, Estate of Joseph Smith (1768), images 363-373 of 1199, FHL Film 2364533. FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 6 March 2022)
23
in the Drowne Family Papers (MS Drowne)
24
Benjamin West Papers, MSS 794.
25
MSS 313.
26
Larkin Newby Papers, 1796-1884. Collection Number: 03247.

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