Newport Daily News
Despite a restriction on outside visitors, Salve Regina University’s Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery has a new exhibit on display: a series of 30 drawings depicting familiar Newport streets as they appeared during the early 20th century..
The drawings, drafted by lifetime Aquidneck Island resident John Howard Benson, were commissioned by The Newport Daily News for its annual calendar. The gallery walls display one drawing per year in chronological order, the main subject of each being a building in Newport. Some of the buildings depicted are long gone, while some are still-standing, such as White Horse Tavern and Newport Tower.
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Rhode Island Rescues
Photograph by Gavin Ashworth. All photographs courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County, Newport, Rhode Island.
The story of the Preservation Society begins with the mission to rescue Hunter House (Fig. 1) and the question put to financier George Henry Warren Jr. after its purchase by his wife, Katherine Warren: “Well, you’ve got this house, now what are you going to do with it?”
In 1945, Newport stone carver John Howard Benson became alarmed that Hunter House a rare surviving waterfront property with deep ties to Newport’s history might be irretrievably lost. The residence was no longer needed by the Rhode Island Catholic Diocese, which had used it for a convent, and its survival was in jeopardy. So concerned was Benson that he and John Perkins Brown, whose Georgian Society also wished to save Hunter House, decided to speak with the Warrens. Benson and Brown traveled to the couple’s winter residence in New York City to warn, “the grea