Monday, April 30, 2007

Tate Collection Photos

Long Speech at the Meeting House

This week I've been working on some negatives from the Florence Tate Collection.

This speech on the steps of the Old School Baptist Meeting House appears to have been delivered after a parade. Everyone seems tired and bored, and you can imagine them thinking, "Is he ever going to stop??"

Judging from the other negatives in the group, this appears to be from around 1940.


Boston Tea Party Comes to Warwick

This shot shows the corner of Main St. and Colonial Ave. Baird's Tavern at center, two houses to left of the Tavern is the old Wheeler Mansion which was torn down.

The house on the right of the Tavern is the old Cowdry House, standing where the current Key Bank Parking Lot is. John Cowdry, Sr., moved to Warwick and John Jr. was born here. The family owned the Key Bank/Hoyt home at one time, and had a store just about where this house was built, but the original building was torn down after 1865. (there's a photo of it in the photo book "Days Gone By")

John Sr. as a youth helped dump tea into the harbor during the Boston Tea Party,(his obituary, from 1835, clearly documents this, see below) This shot is from around 1940.

Obituary of John Cowdrey

(as it appeared in the Southern Patriot, Feb. 04, 1835)