230202ind Cranston-Historic

A late 19th century image shows the Phillips Family mansion house, Mowbra Castle, which was located on Tower Hill Road until it was destroyed by fire in the early 1960’s.

I have no idea exactly when during the mid-1700s that Newport Philips entered this world but I do know the “where” and the “what” of his beginnings. What he was, from the instance of his birth, was a slave, and where he endured that servitude was on the enormous Philips Farm centered around their manor house “Mowbra Castle.”

The Philips family was most assuredly among the landed gentry of the region; and although they are never mentioned as members of the Narragansett Planter elite, I’ve got to say that I’m not sure why not. Philips’ landholdings in the 18th century were measured in the hundreds and hundreds of acres, the Mowbra Castle was arguably the largest and finest home on the West Bay and finally, and most importantly, their agriculturally focused business dealings were accomplished throughout the period with ample quantities of slave labor. Newport Philips was one of those slaves.  

Early on in his existence, no written record exists of the milestones in his life. With the exception of perhaps the financial ledgers of their owners such things were not deemed worthy of notation as no one goes down to the Town Clerk and records the birth of an ox or the marriage of a good herd dog so why take that effort with a slave, which many owners famously viewed as property rather than people?

But then in March of 1789, something quite remarkable occurred. It was something worthy of recording in the permanent record of our fair town, something actually worthy of a celebration and the most momentous event, for certain, in Newport Philips’ life: his owner, it seemed, had a change of heart.

Newport Philips, once owned by Samuel Philips, was the property of Peter Philips. Peter Philips transferred ownership of Newport to neighbor Beriah Waite and in that month both men went down to the Town Clerk and proceeded to do something life changing for Newport and slave brethren Jack Phillips — they legally set them free.

The legal term for this is manumission and Beriah Waite filled out an order of manumission for Newport Philips and Peter Philips did the same for Jack.

I expect these actions were motivated in part by the Quaker faith practiced by both men, but there is no way to be certain of this. Additionally they both put up a $100 bond as a surety guaranteeing that Newport and Jack would do nothing as free men to break the laws of the State of Rhode Island. Both documents, recorded by Town Clerk George Thomas and witnessed by Benjamin Davis, mentioned “setting him free to his own use and liberty” done in “recognition and consideration of good servitude and labour.”

In other words, Newport and Jack as of that day were not only free men but they were entitled to whatever they earned for themselves, they owed no man anything. Certainly a copy of these certificates was given to each man and they were sent on their way grasping the most important piece of paper of their lives.  

Newport seems to have stayed in North Kingstown for a time, but by 1800 he is living as a free black man in Portsmouth, working as a farm laborer. Evidently somewhere around that time he met a slave woman named Margaret owned by the wealthy Easton family of Portsmouth and Middletown. They fell in love and became man and wife, although due to Margaret’s status as a slave, no marriage was recorded.

They had at least two children together, John and Phebe, and those children, due to the staggered state of Rhode Island’s legal path towards the end of slavery — spelled out in Rhode Island’s 1784 gradual emancipation legislation — were technically born free, although typically, bound to their mother’s owner by the same law that stated her owner was financially responsible for them until they attained the age of 21.

This though, did not seem to be the case here as the 1810 census of Portsmouth shows Newport Philips as a free black head of household with two other family members, most likely John and Phebe.  

By 1820, Margaret shows up in Portsmouth as the head of household with the children under her care. Newport was back in North Kingstown at that juncture in time, working again as a farm laborer, saving money, socking it away, planning something extraordinary.

On April 1st, 1824, Newport Philips, a free black man, made his way to Middletown with money and his writ of manumission in hand and went to buy his wife of more than two decades. The results of that transaction were recorded in the town ledgers of Middletown just as his manumission had been recorded here in Wickford some 35 years earlier. Newport and Margaret Philips both left Middletown on that day free. What a glory day that must have been.

This remarkable couple disappears from the record at this point; I don’t know when or where they breathed their last breaths, although I expect it was either North Kingstown or Portsmouth. Their son John stayed on in Portsmouth and married Patience Sherman. They had at least one child, James, together and John, who worked his whole life as a farmhand, died in 1876.

Their son James lived in Newport as an adult, had a wife named Louise and was a fisherman until the end of his days. Newport and Margaret’s daughter Phebe eventually married Daniel N. Morse, a sexton at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Providence’s second ward. They had children together and she died in 1871. The slave Newport Philips lives on through the heirs of his children and grand children wherever they may be.

The old Philips family graveyard can be found in the midst of the Haverhill neighborhood off of Tower Hill Road on land that was once part of the vast family holdings; in it stand a number of fine gravestones of this important family.

The slave graveyard of those same Philips’ is lost as of now; it was last seen in the 1950s and was noted to include 17 graves, the two named of them, Lonnon’s and Hagar’s, were inscribed forever with the phrase “servant of Christopher Philips.” Lonnon could have been Newport’s father or Hagar could have been his mother. Newport and Margaret may well be buried here or perhaps under a similar unmarked stone in Portsmouth. Wherever they are is of no real consequence I guess; what matters is that they are together and forever free.

The author is the North Kingstown town historian. The views expressed here are his own.

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