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Trustee Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites
In November 2000,
the National Trust for Historic Preservation presented this prestigious
award to The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America "for
acquiring, restoring, and interpreting a collection of historic properties
that offer invaluable opportunities to experience the rich variety of
America's heritage."
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NSCDA in Rhode Island Museum Properties
The NSCDA in Rhode Island
has two historical properties' projects in that state. The
Governor Stephen
Hopkins House is in Providence and
Whitehall is in Middletown.
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GOVERNOR STEPHEN HOPKINS HOUSE
(1708)
Address:
15 Hopkins Street, Providence, RI 02903
Telephone:
(401)
421-0694
Directions:
From I-95, take 195 East to 2nd
Street Exit (Wickenden Street). Follow signs. Take immediate
2nd left under bridge, go straight to Benefit Street, and continue to Hopkins
Street. The house is on the SW corner.
Open:
Saturday-Sunday 1-4 p.m.
Web site:
www.StephenHopkins.org
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Photograph by Erik Kvalsvik
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In 1743, Stephen Hopkins purchased
a home supposed to have been built in 1708. To the structure, Hopkins
attached his own two-story house, built with a single ground floor room
on either side of a central hallway and two chimneys (one for each main
floor room with chamber above). He installed a fine staircase with
stocky balusters set in a heavy, molded closed string course, and good
paneling and trim. The handsome shell cupboard over the fireplace
and the overdoor panels are similar to other homes built before the Revolutionary
War.
The furnishings are similar to those
Governor Hopkins is known to have owned. Hopkins' own possessions
on display include two Queen Anne chairs, his silver porringer, shoe buckles,
baby bonnet, and shoes.
Governor Hopkins was one of the
two Rhode Island Signers of the Declaration of Independence. George
Washington visited Hopkins in his house.
Alden Hopkins, a descendant of Governor
Hopkins' brother, and resident landscape architect at Colonial Williamsburg
designed the 18th-century parterre garden.
NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK
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WHITEHALL
(1729)
Address:
311 Berkeley Avenue,
Middletown, RI 02842-5392
Telephone:
(401) 846-3116 or (401) 847-7951
Open:
Daily,
July 1 through Labor Day: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Other times by appointment. Tours are welcome.
Closed:
Mondays.
Directions:
Three miles north of Newport on
Berkeley Avenue, between Route 138 and Green End Avenue.
Web site:
www.whitehallmuseumhouse.org
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Photograph by Erik Kvalsvik
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Whitehall, built by the renowned
philosopher, Bishop George Berkeley, and in which he lived while in America,
was given in 1900 to The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America
in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations as a perpetual
memorial to him.
Berkeley had hoped to establish
a college in Bermuda for the purpose of educating colonists and native
Indians for the ministry. He bought 96 acres of farmland surrounding
the house as a base of supplies for the college. Failing to receive
the promised funds from the Crown, he returned to Ireland, giving his entire
holdings to Yale College.
The house is an unusual hip-roofed
building with a long, sloping lean-to across the back and a Palladian doorway.
The colonial furnishings and the herb garden, designed and maintained by
the Newport Garden Club, are in keeping with the period of 1729-1731 when
Berkeley resided there.
NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES
ACCREDITED: NSCDA MUSEUM
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