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| Gov. Arthur
Fenner,
Jr. (1745-1805) The Gaspee Days Committee at www.gaspee.COM is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates many community events in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the famous Gaspee Days Parade each June. These events are all designed to commemorate the 1772 burning of the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, by Rhode Island patriots as America's 'First Blow for Freedom' TM. Our historical research center, the Gaspee Virtual Archives at www.gaspee.ORG , has presented these research notes as an attempt to gather further information on one who has been suspected of being associated with the the burning of the Gaspee. Please e-mail your comments or further questions to webmaster@gaspee.org. |
| Evidence implicating Arthur
Fenner, Jr. From: <http://www.gaspee.org/StaplesGaspee.htm> p.53 John Andrews, Esq., Judge of the court of Vice Admiralty within the Colony of Rhode Island; Mr. Arthur Fenner, Clerk in the Supreme Court in the county of Providence; Messrs. John Cole, George Brown, and Daniel Hitchcock, Attorneys at Law in the town of Providence; James Sabin, Vintner in the town of Providence.From: <http://www.gaspee.org/StaplesGaspee.htm> p. 98 The Admiral also delivered to the commissioners, a list of persons who reside in Providence as material witnesses relative to the assembling of the people prior to the attacking the Gaspee, in consequence of which they ordered a summons to be issued for John Andrews, Esq., John Cole, Esq., Daniel Hitchcock, Esq., and George Brown, Attorneys at Law, and Arthur Fenner and James Sabin, to attend on Wednesday next at 11 o'clock, which was issued accordingly. The summonses were delivered to Samuel dark, who was sent as express by the commissioners at 20 minutes after 3 o'clock.From <http://gaspee.org/StaplesGaspee.htm> p.69. Arthur Fenner to Governor Wanton, relative to the Gaspee PROVIDENCE,
Jan.
19,
1773.
HONORABLE SIR:—I
received
a
citation, signed by you and a number of
other
gentlemen, commanding my attendance at the Colony
House in Newport, on
the twentieth day of January instant, to give in
evidence to what I
know
relative to the attacking, taking and plundering his
Majesty's schooner
called the Gaspee, &c.; in consequence of which I
now inform you,
that
I am a man of seventy-four years of age, and very
infirm, and at the
time
said schooner was taken and plundered, I was in my
bed, and I knew
nothing
of it until next day; and as for my not attending as
commanded, I must
plead my age and infirmity in excuse.
From your most
obedient friend and humble servant,
ARTHUR
FENNER.
To the Honorable
JOSEPH
WANTON,
Esq.
Aha! For this above to be true the subpoena intended for Arthur Fenner, the Clerk in the Supreme Court of Providence, must have been given instead to his father, Arthur Fenner [Sr]. (1699-1788). It's likely that the Commissioners did not know there was more than one Arthur Fenner of Providence when the subpoena was issued. Arthur Fenner was given his subpoena by William Mumford, Esq. Jr. Mumford being a lawyer (and John Cole's business partner, and later Col. Daniel Hitchcock's law partner), surely must've known that there was more than one Arthur Fenner in Providence. By intentionally misdirecting the subpoena to the wrong man, Mumford was taking advantage of an old trick mastered by the Irish to frustrate the British bureaucracy by giving many family members the same name. William Mumford was deposed by the Commission on June 5th, 1773, ascertaining that he did, indeed, deliver the summons to Arthur Fenner, (and charged for his services). But he apparently did not relate to the Commissioners that there was more than one gentleman by that name....Mumford kept mum [ick]. Mumford's deposition is the only item of record held by the RI State Archives that was not published in either Staples' or Barlett's collection of Gaspee papers. We dutifully inquired about this with the RI State Archives, but they reported that it was merely a case of Mumford's deposition being unglorifully glued into a spot were the previous compilers could not access it. We can only guess as to why the subpoena was delivered by William Mumford rather than by Samuel Dark, who had delivered subpoenas to the other men mentioned It is curious that although we note that Andrews, Cole, and Brown each presented in person to testify before the Commission, we have no record of either the younger or the elder Fenner having done so. Nothing further was done in this regard by the Royal Commissioners, however, and the matter was dropped. But Fenner, of course, owned the wharf from where the raiding party set out to attack the Gaspee in June 1772. Arthur Fenner, Jr. would've been age 26 at the time of the Gaspee attack, and it is said that he kept the summons as a souvenir, and passed it on to his grandchildren. From <http://www.gaspee.org/StaplesForwardIntro.htm> p. xxviii The absence of the key witnesses highlighted this session of the inquiry. Arthur Fenner and John Andrews pleaded ill health, and George Brown, John Cole, and Daniel Hitchcock the press of business. Hitchcock and Cole apparently collaborated on their testimony concerning events in Sabin Tavern the night of the raid. One day before, Brown, Cole, and Hitchcock had told Hopkins that they intended to refuse to appear before the commissioners, presumably on the advice they had received earlier from Sam Adams. Adams had challenged the jurisdiction of the commissioners, but Hopkins obviously convinced them to move away from this kind of direct challenge and to submit written depositions instead. Misrepresentation, intimidation, and evasion are all evident here in this first session.In either event, Arthur Fenner, Jr. may have deliberately shown contempt of court [the Royally appointed Commission of Inquiry] if he did fail to testify. In either event, he was well heralded for his refusal to cooperate with the Commission. The 12June1773 edition of the Providence Gazette (republished in several Boston papers) reported that at a meeting of the Providence Town Council:
Daniel
Hitchcock, Esq., Attorney at Law, and Arthur
Fenner, jun,
Esq; Clerk of the Superior Court, were
likewise summoned to
appear
before said Commissioners, and have done themselves
high Honour, in
nobly refusing to pay them the least Regard.
So we pose the question of just why Arthur Fenner was subpoenaed in the first place. Although his name was mentioned by Montagu in the same breath as the four lawyers, he wasn't reported by them to be at the Sabin Tavern with Andrews, Cole, Brown, & Hitchcock. Perhaps he was still working at the court house when they left. Or perhaps he was more deeply involved than we have been led to believe by previous historians. We'll never know more until more evidence turns up. |
Biographical
Information: Left:
Arthur Fenner from larger unknown painting. Click to
enlargeThe 1770 List of Providence Taxpayers finds that Arthur Fenner owned two properties, one on Main Street across from the Great Bridge/Town Parade and that we know was a dwelling house, and the other directly across from the Sabin Tavern, which was the famous wharf from which the raiding party set out. This wharf was also apparently the dock site for the packet and ferry service between Providence and Newport operated by Gaspee co-conspiritor Benjamin Lindsay. Whether this property was owned by Arthur Fenner the elder or younger is subject to conjecture, but it seems more likely that it was Arthur, Sr. The following is excerpted from the Early American Newspapers collection through the NEHGS web site. We note that Arthur Junior published his first court notice as clerk 29Feb1772, and although he was anointed with the suffix 'Esq,' we note that he was not yet called a lawyer as were the other gentlemen, at least not in 1773 at the time of the subpoena fiasco above. He possibly began his own practice of law sometime latter, but he was still Clerk of the Superior Court in Providence as of June 1780, and in 1981 assumed the additional duties of Clerk of the Inferior Court in Providence as well. In June of 1785 we note that he was advertising real estate. In 1786 he was replaced as Clerk of the Superior Court in Providence by a Daniel Cooke, although Fenner retained his post in the Inferior Court, but Cooke left his position the next year to become Providence Town Clerk, Fenner resumed both positions, and later became Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court. In June 1786 he was appointed by the Providence Town Council (along with Gaspee raider John Brown) to the committee responsible "To value Estates when disputed in voting.", and to the Fire Engine Company No. 1 (near the Great Bridge). The next June he was also appointed to the committee "for superintending and regulating the Market." At some point he served for 13 years as the President of the Providence Town Council. By 1787 he was noted to have his own office in Providence. In February 1790 he was elected to the standing committee of the Abolition Society headed by Moses Brown. It seems that according to a letter to the editor of the Newport Mercury 15April1790, when Deputy Governor Owen had refused to serve, Arthur Fenner became a compromise proxy candidate for Governor by both the Federalist and the Anti-Federalists in 1790. He was elected Governor of Rhode Island in May 1790, with Samuel J. Potter serving as his Deputy Governor. In June of 1790 the State of Rhode Island formally ratified the Constitution of the United States, becoming the very last state to do so. He was annually re-elected Governor of Rhode Island, and served an astounding 15 years in that post.. In April 1795 he advertised that the Providence copartnership of Fenner & White had been dissolved. In January 1802 it was published that he was four years in arrears of property taxes for two homes he owned in Smithfield (totaling $13.69--AH, THE GOOD OLD DAYS!). A series of rather bizarre articles appeared in area newspapers (eg., see Newport Mercury 13April1803 pages 1-3) accusing Governor Fenner of all sorts of misdeeds including fraud, blasphemy, slander, forgery, whoring, and intemperance. It is possible that some of the disdain exhibited in the press for the Governor was related to several factors. First it was an election year and a New Proxy [party] Anti-Federalists led by former governor William Greene and a George Brown were trying to unseat him. Secondly, there was a furor of anti-taxation sentiment from the more rural communities. Lastly, there was venom from veterans groups that demanded back pay owed them from the days of the Revolution; the whole thing was called the "Matter of Crary's Balances". It seems that the House of representatives had passed an act requesting the United States government to make such payment, but Fenner had blocked the bill. In either event, he had got into a major pissing match lawsuit with Superior Court Judge Dorrance over a debt owed, and the whole affair along with a settlement for one dollar was published in the paper and in a pamphlet. More compelling was a case in which it was related that Governor Fenner, under his mercantile business of Fenner, White & Power, c1785 had committed fraud by repeatedly selling a ship, the sloop Mesmer, they no longer owned and by selling off cargo he did not own. The case was tried in Circuit Court of Appeals for Rhode Island, where, it was alleged, Fenner was found liable for extensive damages (over $3,000 for the ship alone) to the plaintiff, a Madame Le Gras. In 1775, From History of Providence County, Rhode Island, by Richard M. Bayles, New York, 1891, Page 181: In pursuance of the
recommendation of the continental congress a "
committee of inspection
" was appointed by this town on December 17th, which
consisted of the
following men: William Earl, Nicholas
Cooke, Benjamin Man, Zephaniah
Andrews, Arthur
Fenner, Jr.,
Ambrose Page, Nicholas Power, George
Corlis, Paul Allen,
David
Lawrence, Joseph Russell, Job Sweeting, Joseph Bucklin, Jonathan
Arnold, Bernard Eddy, Aaron Mason, Joseph
Brown and Nathaniel Wheaton.
The committee was vigilant in carrying out the
purposes for which they
were appointed. In accord with the recommendation of
congress they
urged the entire abstinence from the use of East India
tea after March
1st, 1775.
From: Field's State
of
Rhode
Island. 1902., Vol II p21, in discussing the
health and medical
climate of Providence at the time points out the
preeminent role the
alcohol trade had at the times: In the latter part
of the
eighteenth century the principal manufacturing
business of Providence
was the distillation of rum. The river front was
marked at short
intervals with distilleries, which were then termed
still-houses. To
economically dispose of the refuse grains, large
droves of hogs were
kept, generally in the cellars of the still-houses,
with a yard at the
back, fronting on the water, where the animals rooted
and wallowed in
the slime. This practice of course created an
insufferable
nuisance.
Another large industry was the slaughtering of cattle
and hogs. One of
the slaughter houses stood, in 1791, on the west side
of the [Great]
bridge; another, belonging to Governor
Fenner, was located adjoining
the north side of the east approach to the bridge, and
a distillery
stood just north of this, all three of which were
treated as nuisances
[Providence Town Papers, 6368]. Just
to
the south of the market
was another distillery, with its accompanying
complement of hogs. Aside
from ship-building, the next largest industry was
tanning, the
establishments for which were mostly scattered along
the valley of the
Moshassuck River. Here were tanned not only the skins
taken off in the
slaughter houses, but also large importations of green
hides from the
warm countries of the Spanish main. After being taken
from the vessels
the hides were usually placed in storage near the
harbor until needed
in the tanneries. A manufactory of spermaceti candles
was also early
established. Every one of these industries was in some
degree a
nuisance, and at the present day would not be
tolerated within any
municipal corporation.
The following is copied from Wikipedia: Arthur Fenner (b. December 10, 1745; d. October 15, 1805) served as the governor of Rhode Island from 1790 until his death in 1805. He served as governor of Rhode Island from 1790 to 1805 and died in office. Arthur was governor of Rhode Island when it became the last of the thirteen colonies to ratify the Constitution on 29 May 1790. The following quote is from the Dictionary of American Biography: In
March of 1790,
the contest between Federalists and
Anti-Federalists in Rhode Island reached its height,
(and) the
long-delayed convention to decide upon the adoption
of the Constitution
(had) been called, (with) Governor Collins having
become unpopular in
consequence. (With the elections approaching,)
Deputy-Governor Owens
was offered the governor-ship by the
Anti-Federalists, but declined to
serve. ‘A movement,’ says Arnold, ‘was made in
Providence to form a
coalition party. The Newport committee united with
them in proposing
(to put on the ballot) Arthur Fenner, an
Anti-Federalist. The
Anti-Federalists triumphed, and on May 5, 1790, the
general assembly
declared Fenner governor and Samuel J. Potter
deputy-governor. Opposition
to
entering the Union was so strong, … (that a vote to
adopt the Constitution) was delayed until the last
week in May, and
when on the 29th, a decision was reached, the vote
stood thirty-four to
thirty-two in favor of adopting the
Constitution. Governor
Fenner was
very popular, and continued in office, serving at
the time of his death.
|
| Genealogical
notes: According to Whipple.org and FennerFamily.com we compile the following genealogy: Our man was descended from the Arthur Fenner who was one of the first settlers of Cranston, RI in the 17th Century, and whose son was also an Arthur Fenner, Jr.. Arthur
Fenner, Jr., Governor of Rhode Island 1789-1805
BIRTH: 10 Dec
1745,
Providence, Rhode Island
DEATH: 15 Oct 1805, Providence, Rhode Island BURIAL: North Burial Ground, North Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island (as were many Gaspee raiders) Father: Arthur
Fenner
(17 Oct
1699 - 28 Jan 1788), obituary (reprinted in
Pennsylvania) relates that
he was "employed in the executive part of government,
and afterwards as
a justice of the peace--He was a number of years a
Merchant of
eminence."
Mother: Mary Olney (30 Sep 1704 - 18 Mar 1756) [A GreatGranddaughter of Chad Brown] Marriage 1: Amey Comstock (ABT 1749 - 5 Sep 1828), the daughter of Gideon Comstock of Main Street, Providence & Smithfield who happened to be 4th Justice of the Superior Court. Children:
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| We present Arthur Fenner, Jr as an unindicted co-conspiritor in the Gaspee Affair, guilty of obstruction by evading a subpoena. In doing this, we acknowledge him as a patriot to the cause of American independence. |
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