60 



1660. "It is ordered, that hereafter no cottage or dwel- 

 ling place shall be admitted to the privilege of common- 

 age for wood, timber, and herbage, or any other the 

 privileges that lie in common in any town or peculiar, 

 but such as already are in being or hereafter shall be 

 erected by the consent of the town." 



These facts bring us to a conclusion that hardly admits 

 of a doubt, that this house, which has so long been an 

 object of attraction for visitors from all parts of the 

 world, on account of its connection with the AYitchcraft 

 tragedy of 1692, and as the residence of one of the 

 judges, must now acquire an added interest as having 

 been once the home of Roger Williams. 



Here then, within these very walls, lived, two hundred 

 and thirty-tive years ago, that remarkable and truly heroic 

 man, who in his devotion to the principle of free con- 

 science, and liberty of religious belief untrammelled 

 by civil power, penetrated in midwinter the depths of an 

 unknown wilderness, to seek a new home : a home which 

 he could only tind among savages, whose respect for the 

 benevolence and truthfulness of his character made them 

 then and ever afterwards his constant friends. From this 

 spacious and pleasant mansion he fled through the deep 

 snows of a New England forest, leaving his wife and 

 young children to the care of Providence, whose silent 

 "voice," speaking through the conscience, was his only 

 support and guide. The State which he founded may 

 ever look back with a just pride upon the history of Roger 

 Williams. 



