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View in the Grounds of George H. Norman, Newport, R. I. 



THE GARDENS OF NEWPORT— III. 



A TREELESS WASTE MADE BEAUTIFUL A STUDY OF THE BEECHES. 



THE close of the Revolutionary 

 war, according to " the authori- 

 ties," there was not a tree in 

 Newport. During the struggle 

 for independence the town had 

 been captured by the British, in 

 whose possession it remained 

 for a long time. Though not 

 able to enter and repossess the 

 city, the American army hovered near, and both 

 the garrison and the people were shut up in close 

 confinement and without access to the ordinary 

 source of supplies. The records show that among 

 other things there was a great scarcity of fuel, and 

 that one by one the trees were cut down to meet 

 the demand. Even the orchards and the smaller 

 fruit trees and shrubs were brought into requisition, 

 and these not fully meeting the wants of citizens 

 and soldiers, the timbers in the wharves were torn 

 from their places and burned. It has sometimes 

 been charged that this destruction was wanton, but 

 it is not to be credited that the captors should go so 

 far as to denude the town, then one of the chief 



seaports of America, for purposes of punishment 

 and revenge. An old diary, kept by a loyal citizen 

 of those trying days, refers several times to the 

 scarcity of fuel, and once or twice to the joy of the 

 people when a sloop or other sailing vessel from the 

 Narragansett country entered the harbor laden with 

 fire wood. But it contains no hint that the scarcity 

 was the result of other causes than those arising 

 from the necessity growing out of the stern conflicts 

 of the time. 



It is almost impossible to think of Newport, which 

 is now little less than a great park, as thus wretch- 

 edly barren and forlorn, and it is little wonder that 

 the spirit of the people was broken and that many 

 of her most enterprising sons and daughters re- 

 moved to more inviting localities, for a country with- 

 out trees has few charms. The very mention of a 

 treeless mountain or a treeless plain suggests visions 

 of ugliness and discomfort difficult to chase away. 

 It matters little what treasures of architecture a 

 town may possess, or what historic associations 

 may cluster about its name, if in the absence of trees 

 there is no just proportion of sunshine and shadow 



