Prepared by Traci Picard
August 30, 2024

Author’s Note: The narrative provided below is preliminary as research on Shakespeare’s Head is ongoing.

Who was John Carter?

John Carter was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1745 to John Carter and Elizabeth Spriggs. He apprenticed as a printer under Benjamin Franklin. Carter moved to Providence c. 1766 and entered into a business partnership with printer Sarah Updike Goddard, who published the Providence Gazette. After about two years, Goddard left the business to Carter, and he became sole proprietor. He would hold this role for most of his life, taking on another partner (Wilkinson) only briefly. Carter married a Providence woman whose family had strong roots in Providence — Amey Crawford — and they built the house now known as Shakespeare’s Head. 

Carter made investments in several local ships in the 1770s, mainly privateers:

• Carter bought a 1/32 share of the Hero, built in 1778; 
• Carter bought a share of the sloop Kingbird, 1778;
• Carter bought a share of Seven Brothers;
• Carter bought a share of the sloop General Wayne, privateer in 1779.

He then tried to buy into a land deal in Charleston, South Carolina in 1791. It appears that this was ill-fated, as so many land speculation schemes were at this time.  John Wood Sweet calls Carter “the sympathetic slaveholder,” (244) and notes that the Providence Gazette “allowed” Moses Brown to insert several anti-slavery statements into the paper (Carter also allowed Moses’ brother John to publish pro-slavery statements). Sweet contrasts the Gazette with the Newport Mercury, which denied local abolitionists any column space at all in the 1770s. Sweet states that the Mercury only allowed “pieces that evoke the moral problem of slavery in less direct and more ambiguous ways.” (245) At the time, Newport was socially and economically entirely dependent on the slave trade and the business of slavery, while Providence was relatively less so.

Rappleye makes it clear that Carter “readily made space in his paper for abolitionist tracts from as far away as Philadelphia and London” (260) while at the same time he was “a printer, not an activist.” He printed John Brown’s claim that “slavery was right, just and lawful.” (261). The position of the Gazette in relationship to slavery and abolition is ambiguous — interpreting his intent two centuries later is challenging.

Who was Amey Crawford Carter?

In September of 1766, Thomas Lyndsey had “One galloon New England rum delivered to Joseph Crawford’s little Negro.” [BFBR box 1221] Joseph, the father of Amey Crawford Carter, came from a Providence family which included both enslavers and captains. 

What do we know about who lived in Shakespeare’s Head in the colonial period?

A house’s history is rarely a relationship between just a single person and a building, yet history books and plaques often reinforce that paradigm. During John Carter’s life, this building housed John and his wife, all of their children, two enslaved people, a number of apprentices, a large number of renters and boarders, and most likely additional servants and workers. Though large, it seems like it was often very full. In house histories, women are often overlooked, leaving out a significant piece of the picture.

The enslaved people of Shakespeare’s Head

There is evidence that two enslaved people lived in this house. Their names were Ingow and Fanny, and according to Carter’s manumission document, Ingow was Fanny’s mother. Carter freed Ingow in 1789, and it appears that he legally freed Fanny at that time, but she continued on as an indentured servant (it was the custom at that time for girls to remain indentured until age 18, and boys until age 21). This manumission was mentioned briefly in Rappleye’s book, where he cited John Wood Sweet’s Bodies Politic. Sweet cited the source as “Moses Brown Papers.” In the 1774 Providence census, the Carter household contained eleven people total, and two were identified as Black. In the 1790 census, the Carter household contains one Black resident, who is likely Fanny,

It has been unusually difficult to find information about these two women. The clues we have are few. In 1774, John Carter noted that he paid Arthur Fenner “to cyder, and the remainder discounted on purchasing 2 Negroes” [Carter’s ledger, RIHS] This does not give us the full story of Ingow and Fanny, but tells us that most likely they were enslaved in the home of Arthur Fenner at some point before being sold to John Carter, at which point they moved to join the Carter household. In 1770, Carter accepted “a pair of shoes for a Negro wench” from Aaron Peck, and in 1773 he accepted the same from Ezra Healy.  This likely means that the two pairs of shoes, accepted by Carter as payment, were intended for the enslaved woman’s use. Most likely, Carter acquired the two enslaved people in 1769 or 1770, then finished settling his bill with Fenner in 1774. It was normal to pay off such a bill over time, sometimes in installments. An unresolved question is whether the seller was Arthur Fenner Junior or Senior; both were prominent figures in Providence, and one was Governor of the state.

In this period, urban enslaved women were very likely to work caring for the home and family — preparing food, cleaning the home, washing laundry and caring for children were all common jobs. The Brown Family Business Records indicate that contemporary enslaved women in Providence were also employed at making and repairing cloth and clothing. I have not found archival documentation about the specific day-to-day labor of Ingow or Fanny yet, or what room they lived in. There are several examples of enslaved people living in attics or garrets in Providence, as in the Stephen Hopkins House and the Joseph Brown House.

Apprentices and workers in the printing press

Primus King, 1777 enslaved by Benjamin King

Names and Dates of the Journeyman Printers:

• Nathaniel Mills: March 14, 1771-June 13, 1772
• Theophilus Cossart: late July, 1772-May 22, 1773
• William D. Lewis: early July, 1773-late February, 1774
• Daniel Bowen, 1774
• John Dabney: April 7-June 21, 1774; August 24, 1776-March 8,1777; April-June 7, 1777
• Nathaniel Davis: September 10, 1774-February 4, 1775; May 5-August 12 or September 2, 1775 
• Archibald Smith: April 17-May 5, 1775
• Thomas Greenleaf: September 6, 1775-April 10, 1776 
• James Hogan: late June-September 7, 1776
• Edward Pbelon: September 21-October 6, 1776 
• Bennett Wheeler: December, 1776-December 19, 1778 John McCarty: 1779-?
• Anthony Haswell: 1779

Author’s Note: the above taken from Marcus A. McCorison’s document The Wages of John Carter’s Journeyman Printers, 1771-1779. 

The John Carter family and the system of slavery

John and Amey Carter had 12 total and 9 surviving children, all of whom grew up in the Shakespeare’s Head house, and several of whom were the Carter heirs, and lived there after their parents’ death.

• Ann, 1770-1798
• Benjamin, 1771-1835
• John Jr, 1774-1815
• Rebecca, 1778-1837
• James, 1780-1812
• Crawford, 1782-1868
• William, 1785-1821
• Huldah, 1787-1842
• Elizabeth, 1790-1876

It appears that none of the Carter sons married or had children.

Ann married Nicholas Brown the 2nd, and this connection led to deep connections between the Carter and the Brown family businesses. Ann’s brothers sailed aboard Brown’s ships, often repeatedly. Nicholas, who came from a merchant family that enslaved about 40 people over two generations, was a vice president of the Providence Anti-Abolition Society.  [ProJo, 11-4-1835] At Ann’s funeral, “Prime and his son Isaac” walked beside the coffin, “one on each side of the hearse, outside the bearers.” This was most likely Primus Jencks, who also walked at the funeral of Nancy Jencks, Ann’s niece.

Benjamin went to Brown University and became a doctor. He was a close correspondent of Jonathan Maxcy’s. Benjamin traveled extensively aboard Brown family ships as the doctor, most often to China. He was ship’s surgeon aboard the Ann and Hope several times, including a 1799 voyage to Canton. He took several trips to Georgia. In 1792, he carried a letter from Oliver Bowen, Providence-born enslaver who spent many years in the Savannah area, introducing him to Thomas Glascock of Augusta. Benjamin never married, had an extensive wardrobe, and died in New York City. At the time of his death, he was also a shareholder in the Ohio Company, one of many land speculation companies at the time. In 1803, John Carter wrote to Benjamin that “among four sons I have one who does me honour, by promising fair to be respectable, nay, who is now respectable.” 

John Jr sailed for many years, and repeatedly went to the West Indies. He was in Copenhagen in 1792 and Suriname in 1793. The records he left are mysterious, as he once wrote to Benjamin, “I wish that you would send me home, by the first conveyance, the largest and most mischievous monkey you can purchase for love or money.” Eventually, he returned home and took on some of the work of the Gazette with his father.

Rebecca married Amos Throop Jenckes, and they attempted to set up a plantation in Cuba, in some kind of partnership with the notorious DeWolf family. Jenckes had plans drawn up for a coffee plantation, but he died in 1809, before the plan could be fully realized. The family did spend some time there, as letters from the Jencks family to Huldah Carter arrived from Cuba for several years before Amos’ death. It seems that Rebecca then returned to Providence. Their son Amos Jr was in Rio de Janeiro, then New Orleans during the 1840s and Virginia during the 1850s. Their daughter Sarah Jenckes wrote to Huldah Carter regularly from “the plantation of San Cyrilo,” a coffee plantation which they claim a W. B. Bowen had purchased after Amos Sr’s untimely death. Upon Rebecca’s death, she gave her share in the Carter estate to Charles Tillinghast, Francis Carter Jenckes and her two sons.

James seems to have been the most troubled son, with repeated references to his drunkenness, mishaps, injuries and itinerant nature in family letters. Many letters sail back and forth in the early 1800s citing John’s “illness and derangement,” and Benjamin suggests he just needs to switch to “tea and light soups.” He mainly took to the sea. John Sr. wrote to Benjamin that James “was found dead drunk on the mill bridge” one night. James felt strongly that he was unloved, telling Ben in 1804 that he had “enemies without number” and “friends but few.” John noted in 1805 that James had another “spell of insanity,” and that he was both “extremely troublesome as well as expensive.” The family eventually lost track of him, and he was presumed dead while at sea c. 1812.

Crawford is a bit of a mystery. He did go to sea early in his life, but later is listed as an accountant in Providence directories. In 1809 he was on a voyage to Rio de Janeiro. After his seagoing, he lived in the Carter house with a few exceptions until his death.

William was brought into the business of his brother-in-law Nicholas Brown. In 1800, Brown wrote to Amey Carter that he would take William “into the store and into my family.” William noted in an 1801 letter to Benjamin that he was working at the Brown and Ives store. It appears that he trained under Brown as an accountant, then traveled south to do that business for plantation owners. He worked in Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans before settling into work for John Ketcham in St. Francisville, Louisiana which was a major shipping hub about two hours outside of New Orleans. He seems to have been a bit sickly, complaining of “the jaundice,” amongst other things, and he died in St. Francisville at age 36. 

Huldah never married, appears to have always lived in the house, and seems to have been supported by inheritance and stocks. 

Elizabeth married Walter R. Danforth; this couple is of specific interest because they definitely occupied the house during the late antebellum period. Danforth was from an established Providence family, went to Brown and trained in law. He liked to write and he was involved in the Providence Gazette for 5 years, from 1820 to 1825. He then printed his own paper, called The Microcosm, for about 2 years, sold that to the Gazette, and worked in politics, history and law. His work is a bit peripatetic. Danforth won the Providence mayoral race in 1853 and held that seat for one year-long term. His memoirs were printed posthumously by the RIHS Journal in four installments in 1951. 

Was The Providence Gazette an “abolitionist newspaper”?

In a word, no.  The noted Brown University architectural historian William Jordy claimed that upon Carter’s taking over the Gazette in 1768, it became “strongly abolitionist.” Mack Thompson, in Moses Brown, Reluctant Reformer, notes several times that Carter “made space for” or “inserted” columns from Moses Brown and other abolitionists. This may be the source used by Jordy, but it is important to ask whether including occasional pro-abolition messages among a wide variety of messages makes the Providence Gazette an abolitionist newspaper.  An abolitionist newspaper is one that centers abolitionism, and each issue includes abolitionist content. Generally, the majority of content is pro-abolitionist or related in some way to the subject. No list of abolitionist newspapers that I have seen so far includes the Providence Gazette. I also know of no American newspaper considered an “abolitionist newspaper” in the pre-Revolutionary period. The vast majority of these papers existed in the antebellum era of the early to (mostly) mid-1800s.

An analysis of a dozen Gazettes from 1768 to 1790 shows that the Providence Gazette did occasionally print anti-slavery content. But it is highly unlikely that any true abolitionist newspaper would advertise for the sale of enslaved people, or for the capture of runaway slaves. The Providence Gazette did.

Where did content for this newspaper come from? The vast majority of newspaper content in the late 1700s came from local and foreign letters, advertising and other newspapers and publications. “The output of their presses fitted into the same categories, and there was little difference between the Newport Gazette and the Virginia Gazette.” [Wroth, 357] In the analysis, one can see smaller newspapers like the Gazette reprinting content from larger newspapers that were able to employ one or more writers, such as Philadelphia, New York City and London. Copyright laws were not then as they are now, and printers could pull passages from books and pamphlets as well. This has changed over time, especially as Providence grew, new media arrived to compete and the concepts of intellectual property and copyright emerged. The paper also printed letters and essays from local politicians and prognosticators, including Stehen Hopkins and the Browns.  It does not appear that John Carter wrote a significant amount of original content, or that he employed reporters.  He was a printer, not a reporter.

How did the Providence Gazette fit into the system of slavery?

A major factor in doing business is communication, and the Gazette enabled business to happen in and around Providence. This paper, like others of its time, consisted of about 25 to 50 percent advertising. The first two pages were mainly “news” items, and the last two pages were mainly ads, notices and listings of various types.  Shipping news told of merchant ships going to and from Providence, along with their cargo and destinations or origins. This includes slaving voyages and those provisioning Caribbean plantations. The produce of these slave plantations was advertised heavily, including molasses, sugar, coffee, cotton and salt. 

People were advertised, as well: people for sale, people wanted, and people who self-emancipated, commonly called “runaways.” There is no question that John Carter and the Providence Gazette printed and profited from slavery-related advertising. Wroth claimed that not only was advertising incidental to the Gazette, but that “the publication of advertisements” was a primary purpose. (Wroth, 364)  Here, I think it is important to reiterate that Carter did enable the printing of several anti-slavery columns or letters: Carter included several abolitionist letters, printed the Town Council’s notice regarding the 1784 Gradual Emancipation Act and printed an article “extracted from a pamphlet printed in Philadelphia” which was anti-slavery on December 4, 1773.

This date coincides with Moses Brown’s conversion to a Quaker, anti-slavery position, although it must be said that his stance against slavery did not apply to the enslaved plantation workers who supplied his textile mill. 

Shakespeare’s Head was not just the home of the Gazette.  The print shop also did a brisk trade in blank forms. We know they sold a lot of forms because thousands have survived in our archives, and this must only be a fraction of the total. After communications, forms are the lifeblood of business and government. Everything required a form, but especially shipping. Mrs. Goddard had published a list of available forms, including:

• Policies of insurance
• Portage bills
• Bills of lading and bills of sale
• Indentures 
• Letters of attorney
• Bonds
• Deeds, writs and executions

The press also printed custom documents for other people, upon their request. The Library of Congress notes that Carter printed an abolitionist document in 1789.

Who occupied the house after the death of John Carter?

Author’s Note: We are a bit stymied on this question due to the term “heirs of John Carter,” which obfuscates the details of who actually occupied the building. We also have the ongoing research dilemma of censuses and directories recording only the head of household. Please note that the below is only as good as the information which was recorded at the time and does not reflect the entire picture of occupation. But there is still a significant amount of information, from which we can put together at least a partial picture. 

There are a few things we can take away from this list, incomplete as it may be. By analyzing the surrounding area from c. 1820s to c. 1920s, it is clear that it was not a wealthy block, street or neighborhood. The house eventually became one of many boarding houses in the area, which mainly served laborers. The inhabitants of Shakespeare’s Head seem to be all or mostly white, but the wider area was multi-racial, especially if we cross Benefit Street and look at the other end of Meeting Street as well as Olney’s Lane.

Crawford Carter lived in the house, with a few exceptions, for most of his life and he seems to have been the person in charge of managing it as a boarding house in the mid-1800s. Several sisters also lived there, first Huldah and the widowed Rebecca Jencks, then Crawford’s last surviving sister Elizabeth Danforth moved in and outlived him. She died in the house.  It eventually went to John Carter Brown, who owned a lot of property in Providence which he rented out through his managers. It appears the house was often quite full.

Can we determine anything about the use of the rooms of the house? How was the property used?

There seems to be agreement between Wroth and Jordy that the printing press was in the walkout basement, Carter’s offices were on the first floor, and the family space was the top floor. However, the printing business was only housed here for a relatively short time before it moved to the Market Square area, so that still leaves around 200 years of occupation patterns to consider.

Do we have any theories on the term “possible slave pits” used in the 1930s study?

From informally asking several people who work in historic preservation, it appears that this term was unusual. Public historian Elon Cook Lee of the National Trust, in consultation, suggested that this term is not in wide use in preservation work. I have been unable to find any source at all to corroborate the suggestion that people would have been hidden in a cellar pit, or entrapped in such a pit, forcibly or consensually, in 1800s Providence.

There is evidence for the term “slave pits” in archaeological work with former plantation housing, referring to a place where an enslaved person might store or hide possessions or food. There is also a lot of evidence for basement storage in the Northeast, especially root cellars, salt storage and water storage. At least one home in Providence still contains a boxed spring in its basement, and Reverend John Pitman talks about his own and others’ water cisterns in his diaries, contemporary with this house.  There were also privies for humans and sites for pigs in Providence basements, something which we see a lot of evidence for in the early public health work of Edwin Snow and Charles Chapin. 

All of this said, the possibility still exists, and I have no solid evidence that this was misinterpreted in the 1930s. Without uncovering and deeply examining the site in question using archaeological tools, we do not have enough information right now to be certain.

What is the explanation for the use of bars on the basement windows that are noted in the HABS report?

I have found no further archival evidence about the bars, so I cannot say when they were installed or why. However, the neighborhood appears to have been, around the late 1800s and early 1900s, close to a major railroad depot, close to Canal Street which was full of meatpacking and warehouses, and full of boarding houses. In a photo of the library captioned “before the 1938 restoration” it looks quite downtrodden, wedged between a boot repair shop and a mason. Contemporary with this is a Providence Journal report which explicitly cites a vandalism concern, “the windows have been broken by vandals” [ProJo, 1/18/1938]. The newspaper also notes that the building was used as “an artist colony,” and they allege that it was filled with empty liquor bottles and the detritus of revelry. It is not a huge stretch to imagine a resident or homeowner taking security measures.

Conclusion: how is this house’s history being remembered publicly?

The story of Shakespeare’s Head provides us with a classic example of archival silences, a systemic imbalance of race, class and gender which shapes the extent to which researchers are able to interpret history. We can see a stark contrast between what is known about John Carter and his family, what has been recorded, preserved and interpreted, and what is known and said about Ingow and Fanny. 

But I did find a source which revealed a hidden slice of memory. In 1948, the Rhode Island Federation of Garden Clubs put on a history event at the house. Their costumed play, written by “Mrs. Leroy Elder,” featured three characters: Amey Carter, Nancy Dodge, and Dinah. These three women performed “amusing incidents in the life of John Carter and his wife, the original owners of the house.” In case it was too vague, the first-name-only character Dinah is described as dressing in clothing “typical of the Negro mammies of that period.”  Dinah was played by Mildred Calder, a white woman.  The play could not be located, but if the RI Federation of Garden Clubs has an archive, it may be recorded there.  Of note is the fact that this group seemed to be aware that an enslaved woman had lived and worked here.

Resources

Delle, James A. “A Tale of Two Tunnels.” Journal of Social Archaeology 8, no. 1 (February 2008): 63–93. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605307086078. 

Island, Rhode, The following is the account of the number of inhabitants in the colony, of Rhode Island, taken between the 4th of may and the 14th of June, 1774, and ordered to be printed by the Hon. General Assembly, among their acts and orders (1774). 

Jordy, William H, Ronald J Onorato, and William McKenzie Woodward. Buildings of Rhode Island. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.

Providence Typographical Union. Printers and Printing in Providence, 1762-1907. Providence: [Providence Print. Co.], 1907. Print.

Rappleye, Charles. Sons of Providence: The Brown Brothers, the Slave Trade, and the American Revolution. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 

Ross, Marc Howard. Slavery in the North: Forgetting History and Recovering Memory. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.  https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812295283

Sweet, John Wood. Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 

Thompson, Mack. Moses Brown: Reluctant Reformer. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1962. 

Walters, Kerry S. The Underground Railroad : A Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2012. Web.

Wellman, Judith. “The Underground Railroad and the National Register of Historic Places: Historical Importance vs. Architectural Integrity.” The Public Historian 24, no. 1 (2002): 11–29. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2002.24.1.11. 

Woods, John C. B. John Carter of Providence, Rhode Island: July 21, 1745-August 19, 1814, and his Descendants, a Brief Narrative. Providence, RI: RIHS, 1918. 

Wroth, Lawrence C. (Lawrence Counselman). The First Press in Providence ; a Study in Social Development. Worcester, Mass: American Antiquarian Society, 1942. Print.

Various authors. “Selected Editions.” Providence Gazette. 1768 to 1800.

Author’s Note: I examined 10 editions of the Providence Gazette, as well as searched newspaper databases for names and keywords. I used many editions of the Providence Directories c. 1824 to 1935. I conducted census searches on Ancestry. I accessed the available Providence House Directories at RIHS. I also examined misinformation via Wikipedia and internet searches.

The following archival collections were consulted:

• Providence City Archives: Deed books, will books, Town Council Records
• Rhode Island Historical Society: Carter-Danforth Papers, Moses Brown papers 
• John Hay Library: Rush Hawkins Papers
• John Carter Brown Library: Brown Family Business Records