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Narragansett RI

The Top Secret Reeducation Camp in RI During World War II

Some of Germany’s finest writers and artists churned out an anti-Nazi newspaper at a secret reeducation camp in Narragansett, R.I., during World War II.

Guards in front of Fort Kearny

They produced the newspaper for tens of thousands of German POWs held at prison camps throughout the United States. It ran from February 1945 to April 1946.

Their American captors selected the intellectual POWs to publish the newspaper, Der Ruf, because they hated Nazism.

After they returned to Germany, the POWs formed a world-famous literary circle, Group 47. It then dominated German literature for decades. Group 47 nourished young writers such as Nobel Prize winners Heinrich Boll and Gunter Grass.

US POW Camps

During World War II, the United States incarcerated 425,000 prisoners of war in 700 camps inside its borders. Most were German, and many of them weren’t Nazis.

New England had more than a dozen prison camps. In Massachusetts, prisoners were held in Boston when they arrived. Wounded POWs went to hospitals and anti-Nazis went to Fort Devens. Others went to Camp McKay, Westover Field, Camp Edwards on Cape Cod and Camp Andrews and Fort Strong in Boston Harbor.

The prisoners went to Bradley Field and Fort Kearney in Connecticut. In Maine, they went to Camp Houlton, Hobbstown, Princeton and Seboomook in Maine. They were held in a camp in Stark, N.H.

German POWs who opposed Nazism could find life miserable in the camps. Hard-core Hitler followers beat them up, even murdered them.

Secret Reeducation Camp

Franz Wischnewski and Curt Vinz

The War Department sent the most brutal, dedicated Nazis to a maximum security prison in Oklahoma. And then the Department’s Special Projects Division set up three secret reeducation camps in Rhode Island – at Forts Kearny, Getty and Wetherill. Their aim: to prepare German POWs to rebuild their country as a democracy. They also wanted to persuade them to break from Nazi beliefs.

The War Department chose anti-Nazi prisoners to create “intellectual diversions” for German POWs. They then called the project the “Idea Factory” or just the “Factory.”

The Americans carefully screened the German prisoners to make sure they hated Nazism and wanted to rebuild Germany into a free democratic society. Most had joined the army involuntarily, and some had spent time in Nazi concentration camps.

Fort Kearny

On Feb. 27, 1945, 85 German writers, artists and professors were moved to Fort Kearny, situated on 20 acres in Saunderstown above the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. The fort served the purpose of coastal defense, but the naval threat disappeared. The army took its heavy guns elsewhere. The fort had barracks for the prisoners, a kitchen and administrative buildings.

The prisoners didn’t have such a bad life in the secret reeducation camp. In the morning, a recording of Duke Ellington’s Lady Be Good woke them up. They had to wear clothes printed with “PW,” but sometimes they could wear khakis. They also had a measure of freedom. Sometimes they could take the ferry to Newport for supplies. One local resident remembers seeing prisoners in their “PW” clothes strolling along Boston Neck Road, presumably on their way to Twin Willows, a bar still in operation.

The News Staff

They worked on their main task, publishing the German-language newspaper. Prisoners who worked on Der Ruf and later joined Group 47 included:

Hans Werner Richter, a novelist who eventually earned worldwide fame for his role in starting the Group 47.
Dr. Gustav R. Hocke, Der Ruf’s first editor in chief. He was a prize-winning novelist and newspaper correspondent who had been forced to serve as a civilian interpreter for the German Army. The Allies captured him in Sicily in September 1944.
Alfred Andersch, a writer who became a leading literary and radio figure in postwar Germany. After serving time in Dachau, he was forced into the army, deserted, and was captured. After the war, he continued to work on Der Ruf in occupied Germany.
Curt Vinz, production editor.
Franz Wischnewski, an artist and graphic designer.

The newspaper was first distributed to German prisoners in March. They were given small amounts of money and had to buy the paper for a nickel. That way, reasoned the Factory, it wouldn’t seem like American propaganda.

Der Ruf

A November 1945 edition of Der Ruf

Ardent Nazis called it “Jewish propaganda.” They burned the newspapers and threatened prisoners who bought them. At some camps, prisoners greeted Der Ruf with enthusiasm, and the news staff received hundreds of letters praising their work.

Stories included recommendations on the best American writers (Steinbeck and Hemingway). The newspapers carried accounts of the horrors of German concentration camps. They also had war reporting along with descriptions of the strengths of America’s political system. And they ran a history of free German labor unions. and included quotations from American authors like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman and Thornton Wilder.

Until April 1 of that year, the Factory produced 26 editions of Der Ruf. The army then shut down Fort Kearny and returned the POWs home.

One POW author wrote that the secret reeducation camps were “probably unique in human history.” He wrote that “Voluntarily, German prisoners of war have undertaken to start a work of positive aid to their own fellows here in captivity.”

.They did it, he wrote, “as men who believe in the future of their home country, a country that must become a part of a peaceful world.”

Der Ruf in Germany

Wischnewski, Vinz and Andersch then continued to publish Der Ruf in Germany. Its circulation reached 100,000 until the Americans shut it down because it opposed the occupation of Germany.

The Der Ruf alumni then formed Group 47. Richter said its members were determined to prevent forever a repetition of what had happened. “They wanted to lay the foundation of a new democratic Germany,” he said. They also wanted “a better future and a new literature, conscious of the responsibility in regard to politics and the development of society as a whole.”

After Fort Kearny closed as a secret reeducation camp, Rhode Island State College acquired its buildings. They now belong to the Narragansett campus of the University of Rhode Island.

This story was updated in 2023.

Images courtesy of Edward Davison Papers, Yale University Library, except for photo of Der Ruf, which comes from the Office of the Provost Marshal General, RG 389, National Archives). With thanks to the Small State, Big History blog, The Top Secret World War II Prisoner-of-War Camp at Fort Kearny in Narragansett.

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The Narragansett Pacer – the Lost Horse of the New England Colonies

It’s not exactly clear when the first horse officially called a Narragansett Pacer appeared in Rhode Island, though it was likely in the late 1600s. Its emergence marked the first true American breed of horse.

In 1672, John Hull – the Massachusetts mintmaster who had properties in Narragansett and Cape Cod – wrote his partners with a proposal. If they fenced in part of their land and imported some particularly fine horses from Europe they might well produce a horse bred specifically for New England.

Race Horse and Trainer (unknown artist, National Gallery of Art)

The region had few streets and riders needed horses different than English horses.

The most prized English horses were bred for speed in flat racing. And work horses had lanes in which to work. Neither breed could master New England’s wilderness.

Within a couple of decades, Hull’s vision would become reality.

Narragansett Pacer

From the earliest days of New England’s settlement, colonists prized their horses. They came from Europe on the first ships from Britain, Spain and the Netherlands.

Over time, however, breeders in Rhode Island took a more active role in promoting the horse perfect for the new colonies: The Narragansett Pacer. Unlike a racehorse bred to produce quick, bursting speed over a flat course, it was a relatively small horse, but bred and trained to move swiftly over rough terrain with tremendous endurance. As a pacer, it had a somewhat awkward high step, but it did not sway from side to side and could carry a man 50 miles or more in a day.

Edmund Burke

The British politician Edmund Burke wrote an Account of the European Settlement in America in 1857. In it, he noted the emerging breeds of horses in New England:

They have, besides, a breed of small horses which are extremely hardy. They pace naturally, though in no very graceful or easy manner; but with such swiftness, and for so long a continuance, as must appear almost incredible to those who have not experienced it.

As a member of Parliament, Burke tried to convince his colleagues to avoid war with America. Instead, he wanted to grant the colonies the right to establish their own parliament and courts, while remaining under the umbrella of the British Empire. His efforts in this regard failed, but the word of the Narragansett Pacer spread.

By the early 1770s, horses ranked among the top 10 colonial exports. Shipments of horses regularly left New England for the southern colonies and the Caribbean.

Gold Standard

The Narragansett Pacer soon became the gold standard of horses in the colonies. George Washington owned a pair, which he highly valued. Paul Revere was said to have ridden a Narragansett Pacer on his famous midnight ride, though proof is scant.

It is known that Narragansett Pacers, ‘of extraordinary fleetness, and astonishing endurance’ were ridden by governmental post riders during the American Revolution. Riders hitched them outside the house and War Office of Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull in Lebanon, Conn. The horses were ‘ready, on any emergency of danger, to fly with advices, in any desired direction, on the wings of the wind.’

Jonathan Trumbull

Rhode Islanders raced the pacers on the beaches of Narragansett. While Puritan Massachusetts frowned on sporting events such as racing, the more liberal Rhode Island allowed it. The horses also raced in Virginia.

Though highly popular for more than 200 years, the Narragansett Pacer doesn’t exist today. Historians of horses do not really know why. They may have simply dwindled away due to changing times.

An American Saddlebred, the descendant of the Narragansett Pacer

As American roads improved in quality and travelers used coaches more widely, the pacer’s gait and size made it less desirable. Meanwhile, the horse would only get more attractive in the Caribbean for work on plantations and on the rough island roads. That led some to suspect the breeders simply shipped away the last of the Narragansett Pacer over time.

Hat tip to: Historic Rhode Island Farms by Robert A. Geake. This story was updated in 2023.

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Rhode Island’s Sprague-Conkling Affair (or the 1879 Episode at Narragansett)

The Sprague-Conkling affair started on a pleasant day in August of 1879 at Narragansett Pier, a fashionable resort, in Rhode Island. The people summering there might have overlooked some high-spirited hijinks among their friends and guests. But when a former U.S. senator runs through the street with a shotgun, that’s the sort of thing that’s hard to hush up.

William Sprague and Kate Chase Sprague

By 1879, William Sprague had left office some four years ago. Born into a wealthy and powerful Rhode Island family, his father had been murdered in 1843. The working-class Irishman who hanged for the crime probably hadn’t done it.

William Sprague, the once-dashing boy governor of the Ocean State, had risen in business, developing manufacturing and printing technologies. Then national politics, as U.S. senator. And society. In 1863, he married Kate Chase, daughter of Abraham Lincoln’s treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase.

Kate Chase, Socialite

Kate ruled as the doyenne of Washington society. Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd abhorred Washington’s social scene, leaving an opening for the beautiful and ambitious Kate to dominate the town. Kate used her influence, and her husband’s money, to help along her father’s political career in hopes he would one day be president.

But by August of 1879, Sprague’s career had taken a turn for the worse. He had lost much of his fortune in the financial crisis of 1873 (aided probably by his own poor decision-making). He had left politics behind and his marriage, which made him one-half of the dominant power couple of the day, would soon implode with the national scandal known as the Sprague-Conkling affair.

Lincked In

On Aug. 8, 1879 at the Sprague family summer home in Narragansett Pier, Sprague caused a stir – to put it mildly. People had seen him running through the town threatening someone with a gun. That was the sum total of the initial reports.

Narragansett Pier today. The Towers.

Then a name surfaced for that someone Sprague had chased: Professor George Linck, a German music teacher hired by Kate to tutor their four children. Linck furnished a statement to the press that he and Senator Sprague had just had a misunderstanding.

The press, however, didn’t believe it. The Chicago Tribune called Linck’s statement “only remarkable for its length and bad grammar.” The newspaper also reported “the much-abused Teuton” received a handsome reward — if one believed reliable sources.

As a coverup, the German tutor story was about as bad as they get. Why, if it was all a misunderstanding, had Kate moved out of the summer house to a hotel? Why was New York senator Roscoe Conkling in Rhode Island?

Roscoe Conkling

Conkling was a leader of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate and had harbored hopes of selecting the next president if not running for the office himself. Unlike William Sprague, he didn’t drink alcohol. He was athletic, handsome and smart. And it was he who put out the statement from the German tutor.

As all parties involved tried to sit on the story, an incredulous Narragansett Times noted: “It may be shown later that Mr. Conkling was never at Narragansett Pier, that Mrs. Sprague never had a German teacher, and that William Sprague never was married anyway.”

Sprague’s friends defended his actions. Though he was widely known to be a drunk with a violent temper and more than a couple of floozies in his closet, the Providence Press chimed in saying: “the ex senator cannot be blamed for wishing to be lord and master of his own house.”

The Sprague-Conkling Affair

As the Linck explanation fell apart, more questions emerged about Roscoe Conkling. What business did he have in Rhode Island? The story that he and Sprague had work to finish didn’t wash. To the public, the story took shape. Rumors had circulated that Conkling was too close to Kate. Conkling shows up in Narragansett at a hotel to be near Kate, Sprague finds out Conkling is at his own home and decides to chase him out with a shotgun.

The Boston Herald tried to prop up the German tutor story, reporting that the professor had confronted Sprague, perhaps angry over his wages, and Sprague got furious with the German. He ordered the man to leave, and seizing a double-barreled shotgun, threatened to kill him if he did not go.

Roscoe Conkling, the other half of the Sprague-Conkling affair.

The newspaper then explained that Senator Conkling had been in the library at the Sprague house, at some distance from the altercation. He’d come to Newport, R.I., with a party of friends, but heard that Sprague wanted to finish some business with him. So he sailed over to Narragansett in a yacht with his friends.

Then, went the Herald story, Conkling heard the ladies in the household screaming and hurried to their aid. They informed him there was “an invalid gentleman” in the house. Conkling bustled the unwanted guest into a carriage.

Fake News

The rest of the story explained what witnesses had seen: Conkling walking into town and Sprague with a shotgun.

“While walking along he was overtaken by Governor Sprague, who was driving to the Pier. He stopped and asked Mr. Sprague what all the trouble was about, saying he could not understand why he (Governor Sprague) should act so like a wild man. Mr. Sprague said that he knew his own business, refusing to give any explanation of his actions.”

The story that Conkling had an encounter with Sprague had no foundation whatever, reported the Herald in a 19th-century version of fake news.

“It was Senator Conkling’s misfortune to be in the Sprague residence when the Linck altercation occurred, but he took no part in it, and he was in no way involved in the affair.”

Smirch of the Sprague-Conkling Affair

Senator Conkling then retreated to the home of Sen. Henry Anthony in Providence and, the following morning, returned to New York by train.

That story might have held up but for a new report out of Utica, Senator Conkling’s home. Apparently his wife planned divorce proceedings against him and they’d already separated.

Meanwhile, Professor Linck started getting cold feet about his role as the fall guy in the Sprague-Conkling affair. He then began disclaiming his prior statement.

The other half of the Sprague-Conkling affair in 1873.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle summarized the story and added: “The bewildered reader will be pardoned for inquiring why the peace of the Senator’s house should not remain unbroken…[if] the cause for all the trouble was the unfortunate German for whom Sprague developed so strong an antipathy.”

The New York Herald blasted away at the Sprague-Conkling affair, chastising Conkling for remaining silent. “[H]e cannot blame anyone but himself if the public accept the worst side of the story already told as the true version. His intimacy with the ambitious Kate has become the subject of scandal everywhere and the recent affair only adds coloring to what was before mere gossip.

“In his imperious way, Senator Conkling may endeavor to brave public opinion but he will find that something more than mere arrogance will be necessary to clear his shirts of the smirching.

Lechery and Cowardice

The New York Graphic needed no further proof:

“Lechery and cowardice cannot be forgiven in a person assuming to occupy a high public position. We very much believe that in the state of Rhode Island lies the grave of Roscoe Conkling’s political future.”

Senator Conkling’s political future was indeed dead. Though he would serve two more terms in the U.S. Senate, he would never run for president. The Iowa Press offered this update on the old nursery rhyme:

Sing a song of Shot Gun
Belly full of rye;
Two loyal Senators making mud pie,
When the pie was opened
The public got a smell,
And Sprague said to Conkling,
“Now you go to H_ll”

In Rhode Island, many speculated that Kate and William would remain married. They theorized that she wouldn’t give up her share of the family wealth and he wouldn’t be able to prove her faithlessness. The theory was wrong.

Kate and William Sprague did divorce. After the disruption at Narragansett Pier, Kate turned to her distant cousin Austin Corbin, a railroad tycoon. He let her stay at his Long Island estate, protected by workmen.

Austin Corbin

When Kate finally filed for divorce, Corbin told the press that Sprague had made up the entire story of his confrontation with Conkling. He hoped it would distance Kate from the story of the Sprague-Conkling affair.

He Said, She Said

Kate, in her divorce suit, blistered her husband. She charged Sprague with adultery, cruelty and drunkenness. He had repeatedly told their children that he was not their father. On one occasion, she said, he dragged her to the top story of their home and tried to throw her out the window. In a drunken rage he had mounded up their bedclothes on the floor and set them on fire.

Sprague fired back. He said Kate’s infidelity mortified him. He could manage his business and political life, he said, but he couldn’t control his domestic affairs.

William Sprague said he never told a single person about the affair until he found Conkling in his home in Washington. Then he called on Kate’s friends and her father’s friends to end the Sprague-Conkling affair, but he couldn’t. “I found it utterly impossible to control her, or save her from the subsequent consequences,” he said.

South County Museum exterior, formerly the Sprague estate

And as to the details of the time he ran after Conkling with a shotgun, “I prefer you should gather them from others.”

From 1878 onward, Sprague charged, Kate had had an affair with Conkling and he planned to air the details. He hadn’t done so far on account of the children.

Sprague vowed never to settle the case. But he did. After a year of sniping, the two sides settled in 1882. William dropped all charges of adultery, and the case instead focused on William’s non-support of Kate.

During negotiations, young Willie, the couple’s son, tried to shoot his mother’s trustee when he tried to retrieve some belongings from the Narragansett estate. Kate took custody of the three daughters, William their son.

Sad End to the Sprague-Conkling Affair

The story has a sad ending. Kate died in poverty in 1899, after selling butter and eggs door to door to support herself. Only a handful of people attended the funeral of the woman who once reigned over Washington society. Young Willie had killed himself in 1890.

William Sprague married Inez Calvert of Staunton, Va., in 1883. Shortly after their marriage they returned to the Sprague home in Narragansett. Inez’s brother Orestes Weed visited the estate, and William ran him off with a shotgun, believing he had an interest in one of his daughters.

This story about the Sprague-Conkling affair was updated in 2023. Images: Kate Chase, 1873 PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8592896.South County Museum By Staib – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10378721.

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Storm Chasers Track The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944

Just six years after the Great Hurricane of 1938 devastated New England, a storm of similar magnitude headed north from the Caribbean: the Great Atlantic Hurricane.

The 1938 hurricane ranked as one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. It killed more than 600 people, damaged or destroyed 30,000 houses, totaled 26,000 cars and knocked over 2 billion trees.

The Great Atlantic Hurricane rivaled the 1938 storm in force and fury. It killed hundreds, most at sea, and caused $1 billion in damage.

The monster gale could have been much, much worse. But pilots flew into the intensifying storm and provided detailed real-time knowledge of it. Weather Bureau and civil defense officials, alerted to weather danger throughout World War II, urged evacuation from the coast. That saved many lives.

A B-25 similar to those that flew into the Great Atlantic Hurricane

Great Atlantic Hurricane

On Sept. 9, 1944, a U.S. Army Air Force B-25 with extra fuel tanks flew into the Great Atlantic Hurricane developing 250 miles north of Puerto Rico. Pilots flew seven more military flights into one of the worst storms of the century.

As World War II raged, the military needed to know how weather would affect wartime patrols and other forces at sea. But the need for military intelligence had the added benefit of alerting civilians to the colossal storm — a danger worse than German U-boats.

The plane that flew into the hurricane encountered tremendous turbulence. The weather officer, Lt. Victor Klobuchar, estimated wind speeds of 140 mph. From time to time the pilot and co-pilot lost control of the airplane, and they feared it would be ripped apart or crash. When they returned safely, they discovered 150 rivets sheared from just one wing.

The information they brought back about the storm saved countless lives. Warnings were issued by radio and loudspeakers. Families were evacuated from coastal areas where people had been trapped in 1938.

Time magazine reported,

…hour after hour, radio stations from Delaware to Maine cried the alarm, like pygmies running ahead of a mad elephant. The people listened to the loudspeakers.

In Fitchburg, Mass., for example, civil defense headquarters was notified of the storm. The city’s chief air raid warden told sector wardens to call their emergency personnel if necessary.

A Personal Account

Harry Gratwick, in Stories From the Maine Coast: Skippers, Ships and Storms, adds a personal note to his account of the storm:

As the hurricane crossed Long Island Sound and moved toward Rhode Island, the Coast Guard went house-to-house issuing warnings for coastal residents to evacuate. My wife, who was then four, and her one-year-old brother were spending the summer with their grandmother in Narragansett, Rhode Island. That intrepid lady had taken her grandchildren down to the beach to look at the rough seas. As a result, they missed the Coast Guard warning and returned to their house without realizing the severity of the storm or the need to evacuate.

According to my wife, when the storm struck in the afternoon, the sky turned yellow. Later in the evening, she remembers her grandmother standing on a stepladder nailing boards across the windows that faced the sea to keep water from coming in. Needless to say, it was a tumultuous night. The next morning, the lawn was covered with boulders pushed up from the nearby shoreline by the raging seas.

It wasn’t only the timely warnings that made the Great Atlantic Hurricane less devastating than the 1938 hurricane. The Great Atlantic Hurricane made landfall as it lessened in power at low tide, unlike the storm six years earlier. It also struck land from a direction that produced a low storm surge.

The 1944 hurricane did most of its damage at sea, wreaking havoc on military shipping and killing 390 sailors. It sunk the destroyer USS Warrington, two Coast Guard cutters and a minesweeper.

Vineyard Lightship

The Vineyard Sound Lightship sank in the Great Atlantic Hurricane. All 12 crewmembers perished.

One of the worst tragedies of the Great Atlantic Hurricane was the sinking of the Vineyard Lightship, moored off the entrances of Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound.

As the ship’s commanding officer Warrant Officer Edgar Sevigny monitored the approaching storm, he didn’t like what he saw. The lightship would be the only vessel within miles. In case of trouble, with the ocean cleared of any boats, no one could help them.

Sevigny asked permission to move to a sheltered location for a couple of hours while the storm passed. He didn’t get it. The 12 men aboard the lightship battened down and tried to ride out the storm.

By morning, the lightship had disappeared. All the Navy reported was the lightship was off station. When she was finally found, she was sunk in 80-feet of water nearly a mile and a half away from her last position. The vessel’s masts and funnel had snapped off at the deck. Her moorings, however, were still attached, which suggests the crew attempted to obey orders and keep the vessel at its position right until waves overwhelmed her.

Damage from the Great Atlantic Hurricane

Onshore, two Connecticut cities suffered the worst damage. Bridgeport got 10.7 inches of rain, and Hartford got seven inches. The storm caused an estimated $2 million damage to tobacco and fruit crops in Connecticut. Rhode Island growers suffered as well.

On Cape Cod, damage to small boats and from falling trees and utility lines totaled $5 million. In the Massachusetts towns of Yarmouthport and Fairhaven, famous elms that had withstood a century of storms succumbed to the Great Atlantic Hurricane.

The Boston Globe opined that the great majority of folk had learned the lesson of the 1938 hurricane: Get under cover and stay there. “An alert Weather Bureau first adequately alarmed us all, and the comparatively low score in the death toll indicates how cooperative the people were everywhere,” the newspaper reported.

This story was updated in 2023. Images: B-25 By Airwolfhound from Hertfordshire, UK – B25 Mitchell – Chino Airshow 2014, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47506228.

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The WWII Battle of Point Judith off the RI Coast

Just before Germany surrendered to the Allied powers, 67 men died in the Battle of Point Judith off the Rhode Island coast. Casualties included 55 German submariners and 12 American merchant mariners.

Sailors aboard USS Moberly firing on U-853.

The German submarine, U-853, was harassing U.S. ships off the New England coast in May 1945. Previous U.S. efforts to hunt her down were so elusive she was nicknamed Moby Dick. U-853 was on her third patrol and had already sunk a U.S. Navy vessel, the USS Eagle Boat 56. Only 13 of the crew of 67 survived the attack.

As World War II came to a close, orders were given to all German submarines and naval ships to return home. U-853 either didn’t get the message or ignored it.

Battle of Point Judith

The Battle of Point Judith began on May 5, when U-853 torpedoed the SS Black Point, a ship carrying coal to Boston, at Point Judith on the western side of Narragansett Bay. Black Point capsized within 15 minutes. Twelve men died, while 34 made it into lifeboats and were rescued by the SS Kamen, a Yugoslavian freighter. It was the last ship sunk by a U-boat in U.S. waters.

News of the attack went to naval headquarters on the East Coast.

The crew of U-853, before it lost the Battle of Point Judith

Four warships en route to Boston for shore leave then headed toward Point Judith, arriving at 7:30 pm. Coast Guard cutters, frigates, a destroyer and two blimps joined in the search-and-destroy mission.

At first the U-boat tried to flee, then it tried to hide by lying still in 18 fathoms of water. Sonar detected the submarine’s bearings. The crews of the USS Atherton and the USS Moberly dropped depth charges and hedgehogs over the spot where they thought they’d found the U-853.

They hit their target around midnight, and 55 German sailors perished with the vessel.

Aftermath

The U-boat still lies at the bottom of the Atlantic. It has continued to claim lives as a popular, but dangerous, site for divers.

In 1960, a recreational diver brought up one of the bodies. That prompted clergy and former navy admirals to ask the U.S. government for restrictions on disturbing war dead. The government then declared the site a war grave, and buried the German submariner with full military honors in Newport, R.I. Every year, a small service is held at Point Judith for the men who died.

The commander of the USS Atherton, Lewis Iselin, found a new career as a renowned sculptor living in Camden, Maine.

And in 2018, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with a robotics company took photos of the German U-boat sunk in the Battle of Point Judith. They also created images of three other U.S. submarines sunk to test torpedoes.

To see the photos, click here.

This story about the Battle of Point Judith was updated in 2023.

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Black Kings and Governors of New England

From about 1750 to 1850, New England had at least 31 elected black kings and governors, nearly all of them enslaved.

They were elected on ‘Negroes Hallowday’ or “Negroes Election Day,” the most important day of the year. Black men held it annually on the same day the white men of New England gathered to vote for their leaders.

In the royal colonies where the Crown appointed the governor – New Hampshire and Massachusetts – black men elected black kings.

In the charter colonies where white men elected their own governor – Rhode Island and Connecticut – black men elected black governors. (For a list of known black governors of Connecticut, click here.)

African-Americans elected a king in Portsmouth, N.H. So did the Massachusetts towns of Salem and Lynn. Newport and Narragansett in Rhode Island elected black governors, as did a handful of towns in Connecticut.

For New England’s African slaves, Election Day meant a rare break from toil and a chance to poke fun at their white masters. They could express pride in their African heritage. And they could elect black kings and governors to maintain discipline among the slaves. Better they do it than their white masters, went the rationale.

Rum, Gingerbread and Election Cake

E.R. Potter, his family and a slave. Newport Historical Society

E.R. Potter, his family and a slave, perhaps Black Governor John. Newport R.I. Historical Society

Election Day began with the Puritans as a jolly secular holiday. The colonists traveled to town in spring or early summer to elect their local leaders. Some had to travel quite far, and might stay overnight.

Important families, or maybe the local government, hosted election-day celebrations. They served rum and gingerbread and thick, fruit-studded election cakes.

The masters let the slaves take Election Day off or brought them into town. According to Salem minister William Bentley, African bondsmen and servants “were too restless at home to be of any use till (the election holidays) were over.”

And so the Africans started organizing their own elections and their own celebrations. They did it first in Newport and Hartford and then throughout New England.

In Connecticut, an enslaved African named London served as the first black governor known to history. London, who belonged to Capt. Thomas Seymour, won election as Connecticut governor in Hartford in 1755.

As Connecticut Colony’s population grew, black residents began to elect leaders who lived nearby. Historians know of black governors in Derby, Durham, Farmington, New Haven, New London, Norwich and Seymour.

A Real Black King

One of New England’s black kings, Nero Brewster, had been born of royal lineage in Africa early in the 18^th century. As a child, slavers captured him, took him to the American colonies and sold him to a wealthy tavern owner in Portsmouth, N.H.

For many years, Nero won the annual Negro Election and presided over an informal black government that mirrored the white polity.

Other black kings had royal African blood. Even before the Negro Election began in Lynn, Mass., African immigrants honored a prince of Africa named Pompey. Slavers had captured and sold him, but his master freed him when he grew too old to work.

Pompey then moved to a little glade near the Saugus River Every year he hosted a holiday for the African bondsmen from nearby towns. Women picked flowers to crown old King Pompey, and the men sat and talked about happier times on the Gambia River in West Africa.

Monarchs Held in Esteem

Some black kings and governors won election because of their achievements, their strength or their abilities. Their rank could also reflect their masters’ stature. Nero Brewster’s master, Col. William Brewster, owned the Bell Tavern in Portsmouth, a well-known gathering place for patriots during the Revolutionary War.

Advertisement for the Bell Tavern

Hartford’s Black Governor Peleg Nott, described as “a first rate feller,” had traveled far. He drove a provision cart during the American Revolution. Black Governor Tobiah of Derby, Conn., was “a man of tact, courage and unusual intelligence.”

Black Governor Guy Watson of South Kingston fought in the 1^st Rhode Island Regiment at the battles of Red Bank and Ticonderoga.

And black Governor Quosh Freeman of Derby, Conn., was a “man of herculean strength, a giant six-footer.”

The Parade

Portsmouth’s Negro Election Day was probably typical of what happened throughout New England.

Black King Nero dressed in his finest clothes to lead a procession of slaves and freedmen from Portsmouth and neighboring towns. His honor guard, perhaps decked out in feathers, flowers and ribbons, accompanied him.

The parade started with the crack of a gunshot. Marchers made a happy racket with many African languages, gunshots, tambourines, banjos, fiddles and drums. All the slaves wore their best clothes, often hand-me-downs from their masters, altered with an African flair. They borrowed swords, guns and even horses from their masters.

What did their costumes look like? According to a description of one fugitive from slavery, he wore a Saxon blue jacket with bright green baize lining, slash sleeves and small metal buttons, a brown sleeveless jacket and scarlet breeches.

In Portsmouth and elsewhere, bondsmen deliberately played the fool in their gaudy Election Day costumes. White people looked on with enjoyment, belittling the slaves’ deportment and clothing as “fantastic.”

Today, historians note the white onlookers didn’t understand that the black celebrants were making fun of their stiffness and pretensions. Some historians view their antics as a form of self-preservation. They didn’t want white people intimidated by their claim to participate in government.

Haranguing and Socializing

A black king's election was an occasion for dancing. Creative Commons

Election of a black king, an occasions for dancing. Creative Commons

When the Portsmouth marchers reached an open space, Nero and his opponent harangued each other as the crowd socialized and celebrated. Women, who couldn’t vote, lobbied for their favorite candidates. The revelers reunited with friends and family who lived far away, and exchanged news and opinion about the white people they served.

More than a hundred probably took part, for in 1767 Portsmouth alone had 124 male and 63 female slaves, according to Brewster’s Rambles. (The total population of Portsmouth, one of the biggest cities in the colonies, reached 4,466 that year.)

After about three hours of electioneering and merriment, men voted and then declared Nero the black king. He subsequently announced his court: Viceroy Willie Clarkson, Sheriff Jock Odiorne and Deputy Sheriff Pharoah Shores. All came from Africa.

Who ran against Black King Nero? One wonders if it was ever Prince Whipple, the literate servant of William Whipple, who lived in the Moffatt-Ladd House.

Prince Whipple, born a prince of Africa, served as General Whipple’s bodyguard during the Revolutionary War. He also stood with the general at the Battle of Saratoga and at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

According to legend, Prince Whipple accompanied George Washington during his famous crossing of the Delaware.

In the 1851 painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, some identify the black oarsman as Prince Whipple.

Victory Party

Regardless of whom he defeated at the polls, Black King Nero led the raucous procession back to his master’s house for a victory party. As at the other Negroes Hallowdays, Nero’s master paid for the meal, though the black slaves and freedmen prepared it.

Nero and his so-called Negro Court were toasted indoors, while games were played and athletic competitions held outside. At the end of the day the celebrants moved to the slave quarters, where they danced energetically to fiddle tunes of West African origin or influence.

The black elections could get expensive for the masters. In Narragansett, R.I., E.R. Potter’s slave John was elected governor. Potter, a state and federal legislator, told John that one of them would have to give up politics or the expenses would ruin them both. John stepped down.

Black Kings and Their Courts

Throughout the next year, Black King Nero meted out judgments and punishments to slaves accused of petty crimes.

In 1859, Portsmouth columnist C.W. Brewster described one trial in a typically condescending (for whites) account. A slave named Prince Jackson reportedly stole an ax. The black sheriff, Jock Odiorne, seized him and summoned the court.

Black King Nero sat for the examination in which evidence was submitted. He found Prince guilty and condemned him to 20 lashes on the bare back at the town pump.

The slaves gathered at the pump. Then, wrote Brewster,

…the Sheriff, after taking off his coat and tying up the convict to the pump, hands the whip to his deputy, Pharaoh Shores, addressing the company, “Gemmen, this way we s’port our government” – turning to his deputy – “Now, Pharaoh, pay on !” After the whipping was over, the sheriff dismissed the prisoner, telling him that the next time he is found this side Christian Shore, unless sent by his master, he will receive twenty lashes more.

Prince did not reform. Shortly afterward he was found guilty of larger thefts and taken to the white people’s court.

“Here, we feel a just equality”

During the Revolutionary War, Black King Nero led at least one meeting of 20 black slaves to discuss their freedom. He may well have held more.

Inspired by revolutionary ideals and hatred of their servitude, they drew up a petition demanding their freedom. They may have borrowed some of the language from the patriots who talked of revolution at the Bell Tavern. They certainly took some language from the Declaration of Independence.

The petition ensured that history remembered Black King Nero better than his master.

The painting Washington Crosses the Delaware depicts a black oarsman reputed to be Prince Whipple.

As in the Declaration, the signers list their grievances and denounce their enemies:

…thro’ ignorance & brutish violence of their native countrymen and by similar designs of others, (who ought to have taught them better) & by the avarice of both, they, while but children, and incapable of self defense, whose infancy might have prompted protection, were seized, imprisoned, and transported from their native country, where (tho’ ignorance and inchristianity prevailed) they were born free to a country, where (tho’ knowledge, christianity and freedom, are their boast) they are compelled, and their unhappy posterity, to drag on their lives in miserable servitude. . . .

The Dignity of Human Nature

The bondsmen emphatically rejected any idea that they are inferior to white people. “[H]ere, we feel the passions and desires of men, tho’ check’d by the rod of slavery! here, we feel a just equality!” they wrote.

And they ended with a prayer, “that the name of SLAVE may no more be heard in a land gloriously contending for the sweets of freedom.”

They submitted the handwritten petition for freedom to the General Assembly in Exeter on Nov. 12, 1779. According to Black Portsmouth, the original manuscript disappeared. No one knows whether the men signed their own names or used a mark.

It was read in the House of Representatives on April 25, 1780, and ordered published in the New Hampshire Gazette. The newspaper printed it that summer, with a disclaimer that it was intended “for the amusement “ of its readers.

The House then took up the petition on June 9, 1780, but decided to table it until “a more convenient opportunity.” No other legislative action would be taken on it for 234 years.

Finally, Freedom

Prince Whipple’s grave in Portsmouth, N.H.

Six of the signers of the New Hampshire petition, including Prince Whipple, gained their freedom after the Revolution. Black King Nero died a slave, and possibly as the last black king of Portsmouth. Historians haven’t unearthed any evidence that any other black kings were elected after he died.

Nero’s obituary described him as, “A Monarch, who, while living, was held in reverential esteem by his subjects consequently, his death is greatly lamented.”

In 2013, state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark of Portsmouth declared Nero Brewster and the other 19 captive Africans deserved some closure. She filed a bill before the Legislature to posthumously free the remaining 15 slaves. The bill then passed, and Gov. Maggie Hassan signed it into law. King Nero Brewster won his freedom, on Friday, June 7, 2013.

What’s more:

Our story owes thanks to two books about black kings and governors: Black Portsmouth and Black Yankees.

Prince Whipple died in 1796 at age 46 and now lies buried in Portsmouth’s North Cemetery. In 1908, local military veterans placed a stone on his grave.

In October 2003, road contractors rediscovered the Negro Burying Ground under Portsmouth’s Chestnut Street.

This story about black kings and governors was updated in 2022.

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