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Newport R.I.

The Breakers, Newport’s Monument to Gilded Age Excess

The Breakers ranks as the most spectacular of the Gilded Age mansions that visitors to Newport can visit.

Marble House ranks a close second.

And there’s a reason for that.

Vanderbilt sisters-in-law built the two opulent cottages because of their intense social rivalry. Alice Vanderbilt masterminded the Breakers, Alva Vanderbilt Marble House.

Alva Vanderbilt at her costume ball.

They had married the grandsons of Cornelius Vanderbilt, who built a transportation empire from a small boat he used to start a ferry service from Staten Island.

The Vanderbilt Family Saga

Vanderbilt, known as the commodore, had 13 children, but he wanted to keep his fortune intact. So he bequeathed the bulk of his money to his son William, known as Billy.

Billy himself had nine children. His oldest son, Cornelius, expected to inherit most of his father’s money, as his father had before him.

But Cornelius’ younger brother William Kissam Vanderbilt had married a driven social climber named Alva Smith. Though no American fortune exceeded the Vanderbilts’, New York’s social elite considered them coarse parvenus. So despite their money, the Vanderbilts were excluded from the best clubs, the best parties, the best seats at the opera.

Alice, also at a costume ball.

Alva set out to change that with an over-the-top costume ball. She invited Mrs. Astor, who ruled New York Society – and ruled out the Vanderbilts. As the date of the ball approached, everyone who was anyone in New York talked about it. Mrs. Astor caved and went to Alva’s ball. From then on, the Vanderbilts were in.

BIlly Vanderbilt, grateful to Alva, divided most of the Vanderbilt money between William and Cornelius. That infuriated Cornelius’ wife, Alice.

Breakers vs. Marble House

After Billy died in 1885, Alva began work on Marble House in Newport. Newport was then just coming into its own as an ostentatious summer playground for the super-rich. Alva hired Richard Morris Hunt to design the marble palace. The 50-room mansion, which resembles the White House, cost $11 million and took four years to build and decorate.

Marble House

As soon as Alva finished Marble House, Alice hired Hunt to design the Breakers. She envisioned a 16^th-century Genoese palace, but bigger and better than Marble House.

The Breakers took its name from the house that burned down. Cornelius and Alice bought the land and built Breakers 2.0. Built between 1892 and 1895, it had 70 rooms to Marble House’s 50, five floors to its rival’s four. And Alice spent more than $12 million compared to Alva’s $11 million.

Cornelius Vanderbilt died of a stroke five years after the Breakers opened for summer. Alva divorced William three years after she finished Marble House and kept the house. Alice outlived Cornelius by 35 years. When she died in 1934, she left the house to her daughter, Countess Gladys Széchenyi. But the Vanderbilt money was running out, and the countess couldn’t keep up the Breakers. In 1948, she leased it for $1 a year to the Preservation Society of Newport, which bought it and 95 percent of the furniture from her heirs in 1972.

Visiting the Breakers

Visitors first pass through a 30 foot wrought iron gate, then through a massive porte cochere where people could disembark from their carriages without getting caught in the rain.

Welcome to The Breakers

Inside the rooms flow into each other, beginning with the white marble Great Hall. It’s 50 feet by 50 feet by 50, lavishly ornamented. All the public rooms, in fact, are crammed with ornately carved marble, alabaster and gilded wood, painted ceilings, statuary, stained glass and Italian tapestry. One visitor noticed custom relief work on some of the bedroom hinges.

The Great Hall at the Breakers

The dining room features a 34-seat table. It’s perhaps the grandest room in the house — with 2400 square feet,12 alabaster Corinthian columns supporting a colossal gilt cornice and enormous chandeliers.

The dining room.

Upstairs, the bedrooms don’t have quite the same lavish ornamentation as the public rooms. Alice Vanderbilt, though, had an oval bedroom (large, of course) with four closets for her clothes.

There is a gift shop and a cafe has premade food, drinks and snacks, premade sandwiches, along with a tables and chairs.

Five Things You Won’t Forget About the Breakers

21-FOOT STOVE

Servants had to prepare a lot of food for the Vanderbilts’ extravagant soirees. The mammoth kitchen was set back from the rest of the house so as not to start a fire. Also, so no one but servants smelled the cooking. The kitchen, features a 21-foot coal stove. In the butler’s pantry, shelves hold tableware that reach the ceiling.

ACORN DESIGN

The billiard room, also featured in The Gilded Age, evokes ancient Greece and Rome. Embedded in the mosaic are semiprecious stones in the shape of acorns, their family emblem.

LOGGIA

The loggia looking out over Easton’s Bay is a work of Italianate art and a large room in itself. But the stunning view to the ocean is what really takes the breath away.

GROTTO FOUNTAIN

A staircase from the Great Hall curves upward with low rising marble steps and a wrought iron balustrade.

Under the stairs, water trickles from a grotto fountain and reflects flickering light onto the marble walls.

PLATINUM LEAF WALLS

The Music Room, setting for the Russells’ ball in The Gilded Age, features eight platinum leaf panels depicting elements of classical mythology. Conservators thought the gleaming silvery panels were aluminum because they hadn’t discolored, but no, they were platinum.

Every inch of the room has ornamentation. Its gilt coffered ceiling, lined with silver and gold, has the lyrics of French songs and French composers.

Newport’s Historic Districts

The Breakers isn’t the only mansion open to visitors in Newport. The Bellevue Avenue (and Bellevue-adjacent) mansions include Rosecliff, The Elms, Chateau-sur-Mer, Kingscote, Rough Point, Marble House and the Green Animal Topiary Garden.

The Cliff Walk

Along Newport’s rocky coast winds the Cliff Walk, a 3 1/2 mile scenic path with views of the ocean, beaches and mansions.

Newport has colonial history as well, and Rhode Island’s oldest tavern, the White Horse. It opened in 1683 when William Mayes bought the property and enlarged it into a tavern.

Tories hung out at the tavern in the early days of the Revolution. It also housed British soldiers leading up to the Battle of Rhode Island. Among its more colorful owners was William Mayes, Jr., a Rhode Island pirate.

Today you can not only visit the White Horse, you can still get a meal and a drink there. For more information, visit the Tavern’s website here.

Ocean Drive

Near the Bellevue Avenue mansions, the Ocean Drive Historic District is Rhode Island’s largest. It developed when the new grand mansions on Bellevue Avenue pushed development south. Ocean Drive begins near Bellevue Avenue, follows the shoreline to Brenton Point State Park and then ends just south of Fort Adams.

The roadway winds through rolling green hills, rocky cliffs, pastures and summer houses. Those include early 18th-century farms and Eidlitz’s Swiss Chalet of 1854. Frederick Law Olmsted designed some of the landscape.

The homes are much more private than on Bellevue Avenue. But they include some architectural gems: the neoclassical Beacon Rock estate by McKim, Mead and White. There’s also a stunning French chateaux by Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson and Bonniecrest and a Tudor English mansion converted to condos. Hammersmith Farm, where Sen. John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier, is also along Ocean Drive.

Commercial buildings are generally the clubhouses of private beaches. Gooseberry Beach is private but open to the public.

Breakers interior By xiquinhosilva – https://www.flickr.com/photos/xiquinho/49059770346/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97218697; interior with red curtains By xiquinhosilva – https://www.flickr.com/photos/xiquinho/44831439702/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97218700. Platinum leaf walls By Renata3 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109923527. Breakers exterior By xiquinhosilva – https://www.flickr.com/photos/xiquinho/33087730445/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97218064. Great Hall By xiquinhosilva – https://www.flickr.com/photos/xiquinho/44439354695/, CC BY 2.0,, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97218691. Cliff walk: By Beyond My Ken – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104099223. Kitchen By UpstateNYer – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7548933.

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A Newport Quaker and The French Pirates – The John Hull Story

Capt. John Hull made frequent trips between America and England as early as the 1680s. He ran a profitable line of ships between Newport, R.I., and various ports in England.

A Quaker, Hull found Rhode Island more hospitable than England, where the Quaker minority was often harassed. Rhode Island, by contrast, was more tolerant. But Hull maintained ties with England. When a Quaker boy from a noble family needed a home, Hull, even in far-off America, was the choice.

Charles Wager’s father had been a well-respected admiral in the British Navy, but his death when his son was still an infant left a gap in the lineage. Wager’s Quaker family sought to have the young man apprenticed to the Hulls. They were family friends and might train Wager to follow in his father’s footsteps as an admiral.

An Admiral in Training

The young Wager made it clear he intended to be every bit the seaman his father was.

The Book of Hulls records an early exchange between Captain Hull and his young protégé: “Step on board, Charles. Perhaps thou may get to be a captain one of these days,’ Hull said. Charles replied, ‘If I do not get to be an admiral, I will be disappointed.’”

Sir. Charles Wager, One-Tine Apprentice to Capt. John Hull. National Maritime Museum Collections, by Thomas Gibson

Indeed, Wager did become an admiral, and a much admired one at that. In part thanks to his service with Captain Hull.

Running trading vessels between England and America was not for he faint of heart. The trade routes to the European coast were abuzz with pirates or privateers, depending upon the political climate, eager for any prizes they could capture.

On one of Hull and Wager’s voyages, a French privateer set course to intercept Hull’s vessel. Though his was the larger and faster vessel, Hull had a dilemma: His Quaker pacifism would not let him engage the privateer.

John Hull Takes A Back Seat

The young Wager had no such reservations. As he loathed the idea of giving up his ship and cargo, Hull removed himself to his cabin. He left Wager in charge of the vessel, intent on running the smaller French vessel over and sinking it.

Yet, family lore has it that Hull’s Quaker principles did not prevent him from helping his apprentice.

“Charles,” he reportedly shouted from his cabin, “if thou intend to run over that schooner, thou must put the helm a little more to starboard.”

John Hull's One-Time Apprentcs Charles Wager Saw Action off Cartagena

Wager’s Action off Cartagena, 28 May 1708 The English painter Samuel Scott

Wager succeeded in thwarting the attack. It was the first real hint – beyond his bloodlines – that he was destined for an admiralty. Indeed he did ascend to the title First Lord of the Admiralty – the political head of the British Royal Navy – from 1733 and 1742.

Wager began his British naval service in the 1680s. He enjoyed a respected career, seeing action in the War of Spanish Succession. He was perhaps best known for his confrontation with the Spanish treasure fleet attempting to bring gold from South America to Europe to fund the Franco-Spanish war effort in 1708. Wager’s ships thwarted the Spanish vessels, and he became rich in the process.

Wager was also a regular visitor back to the American colonies in the years before he rose to the peak of his power, often serving in convoys that protected colonial goods on their way to England.

Yet he never forgot Captain John Hull, who gave him his start. The two traded letters and gifts until the older man died in 1733 at his 370-acre plantation on Rhode Island’s Conanicut Island.

This story last updated in 2022.

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In 1774 the Newport Circus is Torn Down

In the 1770s, as America pressed toward revolution, there was still time for leisure – for the wealthy, at least. And the Rhode Island shore was as likely a place as any for the leisure classes to congregate to enjoy food, sun and the Newport Circus.

Visitors could be treated to turtle bakes on Goat Island, small excursion boats would carry visitors exploring the coves of Newport and everything from tea to oysters was available to fill the stomachs of the guests and locals alike.

Astley’s Amphitheatre in London (1808) from Microcosm of London

Meanwhile, for the sporting set, there were horse races on the beach that featured the Narragansett pacers. And for exhibitions, there were displays of horsemanship.

Jacob Bates was an English equestrian who took continental Europe by storm with his feats of riding. He could ride four horses at once, dancing on their backs; slide under their stomachs and wow the crowds by firing guns from horseback.

Bates arrived in America in 1773 with a stop in New York and travelled New England cities putting on displays. Probably inspired by Bates, Newport developed its own home-grown riding phenom: Christopher Gardner, dubbed the “The Original American Rider.”

Gardner, the son of tavern owner Henry Gardner, advertised his act in the Newport Mercury in June of 1774 and noted that he would repeat “nearly all the parts that were exhibited here by the celebrated Mr. Bates.”

Gardner performed his act at a manege (French for riding academy) that he had constructed in North Newport. It was this Manege that gives Newport its claim to have established the first circus in America.

By 1774, however, the coming war would soon put riding manege’s to the side. Americans were in the middle of creating the Continental Association, a system of boycotting Great Britain. Under the rules of the association, colonists would stop drinking imported British tea and buying all other British goods.

In this precursor to the Revolution, the colonists also pledged cooperation to brace for the pending economic hardship the trade war would bring about, and they agreed to “encourage frugality, economy, and industry, and promote agriculture, arts and the manufactures of this country, especially that of wool; and will discountenance and discourage every species of extravagance and dissipation.”

The association went into effect in December of 1774, and it would curtail theater, musical performances, gambling and other entertainments throughout the war. Perhaps anticipating the change, Gardner advertised in August of 1774 in the Newport Mercury:

“ONCE MORE, For the Last Time, in this Place, On Tuesday next, If the Weather be good, if not the next suitable Day, Will be Performed HORSEMANSHIP, In the highest Perfection ever exhibited in this Country by Christopher H. Gardner, At his Manage at the North Part of Newport; After which the Manage is to be taken down. The Doors will be opened at half past 3 O’clock, P.M. and he will mount at half after 4. Tickets, at a Quarter of a Dollar each, may be had of Messrs. Ichabod Potter, Henry Gardner, Robert Lillibridge, jun., William Davis, and at the Printing Office. N.B.”

The circus would not return to America until long after the Revolution. In Europe, meanwhile, the circus continued to evolve under showmen like Philip Astley, operator of Astley’s Amphitheatre in London.

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New England Places: Murderers, Mariners, Marriages and Windmills

When Salem, Mass. comes up in conversation, many historic topics come to mind. The infamous witch trials. The China trade. The House of the Seven Gables. But how about murder?

Preserved among Salem’s many antiquities is the Gardner-Pingree House, site of the infamous murder of Captain Joseph White by the offspring of a well-known Salem family. A short walk to the wharves and other Salem amenities, the Gardner-Pingree House is now part of the Peabody Essex Museum and one of the historic properties the Salem museum includes on its tours.

This week we revisited a story about Jackie Kennedy and her roots. The wedding of Jack and John Kennedy was the Newport event of the season in September of 1953. The couple were wed at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where they attended mass during summers their whole lives. The newlyweds shook hands with some 1300 guests for over three hours on their wedding day.

Today, visitors can relive that storybook day with a musical show and presentation that runs throughout the summer.

And while we’re on the topic of Rhode Island, we recalled this week Governor Benedict Arnold’s refusal to join in the short but violent persecution of Quakers by colonial settlers in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

newport tower Arnold, no fan of the Quakers, argued that A.) Rhode Island had no laws on the books with which to charge the Quakers and B.) Persecution was exactly what the Quakers wanted because it drew attention and members to their cause.

Arnold had a long history as a Rhode Island leader, and is also associated with one of the state’s most visited sites: The Newport Tower in Touro Park. Though any number of theories have been advanced about the object, it’s most likely the base of a windmill Arnold had on his property. The park is a pleasant spot just a short stroll from Newport’s famous mansions and its many restaurants and watering holes.

We also wrote this week about Thomas Prince, the historian’s historian. Prince, a minister, was obsessed with New England history and exasperated his publishers by taking ten years to finish his first volume – a manuscript that ballooned so large it was nearly unpublishable.

Among Prince’s other pursuits was serving as minister at the Old South Meeting House, a building with an unmatched history, including a playing a major role in the Boston Tea party. The house is open daily.

Schooner (National Gallery of Art)

Finally this week we took a look at three New England mathematicians who literally rewrote the book on teaching arithmetic in the late 1700s to reflect the new currency adopted after the American Revolution. Probably the best known of the three was Nathan Daboll. In the early 1800s, scholars who wanted to emphasize the correctness of a calculation would say it was true, “according to Daboll.”

Daboll was a product of Connecticut who was known best his adopted hometown of New London for teaching sailors (as many as 1,500) the skills of navigation – essential training in the coastal community that still celebrates its maritime heritage with institutions such as the Custom House Maritime Museum, which is open year round.

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Rhode Island’s Esek Hopkins – Rodney Dangerfield of the American Revolution

In December of 1775, the Continental Congress gave Esek Hopkins eight sailing ships and a set of orders to clear the British Navy from the Chesapeake Bay. As he sailed from the wharves of Philadelphia, he lofted a flag with the motto, “Don’t Tread on Me.” A crowd cheered the salty old Rhode Island sea captain.

After that, things didn’t go so well.

Hopkins had found considerable success as a privateer during the Seven Years War, known in America as the French and Indian War. That didn’t make him suited to serve as commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy.

Esek Hopkins, Privateer

He was born in Scituate on April 26, 1718 into a prominent Rhode Island family. Brother Stephen signed the Declaration of Independence and served as Rhode Island governor.

From 1754 to 1763, privateering was rampant as the Seven Years’ War between England and France enveloped their North American territories. Privateers could attack French vessels and steal their cargo, keeping much of what they stole for themselves.

Hopkins plundered with a passion, and he was very good at it.

Overly enthusiastic privateers didn’t draw the line with French vessels, either. They seized ships belonging to Spain and other countries, as well, until official complaints curtailed that practice.

Though he established a large farm in North Providence with his profits, it was the ocean life he loved, and he spent years at a time voyaging to South America and even Europe. When he was at home, his biographers say, Hopkins was brash and argumentative and eager to join in political fights. And some have suggested he was at least a supporter, and perhaps even a participant, in the Gaspee Affair.

In Spring of 1775, when open warfare erupted with Britain, Rhode Islanders were concerned about the safety of their colony, exposed as Newport was, surrounded by British war ships. Hopkins was tapped to help assist in fortifying the colony. But events moved quickly, and on December 22 his assignment shifted and he was named commander-in-chief of the entire continental navy, which then numbered a modest eight vessels. Hopkins’ brother Stephen, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, personally wrote to him urging him to accept the post.

When Hopkins, aboard the flagship Alfred, departed in the winter of 1776, he quickly determined that he would not attempt the southern U.S. coast. His orders told him clearing British war ships out of the Chesapeake, the Carolinas and finally Newport were his priorities.

Esek Hopkins in happier times, depicted with other Rhode Island sea captains in the painting in “Sea Captains Carousing in Surinam” from 1755 (he is second from the left at the table). By John Greenwood.

Winter storms had driven the British into the harbors, making them difficult to attack, and his crews were not healthy. So, while lookouts in Charlestown, South Carolina kept watch in anticipation of Hopkins’ fleet, the Rhode Islander instead set course for the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. Hopkins orders from Congress gave him some leeway in his choice of targets, noting that if the first three targets weren’t feasible, it was up to his judgment to attack and harass the British as he saw fit.

“If bad winds or stormy weather or any other unforeseen accident or disaster disable you so to do, you are then to follow such courses as your best judgment shall suggest to you as most useful to the American cause and to distress the enemy by all means in your power,” his orders said.

New Providence was home to large stores of British munitions and Hopkins knew that George Washington and his army were in dire need of powder and weapons. Hopkins sailed to the island and, after promising that its residents would be left unmolested if they surrendered their fort, he sailed away with the munitions and powder from the fort at Nassau.

While British ships, alert to Hopkins’ arrival, had been able to remove a lot weapons before he reached the fort, the haul for the Americans was significant. On the return voyage, Hopkins hoped to make even a bigger victory by engaging the British Navy’s HMS Glasgow, but the British ship was able elude the new American Navy and escape.

When Hopkins first returned with his cache of arms and supplies, his victory was heralded. But the hot-headed commander-in-chief was soon in for trouble. The escape of the Glasgow soon overshadowed the success of the Navy.

Further, Hopkins found himself now in contest with his former fraternity, the privateers. Congress had authorized privateers, in addition to the Navy, to attack British vessels. While sailors in the Navy could keep 30 percent of the booty they took from merchant ships and 50 percent from armed vessels, the privateers could keep half of the cargo from all vessels they captured.

The result was predictable: the most able sailors were drawn to the privateers commanded by shrewd skippers motivated by money, while the navy ships, commanded by patriots, went begging for men. Sometimes, sailors would sign on for service on a naval ship only to collect the advance pay that all sailors received and then desert to take a spot on a privateer.

Frustrated, Hopkins and his undermanned Navy did little as they tried to relaunch themselves from Rhode Island. Congress ordered Hopkins to sail to Newfoundland to disrupt the British fishing fleet. He did not go. Congress ordered him to go to the Carolinas. Again, he didn’t go.

All the while, Hopkins blamed the privateers and ship owners – his former friends – with defeating his cause by taking all available men for their missions and even diverting money and labor Congress designated for building naval vessels toward building their own privateering vessels.

Hopkins vented his fury to anyone within earshot, calling the congressmen clerks and lawyers who nothing about what they were attempting, according to his men. He swore on his vessel and his critics said the reason he couldn’t get sailors to sign up was because he was so feared and disliked. They accused him of mistreating British prisoners, keeping them bound in chains when they refused to serve on the ships that had captured them.

Matters finally came to a head in January, 1777. The British vessel, HMS Diamond, had run aground in Narragansett Bay. It was tilted so dramatically that it could not fire its guns. Yet Hopkins and his new vessel, the Providence, couldn’t manage to capture it. Hopkins twice rowed to shore to converse with the rebels there, and on his second trip he let his launch drift away and was stranded on shore. When the tide came in, the Diamond sailed away unmolested.

What followed was a period of political and personal chaos. Hopkins’ men reported his deficiencies to Congress. Hopkins retaliated, firing some of his men. The whole mess resulted in his being brought to Philadelphia to answer charges.

Congress had already censured Hopkins for his first mission in which the Glasgow got away. This time Congress concluded Hopkins was not the right man for the job and relieved him of his command in January of 1778. History had treated Hopkins quite roughly, and his supporters would note that his initial move to attack British ships in the Bahamas was actually a wise strategy. Rather than confronting a superior force head-on on American shores, he forced the British to worry more about protecting foreign ports and shipping from attack – draining away resources needed to put down the Revolution.

Hopkins would remain active in politics and his reputation would be repaired somewhat over time, but he never found success in the navy the way he did as a privateer, and has not been celebrated the way military heroes are. Even at Brown University, where his portrait eventually wound up, the curator of the university’s portrait collection reports it has gone missing for about 100 years. One theory is that perhaps it was loaned out, and no one ever bothered to retrieve it.

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The British Occupation of Newport – A Long Winter Arrives in 1776

The British occupation of Newport, R.I. in 1776 made a lot of sense. Newport was a wealthy town. Years of wide-ranging international trade had made it the fourth largest town in the colonies. And its harbor was large and sheltered.

Maj. General Richard Prescott was a thorn in the side of Rhode Islanders during the British occupation of Newport.

In short, it was a logical place for the British General Henry Clinton to eye as a potential winter home after being repulsed from Charleston, S.C. that June.

Newport had seen its share of skirmishes in the spring of 1776, mostly over British demands for supplies. The patriots drove off a small British fleet. But Clinton had 8,000 to 10,000 men and a squadron of ships at his disposal.

As word spread of the British plans, the exodus from the city picked up its pace. Many of the wealthy families had already fled, and many more continued leaving until the city was at least half empty.

The Newport Mercury newspaper, sympathetic to the patriot cause, picked up and moved to Attleboro, Massachusetts. Other outspoken rebels moved inland. When the British arrived in December, there was no force to resist them.

“The troops . . . disembarked without the least opposition; when, being informed that the rebels had quitted the works in and about the town of Newport, and were retiring towards Bristol ferry, I detached Major-general Prescott, with the grenadiers and light infantry, to intercept them,” Clinton would write back home to England.

Richard Prescott

Richard Prescott could find few rebels to fight and settled for sending a few off the island and collecting up cannons that the rebels had been unable to take with them.

If the citizens of Newport had any doubts about what life under the British would be like, they didn’t last long. The British commandeered homes to house the soldiers and stole food and valuables. Prescott built for himself a long promenade in front of the house he’d seized made up of the doorsteps belonging to other houses. A petty tyrant, he took to the streets and bullied people, beating them with his cane and imprisoning them on a whim.

The British stayed in Newport for almost three years before they evacuated.

By the time they left, the town was in ruins. The soldiers looted and destroyed property and had chopped down all but one tree for use as firewood.

This story updated in 2022.

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