Guide to The Hunter House Collection, circa 1745-1990

The Preservation Society of Newport County
424 Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
Tel: 401-847-1000
museumaffairs@newportmansions.org

Published in 2018

Collection Overview

Title:	The Hunter House Collection
Date range:	circa 1745-1990
Creator:	Various Creators
Extent:	1 document case, 1 oversized box
Abstract:	The Hunter House Collection is comprised of materials relating to the home’s various occupants, as well as some of the restoration activities carried out by the PSNC. The documents cover the period from circa 1745 until 1990.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	The Preservation Society of Newport County
Collection number:	PSNCA.H.006

Scope & content

The Hunter House Collection is comprised of photographs, other image prints and documents. The objects date from circa 1745 - 1990, and formats include albumen prints, gelatin prints and handwritten documents from the colonial period. The photographs depict various architectural views and elements of the house, as well as people and related architectural materials, from throughout the course of its lifetime.

This collection has been fully digitized and is available for viewing online at newportalri.org

Access Points

Subject Names

• Hunter, William, 1774-1849
• Rochambeau, Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de, 1725-1807
• Nichols, Jonathan, Jr.
• Wanton, Joseph, Jr.
• Wanton, Mary Robinson

Document Types

• photographs
• newspaper clippings
• postcards
• documents

Subject Topics

• Architecture

Arrangement

This collection is arranged by type of materials and subject matter in one document case and one oversized box. The collection has been divided into four series.

• Series 1: Architectural Photographs
• Series 2: People Photographs
• Series 3: Printed Materials and Documentation
• Series 4: Oversized Materials

Historical note

Hunter House is a Georgian style house from Newport's first "golden age" in the mid-18th century. The house was built and decorated when Newport was one of the largest colonial cities, founded on the principle of religious tolerance that attracted Quakers, Baptists, Congregationalists and Sephardic Jews. The great mercantile families lived patrician lives, often building fashionable harbor-front mansions overlooking their trading ships, and entertained in grand style. These merchants traded raw materials, as well as bought and sold furniture and silver, from local craftsmen such as the Townsend and Goddard families.

Hunter House is a typical example of Georgian domestic architecture, which evolved from its beginnings as a half-timbered, early Colonial structure. Its Georgian incarnation has a symmetrical five-bay façade, with two bays on either side of the central doorway, and chimneys at either end. The gambrel roof was originally covered in wood shingles, typical of the period, but replaced by a slate roof in the 1870s. The exterior of the house is covered in pine clapboards, which were widely available at the time. The use of hardwoods, such as oak, was typically reserved for shipbuilding. The focal point of a Georgian exterior was the front door. At Hunter House, the paneled front door is framed by pilasters that support an elaborately carved broken-arch pediment. At the center of the pediment is a pineapple, the colonial symbol of hospitality and was originally over the waterfront entrance of the structure. The well-known pineapple was moved to the street side of the building after the renovation of the property in 1945.

Hunter House was designed and renovated over a number of years. The north half of Hunter House was constructed between 1748 and 1754 by Jonathon Nichols, Jr., a prosperous merchant and colonial deputy. After his death in 1756, the property was sold to Colonel Joseph Wanton, Jr., who was also a deputy governor of the colony and a merchant. He enlarged the house by expanding the house southward, and adding a second chimney, transforming the building into a formal Georgian mansion with a large central hall. Colonel Wanton also ordered the graining, or "spreckling," of the pine paneling in several rooms to resemble walnut and rosewood. During the American Revolution, Colonel Wanton fled from Newport due to his Loyalist sympathies. His house was used as the headquarters of Admiral de Ternay, commander of the French fleet, when French forces occupied Newport from 1780 to 1781. After the war, the house lay vacant for several years until it was sold by the state in 1786 to a series of short term tenants and owners. During this time, the outbuildings wharf, and warehouses began to deteriorate. Eventually William Hunter, a U. S. Senator and President Andrew Jackson's charge d'affaires to Brazil, purchased the house. The Hunters sold the house in 1863 to the Bay State Steamboat Company, which became the Old Colony Steamboat Company, who then sold it to John P. Gray and Samuel Oakley Vanderpool of New York City. During this time, many changes were made to the property by its tenants, through the installation of modern heating and lighting. Before Dr. Horatio Robinson Storer became its owner in 1881, dubbing the house "Shore Haven”, features were thrown out such as the small caned glass windows and many Scriptural tiles.

Concerned that the fine interiors of the house would be purchased and removed from the building, a small group of dedicated citizens led by Mrs. George Henry Warren initiated a preservation effort, purchasing the house in 1945 and forming The Preservation Society of Newport County. The Preservation Society restored Hunter House to the era of Colonel Wanton. The interior collections include furniture by the Townsend-Goddard family, premier cabinetmakers of the colonial era who worked in the neighborhood of Hunter House. Newport pewter and paintings by Cosmo Alexander, Gilbert Stuart and Samuel King are also on display. Hunter House is a National Historic Landmark.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	The collection is open to the public, and there are no restrictions on access. However, the collection can only be seen by scheduled appointment.
Use of the materials:	All researchers seeking to publish materials from the collections of the PSNC Archives and Special Collections are requested to contact the archivist, prior to reproducing, quoting, or otherwise publishing any portion or extract from this collection. Although the Preservation Society has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim copyright ownership. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the copyright and to obtain any necessary permission from them.
Preferred citation:	"Courtesy of the Preservation Society of Newport County"
Contact information:	The Preservation Society of Newport County 424 Bellevue Avenue Newport, RI 02840 Tel: 401-847-1000 museumaffairs@newportmansions.org

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	Architectural photographs taken for the PSNC by John T. Hopf and others, from 1945-1990, or were gifted to the PS by other donors; Family photographs and other printed materials were gifted to PSNC by various donors.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Encoding:	Finding aid encoded by Kate McNally, Digitization Archivist, 2018
Revisions:	15 October 2024 : Item numbers .92-.103 have been removed from the collection, and reprocessed as the Rogers Case family photographs, to better preserve their provenance and separate context from the Hunter House collection. Changes to housing of fragile materials and the combination of two boxes into one box have also altered folder numbers and the extent information. Boxes 1 and 2 were combined into one box, and the oversized box was renumbered as Box 2 instead of constituting a separate numbering scheme as Oversized Box 1. In order to preserve citation information about the collection, the former numbering is also written on each folder. Item numbers for individual photographs, etc. remain the same, and so there is a numbering gap due to the removal of the Rogers Case Family Collection. All changes made by archivist Genna Duplisea.
Descriptive rules:	Finding aid based on Describing Archives: A Content Standard(DACS).

Additional Information

Inventory

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