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Jim, it's always fun to visit downtown Newport, Rhode Island. Oh, it so is. And we've been here a few times before, looking for haunts, pirates, other weirdness. Yeah, Newport has this undertone to it. I mean, obviously, everything is modern with cars and paved streets, telephone poles, things like that. But there's also this very old seaport side that seems to bleed through all the modern stuff. Yeah, I get it. Almost like a painting coming through, you know?
So when you stand here and look around, it's easy to imagine a time where like a horse-drawn carriage would go by the docks and where a ship was waiting to sail you off to some distant land. Now what brings us to Newport this time? Another haunt? More pirates? No, no, not this time, Ray. We're looking for an ancient mystery today. So let's cross the street here, Mill Street, and we're going to head over into Touro Park. Touro Park is a pretty spot on a slight hill in town. From here, we can look west and see Newport Harbor below.
And what we've come to see is this stone tower here in the middle of the park, right behind the wrought iron fence. It's ancient. Its original purpose is hotly debated, and it's preserved here for all of us to see and ponder. We've come to Rhode Island to investigate Newport's mystery tower.
Hello, I'm Jeff Belanger. And I'm Ray Ogier. Welcome to episode 383 of the New England Legends podcast. Thanks for joining us here in Newport, Rhode Island, as we make our next stop on our mission to chronicle every weird legend in New England, one story at a time. We're so glad you're with us. Now, most of our story leads come from you, so please reach out to us anytime through our website. We love hearing from you. And don't forget our annual zombie proms coming up Saturday, February 22nd at the
Double Tree Hotel in Milford, Massachusetts. Tickets are 25 bucks in advance, 30 at the door, and all proceeds go to benefit Community Harvest Project. This is always such a blast, so much fun. You can dress up as a zombie, zombie hunter, or go in your regular street clothes and we'll call you a victim. You can find the link to get tickets on our website or in the link in this episode description. We'll explore this ancient mystery in Newport right after this word from our sponsor.
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Okay, now I've heard of this landmark. I've always heard it called Newport Tower. Yeah, that's what a lot of people call it, or Newport's Mystery Tower. So the tower is 28 feet tall. It's made entirely of stone. It's 24 feet in diameter and sits on stone arches.
It clearly looks like something used to be on the top of the stonework, but it's long gone now. It's just a cylinder of stone. Yeah, it's obviously old, and that part is clear. And Newport is old, too. Sure. It was first settled by the English in 1639. The town grew quickly because people were frustrated with strict puritanical beliefs coming out of Boston. The Puritans were trying to dictate every part of political and religious life for people in Massachusetts' Bay Colony.
And that drove some folks away. Some of them came here for religious freedom. We know Roger Williams encountered the same issue, which led him to founding Providence for the same reasons.
He had ideas about keeping church and state separate, and the Puritans of Boston didn't like that idea one bit. But back to this tower. Yes, right. And as we said, it's just an empty cylinder now. Yeah. I could see some holes on the side of the stone walls of the cylinder, though. Yeah, those. They're clearly part of the design. Right. It doesn't look like damage. Looks like small windows built in with some decorative stonework around it. The one I'm looking at on this side, it's maybe 10 inches by 10 inches thick.
But there's a few other holes in the sides of the structure, too. Those holes are part of what makes this structure's function hotly debated. Most people believe this structure dates back to the earliest days of Newport, so it's centuries old for sure. Some believe those windows were used as a solar calendar, that when the sun shone through them at a certain angle, it would mark certain events like a solstice or an equinox.
And there's another theory that the small holes on the sides served as a kind of camera obscura. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So this giant stone structure may have been a camera? Well, sort of. So the camera as we know it today got its start in 1839 with the daguerreotype. This was a camera that could burn an image onto a plate that would be developed into a photograph, a print of some kind.
But the camera obscura dates back at least 2,500 years, but probably longer. So if you have an enclosure of some kind with a small hole in it, the image on the outside comes through the hole and is projected upside down and reversed on the opposite wall of the hole. Like the pinhole camera we made as kids. That's exactly right. And also like your eyeball, by the way. So the pinhole camera is a camera obscura. So theoretically, if this structure was fully enclosed, say with wood that's long since rotted away,
If you were sitting inside of it, you could see Newport Harbor projected on the opposite wall, upside down and in reverse. Well, I mean, that's a neat trick, but what purpose would that serve? I mean, you can just look outside and see the real Newport Harbor. Right. And it would be the right side up and looking normal. There's that.
Well, there's also a theory that maybe this structure predates the founding of Newport by European settlers. Maybe this structure is evidence that Vikings were here centuries earlier. Vikings? Rhode Island already has the runestone. We did a story on that before, so I guess we couldn't be shocked, right? Well, right. Well, to further investigate, let's head back to 1839.
It's the spring of 1839 here in Newport. Martin Van Buren is president of the United States, and William Sprague is governor of Rhode Island. The War of 1812 is a distant memory. This experiment, called the United States of America, is starting to pick up some steam. Now, folks in Newport are busy, of course. Time and tide wait for no one, and this port has ships constantly coming and going, delivering goods and people, then moving on to the next port.
The people who live and work in town don't have a lot of time for paying too much attention to various structures in Newport. But a few people have caught word about a new supplement to a book that came out two years ago called Antiquitous Americana by a Danish scholar named Charles Raffin. Raffin's book was a hit because it brought to light and romanticized the Viking conquest of various lands.
The public couldn't get enough Vikings. They love the tales and the idea that maybe even these American shores may have been visited by these hardy warriors centuries ago. With Vikings on their minds, people are looking for evidence, anything that might show Vikings were here too. In Raffin's book supplement, he speculates that maybe this old tower in Newport was
It was actually a Norse church built in the 1100s by Eric, Bishop of Gardar. Hmm. Now, I'm no scholar, but if it was a church, it was pretty small. Maybe this was part of the church. Maybe. The thing is, there are some locals who do keep track of history around here, and they know a little bit more about this land. Let's head over to the town hall. The building's just up ahead. We can check out the public records. I think the Registrar of Deeds would be a good place to start.
Excuse me, we're looking for some of the background on the old stone tower a few blocks over. Okay, well, hey, let's check this out. It says the land where the tower sits was once owned by Governor Benedict Arnold. That would be the grandfather of the Revolutionary War's most famous trader of the same name. Okay, reading more here. So there's a record of the tower in the 1670s. Governor Arnold mentions the structure in his will. He calls it, quote, my stone-built windmill.
Hmm. So does that explain it? Would there have been a windmill on top of the stonework? Well, that's one theory. And some suggest there used to be a wooden windmill on that hill that was lost in a hurricane. So a stronger stone windmill was built by Arnold to replace it. But there's another suggestion that maybe the tower was a harbor lookout of some kind. You would have a great view of the water from the top for sure. And some people believe that it was an older tower that was then converted into a windmill by Governor Arnold.
After Arnold died in 1678, the tower isn't mentioned for a long time. There's evidence it was used to store munitions at one point, and other things. Most people didn't give its origins much thought until Charles Raffin suggested it might be Vikings. With its exact origins unsure, soon other theories began to be tossed around. Some said it was Chinese sailors that built it. Others said Portuguese. Others said Celts.
If you had a wild theory, you could find a way to make Newport Tower fit. Now without a definitive document saying who built it and why, we had room for mysteries. And that brings us back to today.
In more modern times, archaeologists have looked into this structure a little deeper. Now in 1949, a dig was conducted here that unearthed a clay pipe and some colonial pottery, leading experts to believe maybe Governor Arnold did build it. In more recent years, some of the limestone mortar was carbon dated, which also suggested this was built in the 1600s or colonial times. But what about all the random windows and holes in the walls of the structure? So they probably held wooden support beams that would have held up the windmill on top.
But those holes also offer some insight into some unique solar alignments. For example, the sun can shine through two of the holes on opposite sides during the winter solstice. Now, is that a case of random luck, or was that part of the original design? My guess facts like those keep the mystery alive. When you look at an old drawing of Newport, you can see this structure on the hill overlooking the harbor below. Check it out. Yeah.
Yeah, I see a windmill. Right. I think even the biggest believers in alternative Newport Tower theories know it did serve as a windmill for a period of time, no doubt.
But they believe it was something else before. No matter what, this is one of the oldest still surviving European structures in all of New England. It's about 350 years old now. It stands here for all to see. It endures with just enough oddity to it to leave us asking questions and speculating as to who exactly built it and why.
Speaking of things that endure, we'll hit our eighth anniversary this year. Eight years of the wicked strange side of New England. And we've also just hit After the Legend, where we take a deeper dive into this week's story and sometimes veer off course. After the Legends brought to you by our mighty Patreon patrons. Our patrons are legends. They help us with our hosting and production costs, with our marketing and travel, everything else it takes to bring you two episodes each week.
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or you can go to our website and click on over to episode 383, Newport Tower. We live in such an amazing part of the country where everything is old for one thing. And we get to see these structures on a daily basis.
And some people don't even think about it. No. Because you go right by it. I heard it was a Dunkin' Donuts. Did you? They've been around that long. Back in 16... One of the first. 1680s. It was one of the early ones. Yeah. It was a drive-thru. You could just ride the horse up and get your, you know... But no matter what town you live in, there is a structure like this. Something weird. Whether big or small. Yeah. It could just be a rock formation that was there forever. But it's everywhere. That's one of the things I love what we do, right? Is that...
Like you said, so many towns have got these things. You drive right by it. You give it no thought. But there's a story there. Like someone built it for some unique purpose. Or there's a story that nobody understands. Like remember the Leaning Rock in Holliston? Was that what it was called? The Leaning Rock or something? Balancing Rock? Balanced Rock. There's a bunch of them. That was pretty cool. Unexplained, right? Well, the explanation is a glacier dropped it off just right. Right.
I mean, you know. The theory. That's the theory. Yeah, yeah. That a glacier placed it there just perfectly, that it's balancing. And some of these balancing rocks, I've seen a few. They're all over the world. Yeah. It looks like you could, like just you alone, not even your buddies, just you could be like, if I pushed it just right, I could tip this thing over. And sometimes people do, by the way. But some you can't. But some you can't. Holliston stood the test of time until a few years ago. Enough drunks got together. Yeah.
We're going to need some beer and like a football team. It's amazing that it is balancing because physics would say that you stand on one side and you push hard enough or jump up and down hard enough, it's going to unbalance itself and fall over. Yeah. But it did stand the test of time. So things like that all over. These ancient mysteries where you're looking like that shouldn't
be. And the tower shouldn't have survived. I mean, if it's that old, if it was just a windmill that was built nice and ornately, like why didn't someone tear it down? But they didn't. And eventually, and I think this is part of our New England culture, when something is old enough, if it's still there...
Well, now you can't touch it. Right. But it's just a bunch of rocks in a circle. We don't know what it is, but it's been here forever. We're not taking it down. It's not serving anything. It becomes a historic landmark. Yeah. Suddenly you're like, yeah, well, don't touch it. Yeah. Right? And then enough time goes by, it becomes sacred. Now, the church theory holds no water at all. It's tiny, 24 feet. Right. That's...
go ahead and get out a tape measure and like draw a circle with that. Right. How many people could you put in there comfortably? Yeah. Five, six standing shoulder to shoulder. This is the church. This is a steeple. There's nobody inside. Yeah. There's, there's like, yeah, there's room. Maybe 10 of you could just be like shoulder to shoulder wedged in as someone talked to you. Just stay outside. Yeah. Go to someone's house. Right. More room is seats and stuff. Yeah. So I don't, church doesn't make sense. Now, when you, when you really pick apart Newport tower, um,
you can see that there's the stone arches that are underneath it. There's, there's other examples of windmills that did have that same sort of base to it. So most people are fairly sure it was a wind, I mean, it was a windmill. You look at that print that you could see the hill and you see a very clear windmill like that. Was that the original? That's about the property. Well,
Or did it start as something else and they made it into a windmill? There's a little museum across the way from the tower. And is that as old, too, as the tower? No, the museum, though, exists purely for all the alternate theories on it. Oh, really? So we interviewed him. We actually covered this on episode three on the TV series, the New England Legends TV series. You can watch it on Amazon Prime. And there's an extra on our website where we go into that museum where he's like,
a camera obscura. And he turned his museum into one so he can block out all the light and he opens a little hole in the front and you see Newport, like the outside downtown Newport, getting projected on the back wall upside down. Wow. It's a natural phenomenon. Right. It's just a hole. It's like a pinhole camera you made as a kid. You know, it's super easy. But again...
Why? Why? Yeah. Right? Other than it being a novelty, you know what I mean? So if you needed a lookout, makes total sense. Stand up there, watch the harbor for bad pirates or whatever that you're keeping a watch for. Sure. But looking at it backwards and upside down, I'm not sure that's really helpful. Well, maybe that's so that they could hide. You know, a pirate ship may be going by and they see the land through their...
What did they call them? The telescopes? Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Yeah, the looking glass. The looking glass. And there's no one there. But they're inside looking at the projection on the wall. Sure. Or you just stay behind a stone wall with a little peephole. Or you could do that too. Right? You know what I mean? Where you're well covered and no one can see you. Yeah. So no, I know. Yeah, no, I thought about that. And it was just... But the guy that runs that museum, I forget his name, forgive me, but he's in the episode. Yeah.
he's taken photos where like the sun will shine through two of the holes on opposite sides at just the right moment. And that's the winter solstice where the sun is low enough on the thing. And, and,
So you say like, okay, but is that just dumb luck? Like, like if you, like if you, if you have two points, right, I can line up any two points with anything. You know what I mean? Right. Like I could move myself around until those two points line up with what I want it to line up with. And, and then I'll, you know, it's. So it could be some kind of time piece. Right. Right.
Three points. Some kind of calendar. But three points you can't argue with. Right. You know what I mean? If it's one, two, three, that's fine. But like two and then the third is arbitrary? Right. Maybe they didn't finish it. Maybe it was intended to be that. Maybe. And they only got to the two holes. Or, you know, so an obelisk, which is just a large stone tower. The Washington Monument. Yeah. Famous American obelisk. Egypt. They're in ancient Egypt. It's a structure that stands the test of time. It's also a calendar. Yeah.
So in the Washington Monument, it's no different. So if you look at where the shadow is of the monument, that'll tell you if it's, because when it's winter, the sun is very low on the horizon, so it casts a very long shadow. So you could mark a spot. You could be like, this is the winter solstice right here. Put a little X in the shadow.
And then, you know, this is the summer solstice. It's going to be much closer because the sun's higher up in the sky. They all tell time like annually and even time of day. Although something that big, it's not going to be all that accurate. But roughly. But roughly. Right. So you can also just look up. Like sun's pretty high. It's probably about noon. Yeah. But so these things become, I get it's important. And when you're a farming culture, you got to track this kind of stuff.
But at the same time, if it's a windmill and those are filled with wooden beams, you wouldn't have that thing. And there was something on the top, too, that we don't know. Obviously. So that would have answered many questions. Because it's just cut off. So something was there, and I think a windmill makes the most sense. However, the mystery still endures. ♪
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