In November 1639 the leaders of our fledgling colony met to discuss security issues. Officers of the Peace were appointed and the Train Band was formed as Newport’s first militia. It was further enacted that “no man shall go two miles from the Towne unarmed, eyther with Gunn or Sword; and that none should come to any public Meeting without his weapon…”
Detail of a 17th century Trooper’s Pistol from the book “New England Begins: The Seventeenth Century.”