As the opening of the Newport Historical Society’s new Resource Center approaches, it is timely to review the building’s evolution:
1854 Newport Historical Society incorporated. Rhode Island Historical Society’s “southern cabinet” collections housed at the Redwood Library.
1880 The 1730 Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House was purchased and moved from lower Barney Street to Touro Street and was converted to an exhibit hall.
1902 The Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House was moved north on the Touro Street lot. A library and office space was added to the front of the Meeting House on Touro Street.
1915 The Seventh Day Meeting House was again moved back. A new building with exhibit halls, offices and storage rooms were constructed at the rear of the library from matching gifts of Arthur Curtiss James.
2014-2015 Renovation of the 1902 and 1915 buildings into a state-of-the-art Resource Center which includes an elevator and new entrance.
Above: Cyan postcard depicting a Newport Historical Society exhibit space in the Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House, circa 1910. NHS 2009.3.37.
Below: Architectural renderings of the Historical Society’s 1915 addition, attributed to architect Joseph G. Stevens. NHS 2012.13.
