Fishing is an industry of some importance. The value of the city’s factory products decreased from $1,575,192 in 1900 to $1,347,104 in 1905.
Newport is governed under a charter of 1906, which is unique as an instrument for the government of a city, and aims to restore in a measure the salient features of township government. Most of the powers usually vested in a town meeting are here vested in a representative council of 195 members—39 from each of 5 wards. A candidate for councilman must secure the signature of at least 30 electors in his ward before his name can be placed on the ballot. A mayor, one alderman from each ward, and a school committee are elected in much the same manner: a candidate for mayor must have his election paper signed by at least 250 qualified electors, and an alderman or member of the school committee by at least 100. All other important officers are appointed by the council. The mayor and aldermen are for the most part executive officials corresponding to the selectmen of a town.
Newport was founded by Nicholas Easton (1593–1675), William Coddington (1601–1678), John Coggeshall, John Clarke (1609–1676), William Brenton (d. 1674), William Dyer, Thomas Hazard, Henry Bull (1609–1693) and Jeremy Clerke (d. 1652), who, as Antinomians, were driven from Massachusetts Bay, and in 1638 settled at Pocasset (later Portsmouth, in the northern part of the island of Rhode Island; pop. in 1905, 2371). As radical tendencies prevailed in Pocasset they removed, and in 1639 settled Newport at the southern end of the island (called Aquidneck until 1644), which they had bought from the Indians. Most of the founders are commemorated by place-names in the city; in the Coddington Burying-Ground are the tombs of Governor William Coddington, Governor Henry Bull, and Governor Nicholas Easton; and in the Coggeshall Burying-Ground John Coggeshall was buried. At the beginning an independent government by judge and elders was established (Newport and Portsmouth being united in 1640), but in 1647 the town was united with Providence, Portsmouth and Warwick in the formation of Rhode Island according to the Williams (or, as it is commonly called, the Warwick) charter of 1644. During 1651–1654 Newport and Portsmouth were temporarily separated from the other two towns. About 1640 a Baptist Church was founded, which is probably the oldest in the United States except the Baptist congregation in Providence; here, too, at nearly the same time, one of the first free schools in America was opened. In 1656 English Friends settled here. Between 1739 and 1760 great fortunes were amassed by the “Triangular Trade,” which consisted in the exchange in Africa of rum for slaves, the exchange in the Barbadoes of slaves for sugar and molasses, and the exchange in Newport of sugar and molasses for rum. The destruction here on the 17th of May 1769 of the British revenue sloop “Liberty,” formerly the property of John Hancock, was one of the first acts of violence leading up to the War of American Independence. The foreign trade of Newport, which in 1770 was greater than that of New York, was destroyed by the War of Independence. During the war the town was in the possession of the British from December 1776 to the 25th of October 1779; a plan to recover it in 1778 by a land force under General John Sullivan, co-operating with the French fleet under Count d'Estaing, came to nothing. Soon after the evacuation of the British, French troops, under Comte de Rochambeau, arrived and remained until near the end of the war, and Newport was a station of the French fleet in 1780–1781. The Sayer house, which was the headquarters of Richard Prescott (1725–1788), the British general; the Vernon house, which was the headquarters of Rochambeau, and the Gibbs house, which was for a short time occupied by Major-General Nathanael Greene, are still standing.
Newport was chartered as a city in 1784, but in 1787 it surrendered its charter and returned to government by town meeting. It was rechartered as a city in 1853; the charter of this year was much amended in 1875 and in 1906 was superseded by another. Until 1900, when Providence became the sole capital, Newport was one of the seats of government of Rhode Island.
See Mrs J. K. Van Rensselaer, Newport, Our Social Capital (Philadelphia, 1905); Susan C. Woolsey, “Newport, the Isle of Peace,” in L. P. Powell’s Historic Towns of New England (New York, 1898); G. C. Mason, Reminiscences of Newport (Newport, 1884); W. A. Greene and others, The Providence Plantations for Two Hundred and Fifty Years (Providence, 1886); C. T. Brooks, Controversy touching the Old Stone Mill (Newport, 1851); R. M. Bayles (ed.), History of Newport County (New York, 1888); E. Peterson, History of Rhode Island (i.e. Aquidneck) (New York, 1853).
NEWPORT NEWS, a city and port of entry of Warwick county, Virginia, U.S.A., on the James River and Hampton Roads, 14 m. N. by W. of Norfolk and 75 m. S.E. of Richmond; it is situated on what is known as the Virginia Peninsula. Pop. (1890) 4449; (1900) 19,635, of whom 1614 were foreign-born and 6798 were negroes; (1910 census) 20,205. Newport News is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio railway, of which it is a terminus; by river boats to Richmond and Petersburg, Va.; by coastwise steamship lines to Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Providence; by foreign steamship lines to London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin, Belfast, Rotterdam, Hamburg and other ports; and by electric lines to Old Point Comfort, Norfolk and Portsmouth. A public park extending from the James to the heart of the city, a deep, spacious and well-protected harbour, a large shipbuilding yard with three immense dry docks, and two large grain elevators of 2,000,000 bushels capacity, are among the most prominent features; at the shipbuilding yard various United States battleships, including the “Kearsarge,” “Kentucky,” “Illinois,” “Missouri,” “Louisiana,” “Minnesota,” “Virginia” and “West Virginia,” were constructed, as well as cruisers, gun-boats, merchant vessels, ferry-boats and submarines. The city’s export of grain and its coastwise trade in coal are especially large. Among the manufactures are shoes, tobacco, medicines and knit goods. The value of the factory products in 1905 was $9,053,906, being 52·5% more than in 1900. Both in 1900 and in 1905 Newport News ranked second to Richmond among the cities of the state in the value of factory products. The first settlement on the site of Newport News was made in 1621 by planters brought from Ireland by Daniel Gookin, the father of Daniel Gookin (1612–1687) of Massachusetts, who selected the site on the advice of Sir William Newce and his brother Captain Newce. The present city dates only from 1882, when it was laid out in consequence of the extension of the Chesapeake & Ohio railway to the coast here; it was incorporated in 1896. The name is said to be in honour of Christopher Newport and Sir William Newce.
NEWPORT PAGNELL, a market town in the Buckingham parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 56 m. N.W. by N. of London, on a branch of the London & North-Western railway, and at the junction of the river Ouzel with the Ouse. Pop. of urban district (1901) 4028. The church of St Paul and St Peter has Early English portions, including fine north and south porches. An inscription on the tomb of Thomas Abbott Hamilton in the churchyard is by the poet Cowper, who lived in the neighbouring town of Olney (q.v.). The almshouse called Queen Anne’s Hospital is named from Anne of Denmark, queen of James I., who reconstituted a foundation of the time of Edward I., dedicated to St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist.
NEWQUAY, a seaport and watering-place, in the St Austell parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, 14 m. N. of Truro, on a branch of the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2935. It is finely situated on the north coast, on Newquay Bay, which is sheltered to the west by Towan Head. The cliff scenery is grand, and there is a fine sandy beach along the northward sweep of the coast in Watergate Bay. The harbour, artificially constructed, and equipped with a jetty and piers, admits vessels of 250 tons. The chief exports are iron and other ores, china clay, granite, fish and grain. The imports are coal, salt and manures.
NEW ROCHELLE, a city of Westchester county, in southern New York, U.S.A., on Long Island Sound, 1612 m. from the Grand Central Station, New York City. Pop. (1890) 9057, (1900)
