It was not until near 1840 that the Middletons and Izzards and other wealthy and aristocratic Southern families were tempted to Newport by the climate and the facilities it offered for bathing, shooting and boating.A boarding-house or two sufficed for the modest wants of the new-comers, first among which stood the Aquidneck, presided over by kind Mrs.Murray.It was not until some years later, when New York and Boston families began to appreciate the place, that the first hotels were built, - the Atlantic on the square facing the old mill, the Bellevue and Fillmore on Catherine Street, and finally the original Ocean House, destroyed by fire in 1845 and rebuilt as we see it to-day.The croakers of the epoch considered it much too far out of town to be successful, for at its door the open fields began, a gate there separating the town from the country across which a straggling, half-made road, closed by innumerable gates, led along the cliffs and out across what is now the Ocean Drive.The principal roads at that time led inland; any one wishing to drive seaward had to descend every two or three minutes to open a gate.The youth of the day discovered a source of income in opening and closing these for pennies.
第74章 The Newport of the Past (1)（3 / 3）