Having introduced the dusky chieftains to the charms of delirium tremens
and their subjects to life-long slavery, one can almost see these pious
deacons proceeding to church to offer up thanks for the return of their
successful vessels. Alas! even "the best laid schemes of mice and men"
come to an end. The War of 1812, the opening of the Erie Canal and
sundry railways struck a blow at Newport commerce, from which it never
recovered. The city sank into oblivion, and for over thirty years not a
house was built there.

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.

Fashion had decreed that the correct hour for dancing was 11 A.M., and
_matinees dansantes_ were regularly given at the hotels, our grandmothers
appearing in _decollete_ muslin frocks adorned with broad sashes, and
disporting themselves gayly until the dinner hour. Low-neck dresses were
the rule, not only for these informal entertainments, but as every-day
wear for young girls,--an old lady only the other day telling me she had
never worn a "high-body" until after her marriage. Two o'clock found all
the beauties and beaux dining. How incredulously they would have laughed
if any one had prophesied that their grandchildren would prefer eight
forty-five as a dinner hour!

The opening of Belle