Historical note:

            The mercantile firm of Clark & Nightingale was created by the partnership of Joseph Innes Clark (1745-1808) and Joseph Nightingale (1747-1797), son of Samuel Nightingale (1715-1786) who had built the Concord Distil House in Providence. Their shop was originally located on Main St. in Providence but later removed to the south of the Town Parade. The Historical American Buildings Survey (HABS) records 249-257 South Main St. in Providence as the “Clark & Nightingale Block.”

            They advertised “a large assortment of English and India Piece Goods; Likewise Stationary and Hardware…at their Shop, newly opened, at the Sign of the Frying-Pan and Fish.”  The firm owned the privateer ships Joseph, Blaze Castle, and Hope during the Revolutionary War and collected extensive prize money. Their other known trading vessels included the ship Providence and the ship Huron.

            Clark & Nightingale was active in the taxation controversies that led up to the Revolutionary War. On 27 June 1772, the English navy ship H.M.S. Beaver seized a ship belonging to the firm. They sued in John Clark and Joseph Nightingale v. Charles Dudley, Collector of Revenue (Providence County Superior Court, Record Book Number 2, pages 160 to 166). The legal theory was that an English Navy ship could not enforce civil law in Narragansett Bay without the consent of the Rhode Island Governor was asserted in court, just a few days after the notorious destruction of the H.M.S. Gaspee.

            The H.M.S. Beaver had stopped the ship after it had reported its cargo to Newport and was proceeding to Providence. The captain of the H.M.S. Beaver found 55 hogsheads of molasses and 26 hogsheads of sugar which had not been reported and on which no import tax had been paid. The Beaver seized the illegal goods and the ship and took them to Newport for legal action. On July 2nd, Clark and Nightingale appeared in the Newport office of Dudley and demanded that he as Collector of Revenue accept their declaration of importation of 55 hogsheads of molasses and 26 hogsheads of sugar and take the tax money they offered him. Dudley refused to accept the declaration or tax money on the reasonable ground that it was too late because the goods and ship had already been seized for illegal smuggling.

            The case proceeded to a judgment against Dudley in which the jury found that he should pay 500 English pounds damages for his illegal actions and the judges issued a judgment ordering him to accept the tax payment. Because the Beaver could not legally take any action in Narragansett Bay, the seizure was void, and hence there was in law no seizure and Dudley had no legal right to refuse payment of taxes by citizens who voluntarily were complying with the law.

            The firm operated trade voyages to foreign ports including Catavia (Jakara), Goa and Isle de France (Mauritius). Goods they imported and sold included: indigo, "Bengal Goods," hats, steel, wine, brandy, cheese, sugar, meat, linseed oil and paper. "Bengal Goods" refer to a range of textiles purchased in Bengal.

            Clark & Nightingale also ran a distillery which helped fuel the Triangle Trade of slavery and rum. The distillery was originally owned by Clark & Nightingale with Clark’s brother-in-law Ephraim Bowen Jr. and produced between 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of rum per annual quarter. After Joseph Nightingale's death in 1797, John Innes Clark is listed as the principal owner of the distillery in Providence.

Related Collections:

            John Innes Clark Papers, MSS 349. Rhode Island Historical Society.

Bibliography:

            Austin, John O. The Ancestral Dictionary. (Central Falls, R.I.: E. L. Freeman & Son, 1891)

            British Library Web Site [www.bl.uk]

            Chapin, H.M. "Check list of Rhode Island almanacs, 1643-850." Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s. v. 25 (1915): 24-26.

            Distillery Excise Tax Records. MSS 232 SG3. Rhode Island Historical Society.

            Joseph Bucklin Society [http://www.gaspee.info/GaspeeHistory/law_weapon_II.htm]

            Kimball, Gertrude Selwyn. Providence in Colonial Times. (Boston & New York: Mifflin Company, 1912.)

            Houghton Revolutionary War Series of The Papers of George Washington. 1:387

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Provenance:

            The Estate of Sarah A. (Walker) Cranston, 1906.26.4.1-2

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Processing note:

            This collection was previously housed on open shelving with one envelope holding the nine Almanacks that belonged to Joseph T. Holroyd. The Almanacks were previously labeled only as: "diaries of Joseph T. Holroyd."

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Inventory:

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Subjects:

Almanacs – New England

Batavia

Blaze Castle (ship)

Brandy

Cheese

Clark, John Innes, (1745-1808)

Distilleries – Rhode Island

Gaspee (Schooner)

Goa (India : State)

Holroyd, Joseph T.

Huron (ship)

Ille-de-France (France)

Intercoastal shipping

Isle de France (Mauritius)

Indigo industry

Jakarta Bay (Indonesia)

Linseed oil

Malabar Coast (India)

Mauritius

Meat

Molasses

Nightingale, Joseph, (1747-1797)

Paper

Privateering

Providence (ship)

Rum industry – Rhode Island

Shipping – Rhode Island – 18^th Century

Steel

Sugar

Taxation – Rhode Island – Colonial Period, ca. 1600-1775

Textile industry

Wine

United States - History - Revolution, 1775-1783 - Causes

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RIHS1822