Signs of religious tolerance in Newport

The Quaker meeting house Newport. Symbolic of the town's determination
of embrace religious tolerance and freedom of belief. 

We had to take a launch from Arcadia to the shore at Newport. We were about the last to get on the launch, so separated from my friends we got sorted into different groups for the tour, which started immediately we left the launch. I had the amusing experience of being re-sorted into a group with my friends as a little discussion about group numbers went on between the two guides. As I am a tour guide, I was amused to see the slightly exasperated look on our guide's face as we all re-grouped. The area around the port in Newport is mostly modern, but our guide took us into the old town. Newport, he explained, was founded in the 17th century, by immigrants and descendants of immigrants as a break-away community to establish freedom of worship. The puritans on the Arbella in 1630, who founded Boston had a clear intention of a establishing a Calvinist/puritan community there. All settlers had to conform to this method of worship, laws and social order. It was a system of administration which caused its own problems as described in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" and more extreme problems, as dramatised in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". Quakers, for instance were outcast and persecuted. So Newport was founded by a group of settlers who believed in freedom of worship. Particularly persecuted by the puritan fathers of Boston and other puritan run communities were the Quakers. One of the first places of worship in Newport was the Quaker meeting house. Also we found the Methodist Church, the Synagogue and the Anglican Church, which looked like a Wren or Hawksmoor church and could have looked equally in place in the City of London. Inside the Anglican church were high pews for nursing mothers and two Tiffany windows. Tiffany had a way of 'folding' stained glass which gives the design a distinctive solid, quality appearance. In England we often point out mansions and houses and say "Queen Elizabeth the first slept here." On the East Coast of America, they point out mansions and houses and say "George Washington slept here." A rather austere brick-built slightly romanesque-style building caught our eye. It was, in fact, the Roman Catholic church where Jack Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. I had spotted the public toilets (sorry bathrooms or washrooms) on our tour, so that was our next stop before finding somewhere for coffee and refreshments. We found an excellent little home-bakery cafe, where we spent a few dollars on coffee and a slices of the special offer of blueberry and toffee cake, which was delicious and had something sweet and crunchy on the top. In Newport I got the message from my son, I should have got in Bloomingdales and we went to look for the "7 for all mankind jeans". In one shop, three young people were not able to supply them, but "googled" the brand for me and told me about all the stockists, including, of course, Bloomingdales. As I was unlikely to be near any of the stockists, I rather abandoned my search for them at that point, but it was fun chatting and joking with the helpful young people. It was raining when we got back to the launch and back on the ship. Overwhelmingly, Newport was a total contrast to New York.