The Newport Tower: Vikings, Knights Templar, and Benedict Arnold

This weekend Tony and I took a quick day trip to Newport, Rhode Island. It was cool and rainy, which is perfect weather for exploring historic seaports with a history of strange happenings. 

One sight I really wanted to see was the Newport Tower, located in Touro Park. The Newport Tower is an old stone structure that has stood for centuries on a hill overlooking the harbor. It is protected by an iron fence these days so sadly you can't get too close to it. There are several theories about about who built the tower, and why they did so.

For example, it is sometimes called the Viking Tower. In the early 19th century, a Danish archeologist theorized the tower was erected by Norse explorers who came south to Rhode Island from Vinland (the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and New Brunswick) centuries before Columbus visited the New World. I am not quite sure why the Vikings would have built such a tower, but the theory was quite popular. 

In the 19th century, many Anglo Americans embraced the theory that Vikings had journeyed far down the Atlantic coast. As I mentioned a few years ago, some even believed there had been a vast Viking metropolis along the banks of the Charles River in Massachusetts, where Boston and Cambridge now stand. This simply isn't true. The only known Viking settlement in North America was in Newfoundland, which only supported around 150 people, and only lasted for a few years. There's no evidence for Viking settlements in New England. 

Nineteenth century Anglo-Americans were open to the Viking theory for political and cultural reasons. Many of them were disturbed by the large number of Catholic immigrants entering the US from southern Europe at the time. They also didn't like that Christopher Columbus, an Italian Catholic working for Spain, had been the first person to open up North America to European colonization. They wanted to believe a Northern European, like themselves, had done this first. While it is true that Vikings reached North America long before Columbus, they made very little impact and didn't stay very long. 

Back to the Newport Tower. The Viking theory was just the first of several theories claiming the tower had been built by some forgotten European explorers who came before Columbus. Perhaps the tower was built by Irish monks in the 6th century. Or maybe it was the Portuguese. Some people have even suggested it was the Knights Templar, fleeing to North America from persecution in the 14th century. The New England Antiquities Research Association has an extensive monograph outlining the various theories here. 

Unfortunately, there's no good evidence to support any of them. There isn't any evidence that Irish monks or the Knights Templar came to Rhode Island before Columbus, and most historians and archaeologists believe the Newport Tower was actually built by Benedict Arnold, the first royal governor of Rhode Island, sometime in the 17th century. (Note: Benedict Arnold's great-grandson, also named Benedict Arnold, was the notorious Revolutionary War traitor.) 

Arnold refers to a "stone-built mill" in his will, and the Newport Tower is located near the site of Arnold's home. Documents from the early 18th century refer to "the old stone mill," and carbon-dating suggests the tower's mortar dates to the late 17th century. The tower is similar to other stone mills in England, and archaeological excavations at the tower didn't unearth any artifacts older than the colonial era. 

I think the evidence indicates pretty clearly that this tower was built by Benedict Arnold (or someone hired by him). Surely someone in 17th century Newport would have mentioned discovering a giant stone tower of unknown origin when they settled the area, but they didn't. Instead, they mention a mill built by Governor Arnold. Not everyone may share my opinion, but I think a 350 year old stone windmill is still pretty cool, even if it wasn't built by Vikings.