- [Alan] Here in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, there's a one room schoolhouse that is one of the oldest in America.

We will examine records that recall a coal mine that once extended below Narragansett Bay.

And later, come along on a visit to the Artillery Company of Newport Museum, where collections include four cannons cast by Paul Revere.

This is "Treasures Inside the Museum."

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (serene music) The town of Portsmouth, like so many communities in the area, has a rich history.

Those stories are preserved by the Portsmouth Historical Society so that present and future generations will know whose shoulders they stand on.

(serene music) The main floor of the museum includes collections and exhibits that predate the earliest settlers and chronicle important moments in the town up to the present day.

It's a history that volunteers here are very proud of.

- We have a tremendous archive.

We have some records from the town that the town didn't want anymore, of deeds and information, and so on, about records of people in the town from the 1720s and 1730s.

- The fact that I live in a town that was founded in 1638, the longer that I've been volunteering here, the more I learn about the history of the town.

And it's just really amazing that we have the opportunity to not only conserve these items, but share them with people who either have our same interests or become interested because of, either the work that's done here, the displays, the lectures that we bring in, or the act of conserving these items.

- We need to be aware of our history.

And unfortunately, in the modern age, there's not enough emphasis put on that.

And we really need to wake people up to the fact that there's a great historic tradition here.

- [Alan] That pride was reflected outward when one of the buildings on the campus here recently underwent renovations.

(hammer thumping) (tool snapping) The town's original one room schoolhouse needed a new wood-shingled roof, and the historical society came to the rescue.

- This building is important to keep and to keep restoring because it truly is a national treasure.

This building was typical here in America of schools for kids in the 18th and 19th centuries, and even into the 20th century.

It was very common that all the children would learn in a facility like this.

And just like into this school right here, their grades were from between one to eighth grade.

At the very least, it could very well be that even older students would've been taught here as well.

So it's a great example of Americana, of how Americans lived for a very long time here in this country.

- [Alan] Today, the one room schoolhouse is open to the public.

As you enter the building and pass by the lunch pails hanging on the wall, you can almost hear the voices of young children getting settled for their teacher.

- This teacher's desk right in front of me is the original desk, so this is almost 300 years old, the top part that you see.

The podium where it sits on is a more recent addition.

As far as the children's seating area, the bench along this east side is original, and the one desk in the far southeast corner is the one and only original desk.

One other original item to the school is actually the lock, the lock and key we have there in the entryway.

We don't use that same lock anymore.

It doesn't seem to work very well.

But I find that fascinating, that after almost 300 years, it is still here.

Originally, in 1725, James Preston was the first schoolmaster.

He lived at a friend's house.

He and his family, his wife and kids.

But that arrangement only lasted maybe about two years.

So in 1727, he needed a place to live, and the town allowed him and his family to live in the basement of the school.

(bright music) - [Alan] The schoolhouse remained in use until the time of the Civil War.

Over the decades, the building was moved a few times and had a couple of less noteworthy uses before it finally landed here.

It's a popular experience with students who tour the museum.

Another building on the site also has a history of different uses in the town.

- This is the old town hall.

One of three buildings on the grounds of the Portsmouth Historical Society.

We have the schoolhouse and the Christian Union Church, which is now the main museum.

Inside the old town hall, we have our larger displays of horse-drawn vehicles and farming, and agricultural supplies.

This building was built in the 1840s as the original Portsmouth Town Hall at the location of the current town hall.

When they built that, this became the headquarters for the first volunteer Portsmouth firefighters.

And then when they built their new building, the town of Portsmouth donated it to the Portsmouth Historical Society, and we currently use it to house our larger display items.

- [Alan] Those items include a mix of tools collected over the years from different farms in the community.

Portsmouth has a long history of agriculture, and these pieces help us to understand both the difficulties and innovations associated with life on the farms of our past.

(gentle music) Also on exhibit in the old town hall building are some early examples of transportation that would've been seen around town.

- This is a horse-drawn hearse that was owned by the town coroner, Asa Anthony, in the 1870s.

He used it to collect recently departed from their homes and bring them to his location and store the bodies at his home, which is now Connors Funeral Home, actually, until the family could make arrangements for burial.

It was very ornate with heavy brocading and tassels.

This would've been glass on this both sides, and in the back, with tassels here.

People had thought that our ancestors may have been much smaller than us, but really it's an optical illusion.

The width of it doesn't show that there's a portion underneath the driver's seat where the casket slid in further.

And what's really interesting is, at the top, those finials can be removed.

And the more important the person was that was being carried through the streets, being pulled by the horse, they put black feathers, and the more black feathers that went into the top there, the more important the person was.

So that was an indication to the people of Portsmouth that an important person may have passed away, if there were a lot of black feathers.

(gentle music) One of the larger pieces at the Portsmouth Historical Society and one of our prized possessions is this horse-drawn mail wagon.

It's the last horse-drawn mail wagon that was used to service southern Portsmouth.

It was green at one point, and it was subsequently painted this color because it was used in celebratory parades representing the historical society.

When it was out of service, it was traded to someone in Tiverton for 12 chickens, and then we ended up getting it back.

This right here, sort of these nondescript boxes, sat in our storage shed for years unnoticed.

And when we were reconfiguring the museum and sort of cleaning things out, somebody took a look into it and did a little research, and discovered that this was actually a mail sorting station that dates back to 1820.

It stayed in the same family, the Oliver Green family, for generations because his son then became a postmaster.

The mail would be delivered, they'd sort it here before it was put on the wagon to be delivered around town.

And then, eventually, it became the town clerk's filing system because the town clerk was the grandson of the original owner.

So many things stay in families for generations and get repurposed, but that was a really nice find when they started looking into it and delving into why the labels were there.

(inquisitive music) - [Alan] It's always a special moment when museum volunteers are able to piece together the provenance of a piece.

The aisles are full of donated pieces that once occupied the homes of local residents.

Pieces like a square grand piano, an Edison cylinder phonograph, this old Franklin sewing machine, and a collection of small toys that once upon a time brought joy to small children.

But not everything that has been donated comes with an accurate explanation.

- When you look at this helmet, it's brown, it's leather, there's not anything shiny on it, but really, it's one of the oldest things in our collection.

It's probably one of the rarest.

And that just kind of goes to show that you just never know what you're gonna find when you open that closet door.

(inquisitive music) When I first started volunteering at the society, one of the things that I volunteered to do was help with putting the items in the collection into our database, our museum database.

And this is one of the items that I was tasked to enter.

According to our records, it was donated to the society in 1946 by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hamlet.

They told us that it was a fireman's helmet.

They thought from the late 1800s, early 1900s.

And so that's how we always document it as.

We didn't think it was anything special until one day someone came into the society and said, "Oh, no, that's not a fireman's helmet.

We think that's an early militia helmet."

So, we brought in Patrick Donovan from the Varnum Armory, and he was so excited when he saw it.

And in his mind, it's from 1795 to 1810.

And even more important than just the fact that it was a militia hat, on the front of it, you can see that there is an eagle, and that really made it special.

We think that it's probably one of 10 of these militia hats in existence.

Because of the age, it had experienced some red rot.

It is a leather helmet.

And so it was taken to the Varnum, a special solution was applied to stop the rotting and to help with the flaking on the helmet.

We also had a special silk mount made to keep the shape of the helmet because it was starting to tilt to the right, and then it's on a special board so that when you wanna display it, you cannot pick the helmet up, which probably had been done many times, not really appreciating the age of it.

- [Alan] Another display at the museum has been assembled to highlight an obscure chapter from Rhode Island history.

The exhibit includes a small piece of an old railroad track, some photographs, and a lump of coal.

For about 100 years, Portsmouth was home to a coal mine that, at one point, extended below Narragansett Bay.

- Coal mining was an important part of Portsmouth's economy in the 19th century.

Portsmouth coal was anthracite coal.

It was hard coal.

It was difficult to ignite and it burned hot.

So it was mainly used for commercial purposes, for industrial purposes, rather than home heating.

If they used it in home heating, it would probably melt the furnace.

That was the problem they had with it.

- [Alan] Records on display here help us understand how big an operation coal mining was.

- This is a book, a record book for the mines, and this is from 1911, just before the mine closed.

And what it shows is the number of cars of coal hoisted out of the south mine each day.

And that number ranged from 58 to 106 cars coming up out of the mine.

It also includes the tons of coal and how much was taken out, how much was sold.

One day, 54,880 tons of coal.

That's a lot.

29th of March, 1911.

So yeah, it was a big operation.

(gentle triumphant music) (gentle triumphant music continues) - [Alan] When visiting an historical museum in any old New England town, you expect to see an historic flag.

Here in Portsmouth, you won't be disappointed.

They have several, but one in particular stands out.

- It's a 13-star flag.

(cover crinkling) This one is rare because of the way the stars are formatted.

If you are looking at a colonial revival flag, you might see the Betsy Ross formation, which is the circle formation.

This is different in the fact that it's a 4-5-4 star display of 13 stars.

This was actually, believe it or not, more common during the Revolutionary War.

(gentle triumphant music) It dispels some myths about how a 13-star flag should look.

There were actually many different formations for 13-star flags, and 13 star flags were used from the Revolutionary War on to contemporary to this time period.

And they were used for a variety of different things.

And that's why the analysis is crucial, so we can really pinpoint the date of this flag.

There are historians that might be able to say, "Okay, I can date this flag."

But usually, you wanna collaborate that with science, with scientific evidence.

So that's why you do things like fiber ID, identification.

What is the flag made of?

And you do that under a microscope.

You can also do dye analysis in a laboratory.

You can do soil analysis.

From all of those things, it gives you more, it checks off the boxes as far as the provenance in dating the textile.

Ultimately, this flag isn't gonna last forever, but the goal of a conservator is to give it more time and to preserve its longevity.

(gentle triumphant music) - [Alan] Conserving and properly displaying a flag like this could easily cost thousands of dollars.

That kind of expense is not always an option for a small museum, but that doesn't diminish the efforts of volunteers who take pride in their community.

Another collection here commemorates the day Portsmouth became less isolated from the rest of Rhode Island.

- What we have on the table here are some archives from the opening of the Mount Hope Bridge in 1929.

- [Alan] Exhibits include two of the original lampposts from the bridge and archives from the official opening.

- This newspaper was a local newspaper published by a local person in Portsmouth.

And what it does is show, first of all, a drawing of the bridge, very dramatic drawing of it, the schedule for the dedication, some of the important people who were involved.

We also have here an invitation, "If you wish to take part in the parade preceding the Mount Hope Bridge dedication, kindly report to the Bristol Courthouse, Bristol, Rhode Island, before 10 o'clock on Thursday, October 24th."

We also have a tag here, a tag that says "Guest" on it.

And so those are distributed to the important people.

We have an invitation here.

"The Mount Hope Bridge Celebration Committee requests the pleasure of your company at the dedication of the bridge connecting Providence and Newport Highways at Bristol and Portsmouth, Thursday, October 24th at 12 o'clock noon."

Then we have this brochure, which has the schedule from that day in it, the dedication exercises.

What we have here are bridge tokens, which a lot of us got used to for many years.

And the price of these tokens changed a lot over time because the cost of going over the bridge went from, oh, initially, it was about 75 cents and eventually it got down to about 10 cents to get across.

And we have also some passes for the bridge.

Some good for one single trip across.

You could buy a series.

It was like a booklet of these.

These were torn out.

There's a serrated edge on here.

And you could buy maybe 10 of these at a time at a discounted price, and then you could just tear one off as you went across the bridge.

Then we have this little booklet, "Construction of the Mount Hope Bridge: Camera Studies," which has a lot of different pictures of the construction of the bridge.

(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) - [Alan] The bridge opening was a prominent event, as it marked the first time Portsmouth had a major secure connection to the mainland.

The historical society here preserves all of these treasures in exhibits, artifacts, and archives.

(bright music) (gentle bright music) (door clacking) Behind these large doors and inside this historic armory is the museum of the Artillery Company of Newport.

- Newport Artillery Company was chartered in 1741 under the colonial government of King George II.

We've been here for 282 years.

The Armory was built for us in 1836.

It's actually a national historic landmark.

The ground floor is basically our museum.

- [Alan] Collections here help visitors trace the history of our nation.

It's probably safe to say that not a single item in this museum was ever meant to be an exhibit, but instead had other intended uses.

There is an extensive collection of military uniforms, many from noteworthy military leaders and others from rank and file soldiers.

Several flags are also on display, including this rare example from the American Revolution.

- So this flag is the Pine Tree Flag, otherwise known as Appeal to Heaven Flag.

It was used during the revolution by General George Washington to identify his frigates.

So it's actually considered one of the first US Navy flags.

- Appeal to Heaven is an appeal to a higher power than the king to God himself to get us through the revolution.

The pine tree represented all the lumber the king was taking back to England to build his navy.

Our pine trees here in this country were taller.

They were stronger.

So it's symbolic of the cause during the revolution.

If you look at the Boston Tea Party, they dumped the tea into the harbor.

That was symbolic.

It was mainly meant to stir up the patriot's opposition to the British government.

So an appeal to heaven is an appeal to a higher power.

- The flag is made of silk and the branches of the trees are individually stitched.

This is the only one we see anytime we Google it and we look in the images.

It's our flag.

(pensive music) - [Alan] Two other flags marked a chapter in Rhode Island history, when the Artillery Company of Newport was called upon to stop Dorr's Rebellion.

- Up until the early 1900s, the militia was called out to quash any rebellions in the state or any insurrections, or anything like that.

And that was considered an insurrection by Dorr.

So what we have there is we have two flags.

His motto, "I will not compromise on the people's rights."

He believed that everybody should be allowed to vote.

The flag up top there was given to us by the ladies of Providence in 1842 for patriotic services to the City of Providence.

- [Alan] In the wake of the rebellion, Dorr was captured and convicted of treason against the state.

That judgment was later set aside and the expansion of voting rights he fought for was in part ratified.

(gentle music) Hidden away in another part of the old armory are more treasures that haven't yet found a place in the main exhibit area.

Their stories are waiting to be discovered.

(cover crinkling) (gentle music) - This flag was presented to the first Rhode Island by Rhode Islanders in California, and it was made by Tiffany & Company.

And you can see it's a silk flag, and it has been embroidered with gold and silver threads.

(gentle music) There's a lot of things that we can't display.

This here has to be shown flat because the actual weight of the metal embroidery would actually shred the silk.

So this is something that you don't get to see very often.

- [Alan] This flag honors the Artillery Company's service in the Civil War.

It was purely a ceremonial piece.

From valor to victory, the stories here span the centuries and have connections that extend beyond the United States.

- This uniform in particular, one of our favorites, belonged to the late Prince Philip, father of King Charles.

He was a serving naval officer, and this is the uniform that he wore at the surrender ceremonies in Japan at the end of World War II.

He was a lieutenant commander.

- [Alan] Another British uniform here comes from Field Marshal Montgomery.

The museum's most prized possessions are four bronze cannon that were famously cast in Boston.

- These first four cannons here are our crown jewels.

They are four cannons cast by Paul Revere in the late 1700s.

- Every cannon on the floor still operates.

We're proud to have every piece, and every piece in here has a piece of history.

There's a story behind it.

- So we know these cannons here were made by Paul Revere because the state of Rhode Island paid an extra dollar to have the state seal cast into the barrel.

There are also serial numbered on the trunnions, and the serial numbers match up to a receipt from the Revere Foundry that is in the state archives.

- [Alan] The Paul Revere cannon can be seen up close at the museum, but throughout the year, there are special occasions when you can see them in action.

- Fire!

(cannons booming) (crowd cheering) (cannon booms) Fire!

(guns firing) (cannon booms) (crowd cheering) - [Rob] We do take them out from time to time and use them for different ceremonies.

You will see them at the Gaspee Parade.

- Fire!

- Three of them.

(cannon booms) You will also see all four of them on the 4th of July down here in Newport.

We do a 21 gun salute to the nation, as well as some other events throughout the state.

- [Alan] The Artillery Company of Newport has a total of 15 cannon, ranging from 1798 to World War II.

- We're a museum today, but also, we're a patriotic militia.

We go out and do events around the city, and around the state.

We actually go out of state.

If we go out of state, we have to get the adjutant general, especially if we're under arms.

We have to get the adjutant general's approval.

- [Alan] There is, however, no approval needed to visit the museum in Newport and put close to 300 years of history within reach.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (dramatic music) (bright music) - [Narrator] This program and other episodes of "Treasures Inside the Museum," as well as digital extras are now available to watch anytime by visiting rhodeislandpbs.org, or the Rhode Island PBS YouTube channel.

Take a private tour with exhibit curators, get an inside look at the conservation process, and go behind the scenes to see hidden treasures.

Whether you are interested in artifacts, paintings, photography, architecture, or history, you'll be inspired to learn more.