Few houses in Providence today can boast having a room in which George Washington slept soon after the British evacuation from Boston in 1776. But one of them is the Governor Stephen Hopkins House, the oldest museum home in Providence.
Built in the early 1700s, the two-story dark red house on the corner of Benefit and Hopkins Streets, is named after its most prominent owner, Stephen Hopkins, a Rhode Island politician who added more construction to the existing building and lived in it from 1743 to 1785.
Currently owned by the state, the house has been maintained since 1927 by the Rhode Island chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, a non-profit organization of women who trace their lineage to colonial times.
Faced with declining numbers of visitors, the dames decided last September to "reinvent" the house to make it more appealing to modern viewers of all ages, said Susan Hardy, chair of the Hopkins House reinvention committee.
Hardy said the reinvention project mainly involves changing the physical appearances of the rooms and information signs to make them more "visitor-friendly." The committee, Hardy said, is also conducting research to uncover stories about the Hopkins family's relationship to the community, to give the house and its owner a "human face."
Born in Rhode Island in 1707, Stephen Hopkins was an important public figure both locally and nationally. He became Brown's first chancellor in 1764, holding the position until his death in 1785. He served nine terms as governor of Rhode Island and was chief justice of the superior court for three years. But Hopkins is perhaps best known for being one of the two Rhode Islanders to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Hopkins is said to have "fought violently" against slavery and freed all his slaves in his will, Hardy said, adding that his contributions to American society call for a greater appreciation for his life and home.
To this end, Hardy and her committee are working to highlight the most noteworthy aspects of the house. For example, instead of having people enter through the existing main door, the reinvention will make a side entrance, which leads to the oldest part of the house, the original main entrance.
"We want people to come in and walk into history," Hardy said.
The new main entrance will lead to what is known as a "keeping room," a room with a period fireplace and dining table, set with utensils from Hopkins' time. Most of the furniture in the house is donated and belongs to the colonial period, said Kathleen Anderson, a colonial dame and co-chairman of the house.
The only pieces of furniture in the house that actually belonged to Hopkins are two walnut-wood chairs in the parlor, Hardy said, adding that two glass cabinets with some of Hopkins' personal belongings will be moved from an upstairs bedroom into his first-floor study.
Hardy said the signs around the house will also be enlarged and reprinted so that visitors can read them easily. To make the 30-minute tours more interesting, the tour guide or "docent," will tell more stories to give listeners a "new way to interpret history."
Visitors will be encouraged to ask questions and allowed to explore the house on their own, Hardy said.
Ronald Potvin, assistant director of the John Nicholas Brown Center, who is advising Hardy on the reinvention, said traditional guided tours in historic homes provide visitors with a "generic group experience," which are no longer suitable in modern times when people want to create their own individual experiences.
Though the house is currently open for private tours, it will open officially with most of the physical changes in place in May, Hardy said.
But extensive advertising will be important to attract attention the house, said Jennifer Trunzo GS, greeter at the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.
The Providence community is "not as historically sensitive as it used to be," Trunzo says. Students are becoming "less aware of the past," she says, as public schools have begun putting more emphasis on developing writing and math skills than learning about local history.
Important figures like Hopkins who played a role in "creating America" are fading into "this hazy time of 'long before,'" Trunzo says.
Trunzo says revamping the Hopkins house is a "great place to begin" highlighting New England's rich colonial history.
Some experts believe that the most important aspect of the reinvention is the research to discover details about the personal lives of Hopkins, his family and his slaves.
Professor of American Civilization, Steven Lubar said the personal stories would "bring (the house) to life." He said though the house looks "plain" on the outside, it has "great potential" to be "a good history-teaching location."
"The more personal stories we have, the more excited people will get about it," said Morgan Grefe PhD'05, director of the Newell D. Goff Center for Education and Public Programming at the Rhode Island Historical Society.
Three years ago Grefe worked to transform the John Brown house - another historic home on Power St. - from a "decorative arts museum to a social history museum," she said. She used documents to reveal the Brown family's involvement with the slave trade to shift the focus from the "furniture to the life of the people on the house" - similar to what Hardy is doing with the Hopkins house.
Indeed, the Hopkins house is a treasure trove of interesting facts, rumors and stories. Whether it's the first edition copy of Milton's "Paradise Lost" in one of its bedrooms, or a wooden box with four glass flasks kept in the parlor, rumored to be Washington's gift to Hopkins - each corner of the house has a history of its own.
Facts don't always create history, Hardy said, adding that she would like to discover details about Hopkins' personal life, about the man "behind the man who signed the Declaration."
"He and Benjamin Franklin were very close," Hardy said. "What kind of relationship did he have with Franklin? Did they laugh? Did they tell jokes? Did they have a drink together? Did they debate about freedom from England? Those are the kinds of things that people want to know."
