Letter: Time is right to track down Four Corners whipping post

Posted 3/16/18

To the editor:

Now is the perfect time for us to search for that historic Tiverton whipping post and return it to its original place.

The 2018 Women’s movement is a catalyst to study the …

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Letter: Time is right to track down Four Corners whipping post

Posted

To the editor:

Now is the perfect time for us to search for that historic Tiverton whipping post and return it to its original place.

The 2018 Women’s movement is a catalyst to study the place of the whipping post in the past history of our community.

In the early days of Tiverton, the Four Corners area was considered the hub of town activity, and, as was common during the times, it had a whipping post or upright piece of stone to which lawbreakers were tied for hours of punishment and flogging on their bare backs.

It was on July 17 in 1772 that a woman, whose name is long forgotten, was tied to the post, her back bared for all to see while awaiting her flogging. Around her were women from the area calling for leniency. The sheriff stood by ready to carry out the sentence. As luck would have it, the governor of Rhode Island, Isaac Wilbour, was riding by on his way home to Little Compton.

He stopped to see what the commotion was all about. The ladies implored him to help.

Sworn to uphold the law of Rhode Island, he found himself in a quandary as to how to proceed. He pulled out his booklet of Rhode Island Law and, leaning down from his horse, he quietly said to the eagerly waiting women pleading for his help, “ the law states that the condemned be tied to an upright post while being flogged. As I see it, if there were no upright post then the punishment could not be carried out.”

The quick thinking women of Tiverton speedily untied the ropes of the accused and, with their combined strength,heaved, pushed and pulled, until the post lay on the ground.

The Governor determined that from that day forward, no woman in Rhode Island was ever to be publicly flogged.

What a victory for the women of Rhode Island, and all of this by the efforts of the women in Tiverton.

The whipping post remained at its location at the Tiverton Four Corners for almost two centuries. It was a reminder of life long ago. Then in 1957, the house it stood next to was scheduled to be demolished to make room for the parking lot of Gray’s Ice Cream.

Surprise! Just before that fateful day, the famous landmark was removed, hidden and, despite efforts and rumors galore, it remains hidden.

Where is the whipping post now?

Could any time in history be more perfect than the present to return the whipping post to honor our brave woman of the past and pay homage to all the women who helped shape this community.

Let us all implore the current guardian of the post to relinquish it, reinstall it and give new generations of Tivertonians the opportunity to see a part of their town history.

The history of the town should be shared!

Barbara Pelletier

Tiverton

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.