Sunday, August 26th from 5:30 to 7:30pm

Tickets are $60 per person

To make a reservation, please contact Mary Spotts at (401) 847-0295 ext. 115

or mspotts@redwoodlibrary.org

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Redwood Welcomes Home Historic Journal

On May 11, Redwood celebrated the return of the journal by hosting a panel discussion of legal and academic experts.  Judge Joseph W. Bellacosa, retired from the New York State Court of Appeals, Judge Frank Williams, former Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and Keith Stokes, Chairman of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation and an expert on early African American history.

Watch the presentation here:

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More about the journal: A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy…, published in 1744, is a first-hand account of the trials, verdicts and executions of 34 New York City residents accused of conspiring to burn down the city.  As fires devastated areas of the city in March, 1741, suspicions and paranoia abounded. Residents accused slaves, under the leadership of disaffected Irish residents, of setting the fires. Ultimately, dozens of residents were burned at the stake or hung, with many dismembered and  displayed for public viewing.  Daniel Horsmanden was the City Recorder, Justice of the Colony of New York, and the conspiracy’s principal investigator at the time.   His account of the trials was first given to the Library soon after its publication.  The volume likely disappeared during the American Revolution, when British forces used the Library for the occupying army.  When another copy of the same exceedingly rare account became available, the Library quickly raised the funds to purchase it. It will be placed in the Harrison Room, with the other 791 titles in the Original Collection.

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