Long Island Sound
- theblacksprayhood
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
"The Race is known for its very fast tide and potentially dangerous conditions if the wind is against it..."
The tidal passage of Long Island Sound runs north of Long Island with the mainland state of Connecticut on its north shore and the state of New York on the south. Newport, Rhode Island at the eastern end was our destination - a place known for its sailing legacy and Gilded Age mansions.
From Port Washington just outside New York on the north side of Long Island, we stopped at Port Jefferson, a lovely seaside town with a great local brewery.
From Port Jefferson, we progressed to Truman Beach, where we stopped for a few hours at anchor to wait for the tide to turn. Then we continued overnight to Newport through the notorious ‘Race.’ The Race is known for its very fast tide and potentially dangerous conditions if the wind is against it. We motored overnight in a dead calm. It was fast but smooth.
We arrived in Newport in the early morning and found a good spot to anchor. Newport is known as the sailing capital of the world; it is the home port of many beautiful heritage boats and many regattas are held here.
The Gilded Age in America in the late nineteenth century saw great industrialists pile up wealth, buy up media companies to project their viewpoints and bribe politicians to protect their interests. Sound familiar?
Newport, Rhode Island was the Summer home to New York’s high society during this time and their ‘Summer cottages’ - used only for the 6-8 week Summer season - are now preserved for all to visit.
And if you are feeling anxious about where the world is going right now, these houses, which are traipsed through by hordes of the public daily, are a reminder that these times will pass. The Gilded Age gave way to Progressivism. Politicians cleaned up their act and greater distribution of wealth allowed for a better standard of life for all.
We visited three of the mansions - The Elms, Marble House and The Breakers. The Elms was commissioned by coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind at a cost of 1.4 million dollars in 1901. That’s the equivalent today of almost fifty million dollars. The house was modelled on a French château and it really is stunning, made of the best quality materials and top-notch craftsmanship and artistry.
The comfort in which they lived was due to the number of staff which waited on them. In fact, the most enlightening part of the house was the linen closet. Here we learned that a single tablecloth would be ‘easily’ worth more than the annual salary of the highest paid staff member.
The next house we visited was, if anything, even more ostentatious and was a 39th birthday present for Alva Vanderbilt from her husband, William Kissam Vanderbilt, who was the grandson of ‘Commodore’ Cornelius Vanderbilt who made the family fortune in steamships and the New York Central Railroad. The stand out here was the first room we entered, which was the dining room, which is lined with marble in all tones of red and gives the impression that the whole room is aglow, despite the cold hard nature of this material.
The final house we visited was The Breakers, which is another Vanderbilt property on the cliff walk, a pulic path which runs along the seafront and past many of the grand Summer cottages. As the name would suggest, The Breakers backs onto an area of shallow water creating a dramatic effect of breaking waves in all but the calmest conditions.
Yet the Gilded Age was also a time of change for women. One of the Newport mansion owners was the first female winner of the Pulitzer Prize - Edith Wharton, who wrote critically of the strictures of New York and Newport High Society.
Consuelo Vandebilt, an occupant of Marble House was forced into an unhappy marriage with an English aristocrat by her mother, Alva. Of her time in Newport, she said, ‘How full of tedious restraint was this artificial life!’ She made use of her time in England by founding a home for prisoners’ wives, a lodging house for working women and a recreational facility for working girls. She eventually got divorced and had a happy second marriage to a French aviator.
Her mother, Alva became a leading campaigner for women’s suffrage. She saw problems with the way the world was and said, ‘Henceforth women are to be dictators..The time has come to take this world muddle that men have created and strive to turn it into an ordered, peaceful, happy abiding place for humanity.’
These women - following the voices of black and working class women and men who raised awareness, became a small part of the Progressive Era which sought to bring an end to the corruption, monopolies and extreme inequality which characterised the Gilded Age.
Newport has a lot of history and we even did a ghost tour to learn more about the people and stories that populated this town. It had a spooky finish in a graveyard. But it was not as spooky as our next stop - Salem, Massachusetts. You can find out more in our next post.
Click the links below for the videos
Video1 EP 082 - Sailing to Newport, RI – Mansions, Ghost Hunts & Cliff Walks!
You can find our PODCAST episodes at the links below
Comments