Reader Responses to “Old Brick” at 250

This April-May issue of BAM is impressive: the history of University Hall (news to me and so well written), the encouraging stories about students investigating the funding sources of climate change denial and the injustice of court costs for low-income defendants, the expanded class note about Brown’s first Black fraternity. The letter from Lebanon. I know there’s more.

It was welcome to see that “Old Brick at 250” covered the Revolutionary War. As managing editor of The Washington Papers at the University of Virginia, I wish to correct a misstatement and contextualize how the “College Edifice” became a French hospital. The French expeditionary force wanted a hospital for sick (not wounded) soldiers after its voyage. Illness threatened 18th century armies more than wounds. George Washington’s friend Dr. James Craik went to Rhode Island to find a “salubrious situation.” Craik viewed the college “a little detached from” the town “on a beautiful Eminence” with “an Elegant building” and only “about fifteen Scholars.” Providence officials balked to prevent “Contagious Diseases” and continue “the Education of Youth.” James Manning, whom Craik styled “the Parson,” clinched his refusal by asserting ruin if the school shut. Craik appealed to the legislature, but “the Parson” described “a Disease not less mortal than the Plague” arriving with the French and denied Craik again. French war commissary Corny, a notorious profiteer, succeeded where Craik failed, probably by slipping coins to officials. Washington visited Newport in March 1781 and stopped in Providence. His visit presumably included an excursion to the hospital.