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 PROVIDENCE PROVOOST supervision of a superintendent, but the gen- eral control is vested in a school committee, consisting of the mayor and president of the common council ex officio and six members from each ward, whose term of office is three years. The Friends' yearly meeting boarding school, or " Quaker college," occupies a lot of 43 acres in the E. part of the city. It consists of two spacious brick buildings, three stories high with wings of two stories. It is liberally endowed and in a prosperous condition. A legacy of $100,000 was bequeathed to it by the late Obadiah Brown. It was established in 1819, and is under the direction of a commit- tee of the New England yearly meeting. The Eoman Catholics have three flourishing acad- emies, one male and two female. The grounds and buildings of Brown university occupy an elevated situation in the E. part of the city. (See BROWN UNIVERSITY.) The Athenssum, in- corporated in 1836, is a handsome granite building, containing a reading room and a well selected library of 34,000 volumes, to which large additions are annually made. The Ehode Island historical society, founded in 1822, oc- cupies a fine brick and granite building oppo- site the university grounds, erected in 1844, and containing a library of 6,000 volumes and 85,000 pamphlets, besides a large collection of manuscripts and other memorials relating to the history of the state. The Franklin soci- ety, incorporated in 1823, has for its object the cultivation and dissemination of a knowledge of the natural sciences and the mechanic arts. The Franklin lyceum has a reading room and a library of 8,000 volumes. The mechanics' and apprentices' library numbers 6,500 volumes, and that of the young men's Christian as- sociation 5,000. Steps have been taken to- ward the establishment of a free public li- brary. Four daily, one semi-weekly, and five weekly newspapers, and three monthly period- icals are published. There are 76 churches, viz. : 13 Baptist, 2 Christian, 7 Congregation- al, 12 Episcopal, 1 Evangelical Lutheran, 5 Free Baptist, 1 Friends', 2 Jewish, 10 Meth- odist Episcopal, 1 Presbyterian, 10 Roman Catholic, 1 Swedenborgian, 3 Unitarian, 1 Uni- ted Presbyterian, 2 Universalist, and 5 mis- cellaneous. The first Baptist church, the old- est in America, was founded here in 1638. Providence was first settled in 1636 by Roger Williams, who was banished from Massachu- setts on account of his religious opinions, and who, in his new colony, was the first to pro- pose and establish the principles of universal freedom in religious matters. The rock on the banks of the Seekonk river on which he landed, and where he was received by the In- dians, is about a mile from the centre of the city. The town received its first patent from Charles I., bearing date 1643. It suffered much in the famous war of King Philip, in 1675, when a considerable portion of it was burned. It again suffered severely in September, 1815, when a southeasterly storm forced an extra- ordinary tide into the harbor, raising the water 12 ft. higher than the usual spring tides, spread- ing devastation and ruin along the wharves and the lower part of the town, overturning houses and stores, and doing much damage to the shipping. One large East Indiaman was driv- en up beyond the cove, and never removed. Providence received a city charter in 1832. The first printing press was established here by William Goddard in 1762, from whose office the " Providence Gazette " was issued. PROVIDENCE, Sisters of. See SISTERHOODS. PROVIMJETOWN, a town of Barnstable co., Massachusetts, occupying the extremity of Cape Cod, at the terminus of the Cape Cod division of the Old Colony railroad, 120 m. by rail and 55 m. by water S. E. of Boston ; pop. in 1850, 3,157 ; in 1860, 3,206 ; in 1870, 3,865. The town is 4 m. long by 3 m. in width at the widest part. The harbor is on the inner side of the cape, and is almost entirely landlocked. It is unsurpassed for size and depth of water, covering an area of 3 by 5 m., 30 fathoms deep in the deepest parts, without rocks, bars, or shoals. The village skirts the shore of the harbor, and is formed of wooden buildings, compactly built, presenting a beautiful view from the water. Provincetown is a popular summer resort. It is noted for its cod, mack- erel, and whale fisheries. In 1875 there were owned here 185 vessels, with an aggregate ton- nage of 16,000, of which 20 were employed in coasting, 19 in whaling, and 146 in the cod and mackerel fisheries. The average annual catch of codfish for the four years ending in 1875 was 80,000 quintals ; of mackerel, 20,000 bar- rels. In whaling the town ranks with New Lon- don next to New Bedford. It contains three marine railways, 30 wharves, a national bank with a capital of $200,000, a savings bank with deposits amounting to $500,000, and three marine insurance companies with an ag- gregate capital of $250,000. It has a fine fire department. The assessed value of property in 1875 was about $2,000,000. There are 14 public schools (1 high, 1 grammar, and 12 in- termediate and primary), supported at an an' nual cost of $7,400, exclusive of repairs of building ; a weekly newspaper ; a public library of 2,200 volumes; and six religious societies. In Provincetown harbor the Mayflower first cast anchor in America. Here the pilgrims signed the first compact of government, and here the first child in New England of English parentage was born. PROVOOST, Samuel, an American bishop, born in New York, March 11, 1742, died Sept. 6, 1815. He graduated at Zing's (now Columbia) college in 1758, and in 1761 entered as fellow commoner of St. Peter's college, Cambridge, England. He was ordained in 1766, returned to New York, and was assistant minister ol Trinity church till 1768. In 1770 he retired to a small farm in Dutchess co., remained there till the close of the revolution, and was then elected rector of Trinity church. He was chap-