The Great Friends Meeting House, Newport, RI

Little Rhode Island was a place of toleration, surrounded by more religiously totalitarian states. Many Quakers gravitated to it, and at one time half the population of Newport were Quakers, hence this enormous Meeting House. It has now fallen into disuse, but is being preserved as an historic building.

We liked Newport, even though it is now a bit of a tourist trap, particularly downtown. Beyond the commercial centre, one finds grand mansions lining the cliff tops, the summer cottages of the rich of Boston and New York, well worth visiting (several are now open to the public).