>From the book "History of Washington and Kent Counties, Rhode Island" by J.R. Cole, published 1889, New York, W.W. Preston & Company. Beginning on page 535. [xxx] respresents either notes or the page number. JOHN CASE owned the Quaker Hill farm and wood lot in Narragansett, at Tower Hill. He died July 29th, 1770, and give this farm, his homestead, to the use of his wife as long as she lived, and after her decease, in trust of the use of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the rents, issue and profits to be applied toward the support of an Episcopal bishop of the Church of England when it should please God to send one to preside over the Episcopal church of North America, whose diocese should comprehend the Narragansett district. Prior to that time the profits of the farm should go toward supporting the poor belonging to the Church of England. He also bequeathed $500 for building a church on the lot given Doctor McSparran; $150 for a church in North Kingstown; $50 for a school [536] house on Tower Hill; and $350 in trust, the interest to be applied to educate poor children in the school house at Tower Hill. CAPTAIN BENJAMIN R.C. WILSON, the king of whalemen and prince of the sea, was born in South Kingstown May 25th, 1805. At the age of five years he was place at school, under the instruction of Robert F. Noyes, who was succeeded by William Nichols. At the age of eighteen he sailed from New Bedford on a whaling voyage to the South Pacific ocean. On this voyage he studied navigation and kept the ship's reckoning. He performed his next voyage in the capacity of a boat steerer, and his third voyage as chief mate, and in that capacity he sailed around Cape Horn. He next took charge of a ship and went upon the coast of Brazil, and in ten months and seven days returned with a full cargo. His share amounted to eighteen hundred dollars. He sailed the second time around Cape Horn, and afterward around the Cape of Good Hope and into the Indian ocean. He afterward, in company with Ellet L. Perkins, run [sic] the Cory Hotel, in New Bedford. His life was one of adventure, and it reads like romance. He died August 22d, 1869, aged 64 years, and was buried in the Presbyterian grounds at Tower Hill. THE SWEET FAMILY. – The family of Sweets, bone-setters, have made quite a history in the south county, although they are not recognized by the regular profession in the same way Updike, Hazard and other writers have done. These authors accord to this family the wonderful gift of being natural healers of human infirmities, and the cures they have performed, the dislocated joints and bones set to right, where physicians counseled amputation as the only remedy for saving life; and also the remarkable faculty possessed of compounding liniments and washes, and various concoctions made from the roots and barks of trees, etc., etc., and the different and marvelous cures cited in proof thereof, entitle them to professional respect. Updike says, "that James Sweet, the father of Benoni, emigrated from Wales to this country and purchased an estate at the foot of Ridge Hill, so-called, in North Kingstown, the same in which the late William Congdon, Esquire, lived and died. Benoni had been a captain in the British service, was well informed and of polished manners. He was a natural bone-setter, and progenitor of the race in Rhode Island. He was styled Doctor Sweet, but he practiced in restoring dislocations only. He was a [537] regular communicant of the church and officiated as a vestryman until his death. ‘July 19th, 1751,' says the record, ‘died Captain Benoni Sweet, of North Kingstown in the ninetieth year of his age.' "Job, one of the family, obtained an eminent and wide-spread reputation as a natural bone-setter. During the revolution he was called to Newport to set the dislocated bones of some of the French officers, an operation which their army surgeons were unable to perform. After the revolutionary war Colonel Burr, afterward vice-president of the United States, invited him to New York to restore the dislocated hip bone of his daughter Theodosia, afterward Mrs. Allston. In this operation, which had previously baffled the skill of the city curgeons, Doctor Sweet was successful. The fear of taking the small pox deterred him from accepting Colonel Burr's invitation when first applied to; but this difficulty having been obviated, he embarked in a Newport packet. Doctor Sweet used to narrate the venture in this wise: ‘That when he arrived Colonel Burr's coach was in waiting at the wharf for his reception. Having never road in a coach he objected to being transported in a vehicle that was shut up. He was fearful of some trick, and further he did not like to ride in a thing over which he had no control, but fearing the small pox, he was induced to enter it. He said he was never whirled about so in his life; at last he was ushered into the most splendid mansion that he ever saw. The girl was alarmed at his appearance when he was invited into her chamber. The family surgeon was soon introduced, and he proposed that the operation should be performed the succeeding day, and ten o'clock was agreed to, when other surgeons would attend. But the doctor meant to avoid their presence if he could; he did not fancy learned men. In the evening he solicited an interview with his patient; talked with her familiarly, dissipated her fears, asked permission in the presence of her father just to let the old man put his hand upon her hip. She consenting, he in a few minutes set the bone; he then said, now walk about the room, which to her own and her father's surprise, she was readily able to do.'" Though totally unlearned in surgery, Doctor Job Sweet seldom if ever failed in his bone-setting operations. Mr. Hazard, in his "Recollections of Olden Times," thus speaks of him: "Among many characteristic anecdotes of Job Sweet, it is told that a skeptical young sprig of science, falsely so-called, once sent for [538] the doctor to set his dislocated elbow. The old man went and found his patient apparently in great pain, with his bandaged arm in a sling. He scarely touched the limb before he discovered the trick and left. He was, however, overtaken on his way home by a messenger, who implored him to return and restore the young man's elbo, which had been really dislocated by the touch of the Doctor's hand as a punishment for deceit. "On another occasion it is said he was shown through an anatomical hall in Boston by a city doctor. In glancing at a human specimen as they passed along, the old man remarked that there was a little bone put in the wrong side up in the foot of the one before him. This was for a time controverted by his learned friend, but he was eventually forced to admit the correctness of the natural bone-setter's assertion, after permitting him to change the position of the bone in question." Benoni, son of Job, born in October, 1762, removed to Lebanon, Conn., where until his death, he was very celebrated as a natural bone-setter. Doctor Job Sweet early in life moved to South Kingstown and settled near Sugar Loaf Hill, where his descendants have continued to practice since his time. Jonathan, another son of Job, born September 6th, 1765, settled at Sugar Loaf Hill, near Wakefield, where he continued to reside until his death, about the year 1820. Gideon, an elder brother, used occasionally to set bones when Jonathan was out of the way, but on no other occasions. Job Sweet finally removed to Boston, and his brother William, born October 28th, 1802, of Sugar Loaf Hill, commenced bone-setting, but in accordance with the usages of the family, whereby only one of its members habitually practices in a neighborhood at the same time, he gave way to his brother John, son of Gideon, who had relinquished farming that he might devote his whole time to the business of bone-setting. After a time John removed to New Bedford, and William resumed bone-setting in South Kingstown. Of his children Job, the eldest son, a skillful bone-setter, practiced in New Bedford, and George, the younger son, practices the profession in Wakefield. William N. Sweet, another son of William, lives with Job, but practices principally in Boston and elsewhere. Jonathan, another son, lives in Providence. Thomas, another son, practiced in Providence for ten years, until his death, in 1867. Edward, youngest son of William, lives at the homestead. [539] Mr. Hazard, in his "Recollections of Olden Times," thus speaks of Jonathan Sweet: "I well knew the blacksmith Jonathan Sweet, of Sugar Loaf Hill, a son of Job, who seldom left home but on extraordinary occasions, and who, when patients were brought to him whose cases had perhaps in some instances baffled the skill of the most renowned doctors, was wont to ask the customer whose horse was left only partly shod, to excuse him a few minutes, whilst he put the stranger to rights. Having done this, he would charge his patient a pistareen or quarter for the loss of time incurred by the interruption, and return to finish his more important job of shoeing the horse." Many and miraculous almost have been the operations performed by the Sweets in their natural calling of bone-setting. Doctor William Sweet probably attended thousands of cases, yet he never had a patient die on his hands. It would be impossible to give in a short sketch like this anything of a detailed account of the most difficult ones. A case in point will suffice for the many that might be told. William Whitney went over a drum in Dutee Hall's mill in Exeter. One arm was broken, both badly damaged, both thighs broken, and both legs below the knees broken short off. "Two doctors got there before me, and had just finished sawing off one arm. I fixed up what was left of him in about six hours, and could just as well have saved his arm." This young man got well, but had to peddle for a living owing to the loss of his arm. The Sweet family were indeed natural healers.