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Coventry,
Rhode Island's largest town, has an area of 64.8 square miles and a population
of over 33,000. The town is bounded on the north by Foster, Scituate,
and Cranston; on the east by West Warwick and Warwick; on the south by
East and West Greenwich; and on the west by Connecticut and probably was
named by settlers from Coventry, England.
The
land on which the Town of Coventry now stands was once part of the land
belonging to the Narragansett Tribe of Indians. In 1642, Samuel Gorton
and a group of men purchased from Indian Chief Miantonomi, a large section
of land which included the present Towns of Coventry and West Warwick
and most of the City of Warwick. This was known as the ÒSHAWOMET PURCHASEÓ.
The price paid was 144 fathoms of wampum-peage, the equivalent of 36 pounds
in English money. The original deed to this land shows the names of twelve
men as purchasers, but by the time an attempt was made to divide the land,
the number of purchasers has increased to seventeen.
In 1647, the original purchasers, and others who had joined them as settlers,
organized a government under the name of Warwick, named for the Earl of
Warwick, who was helpful to Roger Williams in securing the colony charter.
Many attempts were made to divide this land and in 1672 a meeting was
held and it was voted to divide the land into two great tracts. The dividing
line of this tract was known as the ÒSeven and Ten LineÓ, with seven of
the original purchasers receiving land in one tract and the remaining
ten receiving the land in the other tract.
In
1677, following King Phillip's War, development of the land in the western
section proceeded, and a few hardy souls had gone into the wilderness
to carve their homes out of the forest in true pioneer fashion. The numerous
brooks and waterways were utilized to run grist-mills and saw-mills. By
1741 there was believed to be about one hundred families living in the
wilderness area which is now the Town of Coventry. The seat of government
was at the settlement on the shores of Narragansett Bay (Warwick) and
people had to travel twenty miles or more to record their land deeds,
as well as marriages, births, and deaths. This probably required two or
three days travel time, so a seat of government within easier reach became
a real necessity. A petition for a separation from the Town of Warwick
was placed before the General Assembly in June, 1741. This petition was
granted in August, 1741 and the boundary line was established where it
is today.
The imperfect instruments and the primitive methods used in surveys of
that time caused many disputes and lawsuits. The records in the City of
Warwick show such reports as "making a large heap of stones, on the east
end of a rock, in said bounds, and made several heaps of stones and marked
several trees in said line...Ó. It would be interesting today, if it were
possible, to locate such landmarks as "Sugar Loaf HillÓ, "Bread and Cheese
Brook" and "Cross Brook Swamp" mentioned in the field note of the surveyors
of that final boundary line. Thus, Coventry became a town, of stubborn
and independent nature, as shown by all the early records.
In
August of 1991 Coventry celebrated its 250th anniversary to mark its separation
from the Town of Warwick and today remains the largest land mass in the
State of Rhode Island which covers 64.8 square miles of picturesque land
and 2.6 miles of inland water. While the western and central portions
of Coventry are still rural in nature, the eastern section is one of the
most rapidly growing residential communities in the State of Rhode Island.
Coventry changed dramatically during the 19th century. In 1800, it was
primarily an agricultural town with a population of 2,423, most of whom
lived on widely scattered farms or in small hamlets. The story of Coventry
in the 19th century centers around the growth of the textile industry.
The early decades of the century saw many small textile mills built along
the Pawtuxet River. When the textile industry declined, many of these
villages ceased to exist Fortunately, such mills as those in Anthony,
Arkwright, Quidnick, and Harris give us a view of the past. Coventry,
like many towns in Rhode Island, grew around its mills and continues to
retain many of the old textile mill villages still known as Quidnick Village
(the oldest), Anthony Village, Arkwright Village, Harris Village, Washington
Village, Coventry Center Village, Summit Village, and Greene Village.
The
information contained herein was compiled by Lila E. Ritchotte and the Coventry Library staff members. November
6, 1996
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Mary
Dormer Harris, the local historian thought that the elephant had
a religious symbolism. The ancient "Bestiaries" works
of unnatural Natural History, treat animals as religious types,
and it is from these works that many of the animals and birds in
church architecture derive.
The
elephant is seen, not only as a beast so strong that he can carry
a tower--Coventry's castle--full of armed men, but also a symbol
of Christ's redemption of the human race. The animal, according
to one of the "Bestiary" stories, is supposed to sleep
standing, leaning against a tree. Hunters sever the tree trunk,
and he falls helpless to the ground, until a small elephant approaches
and pulls him up with his trunk.
Mary
Dormer Harris says that "those familiar with the curious cast
of medieval thought will not be astonished that in this story was
seen as a type of the fall of Adam and Eve and of Christ's redemption
of the human race". The foe of the elephant was a dragon, who
devoured newly-born elephants, and, like the elephant, Adam and
Eve had their dragon, the tempter for their foe. They eat of the
forbidden fruit and are lost. They are redeemed by Christ, as also
the young elephant, "through a tree" succours those who
have fallen.
The
elephant, then, is a dragon slayer and is associated with a tree.
There is now a forgotten tradition of dragon slaying in this
neighborhood--and
Coventry to be the birth place of St. George, who slew the dragon.
In the early seals of Coventry, from which our coat-of-arms derives,
are shown, on one side, the Combat between another dragon-slayer,
the Archangel Michael, and the dragon. On the other is the elephant
and castle.
Mary
Dormer Harris points out that the tree has been dropped out of armorial
bearings of the city, and it is a tree from which Coventry almost
certainly took its name--Cofa's tree. In the medieval mind, then,
the elephant suggested the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil, and did not merely symbolize strength.
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No governmental
structure operates in exactly the same way in every city or town utilizing
this form of government. Thus, with the council-manager form, a rather
wide variety of operational variations exist in practice. While this generalized
description of council-manager government cannot take into account all
operational variations, it is, nevertheless, helpful in understanding
the operation as well as the structural characteristics of this popular
governmental form.
The basic
structural features of council-manager government include a city or town
council elected by the voters to exercise overall control of the local
government and a chief executive - the city/town manager - appointed by
and responsible to the council for the administration of local policies.
Differences abound in the manner of selecting the council or the mayor
or in details of administrative organization. The council manager structure
has proved quite adaptable to variations in local circumstances and traditions.
Since
the council is the elected legislative body, it must bear ultimate responsibility
for all aspects of the government--administrative as well as policymaking.
True, the council does rely on the manager to administer council policy.
But, in practice, the extent of this reliance may vary from city to city
and from time to time within the same city. Whatever arrangement works
is the one used. It is important to remember that the council is ultimately
accountable.
In some
council-manager municipalities, the mayor is elected independently of
other council members. Even though directly elected, mayors of such council-manager
cities have no special functions other than presiding at council meetings
and possibly serving ex-officio on boards of other city agencies. A few
cities have vested their mayors with some degree of veto power.
But,
mayors in council-manager cities are not chief executives for they have
no formal administrative functions. It is the manager who is the chief
executive and who is responsible to the council for the proper performance
of virtually all administrative functions. This administrative responsibility
is matched by the manager's authority to appoint and remove all department
heads who report directly to him. In almost all council-manager cities,
council members, both collectively and individually, are enjoined by charter
from dealing with department heads except through the manager.
Structurally,
then, the council-manager plans presuppose some division of labor between
the council, who are primarily responsible for policy in the community,
and the manager, whose job it is to direct administrative operations.
In practice however it is widely recognized that this division of
function
is not as clear-cut as the structure may suggest. The manager is drawn
into policymaking and a council can and does become involved in administration.
Because
of the manager's position as the chief executive, he can and should be
expected to have a broad grasp of the needs of the community and the means
by which they can be met most effectively. It is normal to expect a manager
possessing such a grasp of needs to make recommendations on community
needs and their implementation. Such policy suggestions can be presented
to the council in several ways: through formal reports, by informal suggestion,
and by means of the annual budget proposal. The form, content and frequency
of these recommendations are definite determinants of a manager's impact
on policy-making. But the council has the final decision making responsibility.
As to
a council becoming involved in administration, the council-manager structure
provides to councils, so inclined, an opportunity to become as entwined
in administrative matters as they wish through their direct and complete
control of the manager and the budget.
Thus
the relationship between council and manager is not truly one of a structural
division of authority but rather of a practical division of work along
broad functional lines. In dealing with municipal problems, the council
and the manager must work together on the same subjects, each doing their
part to reach a satisfactory solution. Such teamwork, often unstated in
state laws and city charters, is implicit in the council-manager system.
Political
or policy leadership in a council-manager structure is basically the responsibility
of the elected council as a group. Again, in practice, this is not always
the case. Sometimes the mayor alone assumes a strong policy leadership
role. In other cities or at other times, this leadership may come from
a bloc of council members which may or may not include the mayor. At still
other times, individual members of the city council may vie for the part
of principal policy leader. One criticism of the latter leadership pattern
is that it often lacks continuity.
Several
advantages are often cited in favor of council-manager government. Since
the council is able to choose the best qualified person it can find to
direct the administrative operations of the city or town, a consistently
high standard of administrative management is usually achieved. Too, this
structure centralizes authority for effective administration in one person
whose reputation and future career depend on the quality of his work.
Another
positive feature identified with the council-manager system is the concentration
of responsibility in the elected council. So far as the voters are concerned,
the council is responsible for effective governmental results. Failures
simply cannot be blamed by the council on anyone else. There is no "buck-passing"
in the council-manager structure. In the same vein, this governmental
form is claimed to be, structurally, the simplest of all governmental
forms.
As with
any system, the council-manager plan has its critics who claim the structure
has definite disadvantages. A major problem sometimes exists in developing
effective policy leadership. In many governmental structures, the chief
executive fills the policy leaders role. Yet, managers, being appointed
rather than elected, are generally prohibited by charter from assuming
this role. This has happened, however, in some council-manager cities.
The mayor, lacking executive responsibilities which form part of the base
for policy leadership, sometimes finds difficulty in developing and pushing
policy proposals. When a group of council members attempts to act in a
policy leadership capacity, they often find difficulty in reaching consensus.
Thus, claim critics of the council-manager structure, the plan may not
be best for cities where significant differences exist on major policy
issues.
Another
often heard criticism of council-manager government is that it is undemocratic
in character. The basis of this charge lies largely in the fact that the
appointed manager, while exercising much power, is not directly accountable
to the voters.
As in
the case of the mayor-council structure, there are rebuttals to these
criticisms. Advocates of council-manager structures usually concede that
development of policy leadership is more difficult to achieve under this
form, but argue, with evidence, that it is clearly not impossible. Concerning
the charge that the plan has undemocratic aspects because of the substantial
power exercised by the appointed manager, it can be pointed out that this
official may be replaced by the elected council any time he fails to respond
to the council's interpretation of public needs, and that tie council
may be replaced by the electorate.
In summary
the council-manager form is a workable and adaptable governmental structure.
It has grown, in just a little over seventy-five years from a mere experiment
to one of the most popular plans for municipal government, used throughout
the country in cities of all sizes even a few of the largest cities.
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