page_title: College Hill, Providence, Rhode Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: College Hill, Providence, Rhode Island / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A black and white engraving by artist David Leonard, class of 1792. First published view of the campus, "A S.W. view of the College in Providence together with the President's House and Gardens." Providence, 1792.
context_page_description: College Hill is a neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island, and one of six neighborhoods comprising the East Side of Providence and part of the College Hill Historic District. It is roughly bounded by South and North Main Street to the west, Power Street to the south, Governor Street and Arlington Avenue to the east and Olney Street to the north. College Hill is also home to Thayer Street, a shopping strip frequented by students in the Providence area.
  College Hill is the most affluent neighborhood in Providence, with a median family income of nearly three times that of the city as a whole.
  College Hill has been designated as one of the Great Places in America by the American Planning Association in 2011. College Hill became an example of Historic Preservation planning in 1959.
context_section_description: The region was familiar to the local Wampanoag people when it was suggested that a refugee group recently expelled from the Plymouth Colony should settle upon a small hill on the right bank of the Seekonk River. Led by Roger Williams, after his 3-month winter encampment with Massasoit before escaping from Boston in Dec 1635, he and a small group of families bound together by religious faith arrived on the west side of the hill. After friendly agreement with chief sachems of the Narragansett Canonicus and Miantonomi, and with providence aforethought, Williams and his group set camp.
  
  By 1644, Williams along with Chad Brown and the ancient settlement of Providence had taken root at College Hill. 
   By the time of the American Revolution, the foot of the hill was densely populated with wharves, warehouses, shops, public buildings, and residential houses. Benefit Street was home to several hotels, including the Golden Ball Inn which hosted such guests as George Washington. In 1770, the college that became Brown University was moved to the old Brown farm and over the next century would gradually expand.  In the nineteenth century, precious metals and jewellery trading drove much business on North Main Street, and RISD was established in 1877.  By the 1900s, Brown had begun expanding more aggressively, demolishing nearly 100 houses in the 1950s for a residential quadrangle area.
  In the post-war years, Providence went into a decline. Many of the neighborhood's more historic centers were in disrepair and were slated for demolition as part of urban renewal projects.  The Providence Preservation Society intervened and the area is now home to one of the country's largest restored collections of 18th and 19th century Victorians and colonials.
caption: This 1795 engraving is the first known image of University Hall, built 1770-71, one of seven surviving American college buildings that date from the colonial period. During the Revolutionary War, the "College Edifice" was converted to a hospital and barracks for the Comte de Rochambeau's French forces
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