The Historic Newport Spring Project’s central goal is to celebrate, at the place of Newport’s founding, a key and integral part of Newport’s history that has been overlooked by historians, governments, and indeed many of our citizens for centuries: that Newport was explicitly founded on the values of freedom of religion, religious tolerance, and separation of church and state.  
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Once complete, the Historic Newport Spring park will preserve this unique historically significant site in a manner that provides public access and civic enjoyment, improves traffic and pedestrian circulation and safety, and fosters cultural and economic vitality.

Click the links above to learn more about the Historic Newport Spring Project. 

“It is agreed and ordered that the Plantation now begun at this South west end of the island, shall be called Newport...
and that the Towne shall be built upon both sides of the spring, and by the sea-side Southward.”
(Records of the Colony of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations; Volume I, 16th March, 1639)