Benedict Arnold (governor)
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Benedict Arnold (21 December 1615 – 19 June 1678) was governor of Rhode Island.
Arnold served as governor from 1663 to 1666, 1669 to 1672, and 1677 to 1678. He was born in England and immigrated to Newport, Rhode Island where he purchased a farm. Governor Arnold was instrumental in bringing about the reconciliation and union of the two colonies of Rhode Island (Aquidneck Island) and Providence Plantations.
His father was William Arnold, and his great-grandson was the notorious American Revolution General Benedict Arnold.
[edit] Arnold's Tower
Arnold oversaw construction, or re-construction of Newport Tower. The origins of the tower are debated; using an experimental carbon dating method, the Danish Committee for Research on North America AD 1000-1500 concluded in a 1992 report by Johannes Hertz that it was built in 1667 by Arnold himself.
An alternative theory, however, suggests that the tower might have been built by Chinese settlers who allegedly[1] came to the New World in the 15th century, before Colombus. In particular, U.S. Architect Suzanne O. Carlson disputed the later dating of the tower, claiming (1) its dimensions are not in then standard feet and inches, (2) a trench surrounding the tower could only have been built to stabilize an earlier structure, (3) the actual reading for the Danish carbon dating placed erection anywhere between 1410 and 1970, and (4) the mortar mix was based on crushed seashells, not standard lime. Gavin Menzies goes on to note (1) strong similarities with the ancient lighthouse in Quanzhou, China that dates to the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279), which thus might be the "twin tower" to the structure in Rhode Island and (2) the Rhode Island tower's internal and external diameters, which work out to exactly 1 chang 80 chi and 2 chang 40 chi. He also details the arguments underpinning Astrophysics Professor William Penhallow's hypothesis that the structure was a navigation tower that established longitude for junks outbound to China. As at 2003, Menzies was denied permission to sample the mortar for laboratory analysis and comparison with the navigation tower in Quanzhou.
- ^ Menzies, G., 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. Bantam, New York (2002), pp 328-332.
[edit] External links
- Benedict Arnold at Find-A-Grave
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