The Roger Williams Home at Salem is still preserved. It is better known as “the Witch House” because it was occupied by Judge Carwin, one of the judges connected with the tragedy of 1692. It stands at the western corner of Essex and North Streets. It was built by the founder of Rhode Island and was at that time second only to the Governor’s home. Though it has been altered and repaired, the original rooms in this building are as follows: The eastern room on the first floor, 18 × 21½, and the room directly over it, 20 × 21½; the western room on the first floor, 16½ × 18, and the room over it, 16½ × 20. The chimney is 8 × 12. The part of the house which retains its original appearance is the projecting corner of the western part, fronting on Essex Street. Roger Williams mortgaged this house, “for supplies,” to establish the colony at Providence. Mr. Upham, in his report to the Essex Institution, says of this wonderful house: Here, within these very walls, lived, two hundred and fifty years ago, that remarkable and truly heroic man, who, in his devotion to the principle of free conscience, and liberty of belief, untrammeled by civil power, penetrated in midwinter in the depths of an unknown wilderness to seek a new home, a home which he could find only among savages, whose respect for the benevolence and truthfulness of his character made them, then and ever afterward, his constant friends. From this spacious and pleasant mansion, he fled through the deep snows of a New England forest, leaving his wife and young children to the care of Providence, whose silent “voice” through the conscience, was his only support and guide. The State which he founded may ever look back with a just pride upon the history of Roger Williams. II THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE A community on the unheard-of principles of absolute religious liberty combined with perfect civil democracy.--_Professor Mason._ Thus for the first time in history a form of government was adopted which drew a clear and unmistakable line between the temporal and the spiritual power, and a community came into being which was an anomaly among the nations.--_Prof. J. L. Diman._ No one principle of political or social or religious policy lies nearer the base of American institutions and has done more to shape our career than this principle inherited from Rhode Island, and it may be asserted that the future of America was in a large measure determined by that General Court which summoned Roger Williams to answer for “divers new and dangerous opinions,” and his banishment became a pivotal act in universal history.--_Prof. Alonzo Williams._