Bannister's Wharf today is home to Newport restaurants: The Black Pearl and The Clarke Cooke House, two of the City's finest and best loved eating establishments. The Black Pearl, since 1973, has been owned by a local Newport family. On a recent warm afternoon late in November, Black Pearl patrons enjoyed the delightful ambiance of the Black Pearl patio and bar, which abuts Bowen's Wharf and offers glorious views of the sunset across Newport Harbor at dusk.
The building that houses The Black Pearl was built in 1920 by Commodore Arthur Curtiss James as a sail loft and machine shack, now famous for some of New England's best chowder, which you can even order online. Memory recalls listening to the Clancy Brothers performing by the woodstove, once the heating mainstay of the former sail loft. Fitted out with teak and brass by yachtsman Barclay Warbarton in the '60s, the wood stove has disappeared and the kitchen has had recent extensive renovation.
The restaurant has a tavern for casual dining, serving full meals and sandwiches, and for more formal dining, The Commodore's Room, with tuxedoed waiters, providing excellent service and top notch cuisine under the direction of Chef Daniel Knerr for the past 19 years. Visitors to Newport RI can never go wrong with reservations for lunch or dinner at The Black Pearl, open every day of the week.
Bannister's Wharf was built by merchant John Banister, (with only one "n") a highly successful merchant who moved to Newport RI from Boston about 1736 where he married Hermoine Pelham in 1737. He made his fortune as a privateer and slave trader, trading with England and the West Indies (particularly Honduras).
"Banister held one of the last public slave auctions in Rhode Island at his store, describing his offerings in advertisements 'as one of the finest cargoes ever brought into New England'."
Rick Stattler in 2001 (Rhode Island Historical Society, Manuscripts Division) described John Banister's merchant ledger, 1746 - 1750: "In terms of sheer physical bulk, it is probably the largest volume in the Historical Society's collection." John Banister died in 1767 in Middletown, RI where he lived with his family.
It's no secret that Newport's founders and "first citizens" of Rhode Island made their fortunes in the slave trade, rum, molasses, and chocolate.
"On August 5, 1797, John Brown, the premier merchant and first citizen of Providence, Rhode Island, reluctantly entered federal district court in his hometown and became the first American to be tried under the U.S. Slave Trade Act of 1794."
Among Brown's accusers was his younger abolitionist brother, Moses, who converted from the Baptist Church to a member of Newport's Quaker congregation on the eve of the American Revolution. The elder Brown was accused of fitting out his ship Hope for slave trade and successfully selling 229 African slaves in Havana, Cuba.
The first slave trade act had halting loopholes, and John Brown in this litigation only lost the Hope and was not prosecuted further due to a number of reasons, the main one being the cronism and strength in numbers of Newport's slave traders. Rhode Island ceased participation in slave trade with the passage of the Anti-Slave Trade Act of 1807, strengthened in 1819 when violation of this law carried the death penalty.
resource: Rhode Island Historical Society from the Brown Family Collections.
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