Quaker School/Clarke Rodman House     -     circa  1711  and  1787

     The Quaker School, also known as the Clarke Rodman House, is a two story, end-to-the-street, gable-roofed building.  The fanlight doorway is on the side of the house rather than the street façade, thereby minimizing the frontage and maximizing the lot depth - a devise used in order to adapt to Newport’s crowded 18th century cityscape.

      Evidence from the Jackson Map of Newport (1711-12) indicates a school located on this land owned by the Society of Friends.  It is further recorded that Clarke Rodman occupied the building as a dwelling in 1787. The fine doorway probably dates from this period, as does most of the interior detail.

      The Quaker Meeting House was, and still is, close by this building.  In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Society of Friends owned several pieces of land in the area of the meetinghouse.  The Friends sold "The schoolhouse lot and house" to Elijah Sherman.  No date is available for this sale, but it took place after the mention of Clarke Rodman (1787), who may have been one of the first to use the building as a dwelling.

     The Quaker School/Clarke-Rodman House is on its original site.  The Newport Restoration Foundation purchased the house in 1973 and restored it in 1976-77.  The Quaker School/Clarke Rodman House was sold by NRF in 2006.