George T. Downing was born in New York City December 30,
1819. His father, Thomas Downing, was born in Virginia 1791. Downing,
Jr., showed unusual business ability as a young man.
He established himself in business on Fourth Street in 1842
near Broadway. In 1845, he leased the premises at 690Broadway and
established the firm of George T. Downing, Confectioner and Caterer.
This was the meeting place in those days, of New York's four hundred,
including the Asters, Schermerhorns, Kennedys and Kernochans. He
established a summer business in Newport in 1846, leasing an estate at
the corner of Catherine and Fir Streets, and at the outset he was
successful. In 1848 he leased an estate on what is now Liberty Street at
the foot of Downing and he purchased the same in 1850. In 1849, he
bought of Charles Sherman the estate at the corner of Downing Street and
Bellevue Avenue. In 1850 he conducted a business in Providence on
Mathewson Street near Westminster. He continued his business in Newport
in the summer time.
In 1854, he erected the Sea Girt Hotel on the site of what is
now the Downing Block. It was sumptuously furnished as a resort for the
wealthy. This was destroyed by fire on the fifteenth of December, 1860,
while Mr. Downing and his family were away in Boston. The loss was in
the neighborhood of forty thousand dollars. Immediately thereafter he
set to work and built the present Downing Block. The upper part in Civil
War times was used as a naval hospital. Mr. Downing took charge of the
House Restaurant in Washington in 1865 and he retired from business in
1879.
He was educated in the public schools of New York and
graduated from Hamilton College. Mr. Downing was early active in the
abolition movement and was a conductor on the under ground railroad. His
activities in the anti-slavery cause and his fight for the
civil rights of his people place every negro in this country under a
debt of gratitude to him. He was a co-worker with Frederick Douglass,
was an intimate friend of Charles Sumner, was with that statesman when
he breathed his last and it was to him that Sumner said, "Don't let my
Civil Rights Bill die."
The city of Newport is also indebted to George T. Downing for
his magnificent public spirit. For to him, the city of Newport owes
more, perhaps, than to any other man, for the acquisition of Touro Park.
The Touro family left ten thousand dollars for the purchase of Touro
Park. Governor Gibbs' estate refused to sell for less than sixteen
thousand dollars. Mr. Downing at once became active. He gave one
thousand dollars out of his own savings and enlisted the support of
fifteen others; the tide was turned and the city got the property.
Mr. Downing was also active and fought for a good many years
the separate school system in Rhode Island. In this fight, as in many
others, he had the active support of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson
and many other liberal minded citizens. And when that victory had been
achieved, he threw himself in the fight to remove the law from the
statute books preventing inter-marriage between the races and every form
of discrimination. The land now called Downing Street was donated by him
to the city. He died July 21, 1903.
