Sights ~ Richmond Fountain ~ Providence

This post was updated on November 20, 2024 from a post published in January 2020.

Come here everyone that thirsteth.

Sounds both welcoming and Biblical, no?

The Richmond Founatin is a Gothic granite fountain that sits on the sidewalk outside the Athenæum on Benefit Street, offering cool water in the hot months.  

Built in 1873 from funds donated by Mrs. Anna Richmond, it was designed by noted Boston architects Ware and Van Brunt.

A legend going back to the nineteenth century claims that visitors who drink the water will always return to Providence. But as Projo reports, "Historian Jane Lancaster, who wrote a book about the Athenaeum, said that she has often heard the legend of the fountain, but that no one knows how it started."

Some believe that Edgar Allen Poe cursed the fountain. But that’s nonsense, Lancaster said, as Poe died more than two decades before the fountain was built."

There’s also a version of the legend that says anyone who drinks from the fountain will never leave Providence.

 

Wherever the legend comes from, it lives on in stories like "The Legendary Fountain of Providence" by New England Legends podcast.

And you bet I drank from it.