Jonas and Horatio Blake partnered to run the Mansion House hotel on Benefit Street, Providence, probably in August 1832.1 Blake was already an experienced hotel proprietor. Supposedly by 1820 he had one in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the main road from New York City to Boston via Providence by the border with Connecticut. If Jonas was operating on a mail route through southern Connecticut, at least, before 1826, he may have had contact with Blake. When Jonas was at the Washington Observatory, Blake was running a hotel in Providence, providing further opportunities for their paths to cross. After high praise for previous managers of the Mansion House, a newspaper report says:
The two gentlemen who have now assumed the duties of "mine hosts" in this ancient and well known establishment are gentlemen of taste, and are both duly intricated in the business which it will now to their pleasure as well as their duty to excel in. The public may rest assured that this hotel will not deteriorate under its president incumbents, but will present additional claims for patronage, may its enterprising landlords find sufficient encouragement to continue it, as it has been one of the best publications in the country.2
The Mansion House was an old business dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. It was first called the Golden Ball Hotel, which hosted presidents and other statesmen perhaps due to its shouting distance from the State House. There are several engravings of the building and photographs taken in 1941 for the Historic American Buildings Survey.
The engraving above doesn't give a good idea of the large size of the hotel. The 1941 views, just before demolition, show the building with the verandahs removed and several other alterations like the fire escapes, but it generally retains the appearance it had when Jonas was there, although with buildings surrounding it in urban fashion. The brick portion, to the right in the right-side photo, is the part that is clearly seen in the engraving. Trees in the latter shroud the major part of the hotel that is featured in the left-side photo. Another old engraving shows a view from the same angle as the right photo and confirms that this is the same building. The site is now a parking lot. By June of 1833, the hotel was being advertised for rent, thus ending Blake & Bartlett's brief connection to the property. Business may not have been sufficient to keep their interests, since both soon moved to the New York City environs to open other hotels.
Jonas married a 19 year-old Providence girl named Harriet Holbrook in 1833. A newspaper notice says it was by "Rev. Phillips."3 Process of elimination points to William Phillips of the Third Baptist Church, which was very near the Washington Observatory. Harriet's father and mother were married by the minister of the First Baptist Church, which was near the Mansion House hotel, so Jonas may have met Harriet there.
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1. Providence Patriot, 1 Sep 1832, 2. Stanton Smith said that they moved when their daughter Sarah was six weeks old, placing the move in July. The 1855 New York State census (Kings Co., 1st Ward, 2nd ED, dwelling #191) says that Jonas, Harriet and Sarah had been living in New York city for 21 years.
2. Providence Patriot, 9 Mar 1833, 4.
3. Ibid, 14 Sep 1833, 3. The image above is from the Rhode Island Republican, 18 Sep 1833, 3. This date is also in Albert Holbrook's manuscript on the Holbrook family.