Located next door to the Rebecca Maxwell Phillips House on State Street in Warren, Rhode Island the Eddy-Cutler House remains as one of the finest Federal style residences built of brick in the charming waterfront town. Warren merchant and slave trader Benjamin Eddy purchased this desirable house lot in 1806 from John Throop Child, a town councilman and slave owner in 1774 who built slave ships before the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Eddy began construction on his mansion by 1806, and it was completed sometime before the War of 1812. Like many of the town’s wealthiest residents, Benjamin Eddy was engaged in the slave trade. Captain Benjamin Eddy was captain of at least three slave voyages, delivering 139 captives to docks in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 1806 alone. In 1808, just before the “Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves” he purchased and imprisoned 176 Africans – the largest number ever carried on a Warren slave ship. Nineteen died during the return voyage. When he reached Charleston, South Carolina the remaining 157 people were sold into slavery. At the time, the sale would have returned nearly $33,000. He would return home to this mansion on money profited from human suffering, a story as American as apple pie. In 1871, the Eddy Homestead was sold to Charles R. Cutler, a ship master and whaler who had many successful voyages to the Indian Ocean before working in the manufacturing of cotton cordage. The three-story, five-bay Federal style mansion of brick features a Victorian-era porch, but retains its Palladian window with blind fan and lights over the entry and belvedere at the roof. Once painted, the brick is now slowly being re-exposed, a great sight to see.