It is with considerable sadness that I pen this column this week as it has been a sorrowful time; two folks very important to me and the greater community of our fair town have recently passed on.

Well, here we are again, with our nineteenth attempt to tally up the most endangered historic sites in our fair town for the 12 months ahead.

Harold Metcalf was born in Providence in 1861 and earned medical degrees from Brown University and Harvard University.

A little over 110 years ago, on June 25, 1904, at a time long before environmental impact studies and building permit requirements, the rail wars of South County officially began.

Over the years we’ve taken a look at the inns and taverns of old Wickford, the grand hotels at Cold Spring and Saunderstown, and the area’s first true motel run by local character Bob Bean.

Sometimes delving into the stories behind the gravestones located in the historic cemeteries of our fair town leads to tales and life lessons that play out as affirmations to the spirit and resilience of those that came before us.

The exciting recent news that “Wicked Tulips” will be relocating their operation to a portion of the Schartner Farm on Route 2 here in our fair town got me to thinking about North Kingstown’s first flower farm which was located on Tower Hill Road just south of its intersection with Ten Rod Road.

This house was constructed in 1822 for landowner and farmer William Brown. Brown had purchased the lot the year previous from Hannah (Boone) Franklin.

To the unaware, the trip down the hill from busy Davisville Road to the little hollow next to the Hunt’s River seems like a short one, but to those who know, it’s a journey that spans hundreds of years.

As Veteran’s Day is nearly upon us, I thought it would be a great idea to take a look at the story of some sadly forgotten veterans in this week’s column. Our story begins in July of 1948, some 71 years ago, when quietly, somberly, without fanfare or a mention in the local press, a group of soldiers tied up at the long-abandoned pier at Fort Greble on Dutch Island and went about their assigned task.

This house was constructed for 68 year old retiring sea captain Beriah H. Gardiner, son of Beriah Gardiner of Main Street, in 1870 on a lot he purchased from the widow Abby Cotter who lived next door.

The “Old Salt” Capt. Billy Reynolds was already part of the character of the community here in North Kingstown when the article in the Dec. 10, 1893 Providence Journal celebrating his 70 years working the Narragansett Bay and the Block Island Sound hit the newsstands.

This week’s column takes us back to home base – Swamptown. The Kettle Hole is an almost legendary place in Swamptown lore. Created by the great glaciers many eons ago, tradition has it that it is bottomless.

Life, as anyone who has lived for a time can tell you, is fraught with irony. And sometimes, so it would appear, is death. A case in point is that of our fair town’s own David Sherman Baker; a man who in 1893 was elected Governor of the great state of Rhode Island.