As the Town of North Kingstown’s historic cemetery preservation official, over the years I’ve seen things that have propelled my emotions from one end of the spectrum to the other. A recent phone call from the NK Police Department regarding a 19th century era footstone found leaning up against the outside wall of a local tavern made me angry, as I can only see it as a sign of ignorance and disrespect by some misguided reveler.
Pawtuxet, Rhode Island -born house carpenter Joseph Horton built the fine home located at 65 Boston Neck Road in North Kingstown on land he purchased from the owner of the house just to the west, Thomas Peirce, in 1892. He moved in with his wife Laura, a member of the prominent and successful Baker family, and their two children Mary and William after living elsewhere in the village of Wickford for more than three decades.
Politics at the national level, have certainly gotten a bit ugly, haven’t they? It’s easy to feel like this is something new, like this is the first-time things have ever been this bad. What are you thinking, this is Rhode Island, of course things have been this bad before! Here is a story to prove just that.
A recent slick glossy piece of ugliness in my mailbox has gotten me a bit riled up this week. I’m not really one to stray into the wasteland that is 21st century American politics, and I don’t know diddly about CRT or DEI, but I do know something about non-profit organizations with an on-line presence, because I have one.
Awhile back, we took a journey back to the time immediately after the Second World War and examined the story of the brigantine “Black Pearl” the last tall ship built here in Wickford. To recap, the 73 ft long Black Pearl was constructed at Perkins & Vaughan Shipyard, now Wickford Shipyard, by Lincoln Vaughan for use as his family sailing yacht.
In most cases, the most noteworthy events associated with any of the myriad historic homes in Wickford occurred centuries ago. And, although it’s true that the fine home at 151 West Main St., our subject today, built more than 150 years ago, has a long association with the locally prominent Holloway family, it’s really not these ship and house wrights for whom this house is remembered.
The word “guild” is ancient in its usage, and harkens back to a time in Europe and England when craftsmen would meet together in an intimate setting and share the particular secrets of their craft. It’s no coincidence that Augusta Garloff Hazard chose this very specific word to describe the place that she created for the women of Peacedale as the 20th century dawned.
I lost a friend to COVID last week, no I take that back, Chuck Doris was more than a friend, he was family. So, who was Chuck Doris? Well, if you were around South County in the late 1970s through the 1980s and beyond and spent any time listening to live music in local establishments and eateries, you would have seen him.
This week in our ongoing exploration of South County’s famed quirky curiosities, we are going to examine the life and times of our area’s 19th century celebrity preacher, Elder Edwin R Wood. Read on and enjoy.
Here is another look at a quirky, perhaps even a bit insane, 130-year-old story about another prominent South County landmark and a Narragansett local celebrity, now resting eternal in Wakefield, who lost his grip on reality it would seem.
The headlines of Aug. 15, 1891 reflect the feeling of inevitability shared by just about everyone in South County. “At Last! Capt. Kenyon in a new role. He kills a man at Last.”
One of the many things we do here in South County, better than the rest of RI if you ask me, is quirky! We are a quirky bunch, and our history is replete with quirky stories. Last week we examined the story behind Smith’s Castle, one of our iconic landmark locations, period of ownership by an underwear manufacturer. This week, lets check out the quirky tale of the candymen who saved Narragansett’s most popular viewscape.
If a place stands the test of time for as long as Smith’s Castel has, you can bet that there’s bound to be an anomaly or two somewhere in its long record of ownership. With more than 325 years of history, Smith’s Castle’s anomaly certainly has to be the seven-year period during the 1940s in which it was owned by a Providence textile concern, the Vesta Underwear Company.
The middle of the 1800s brought unprecedented growth to the small village of Lafayette.
Before long it had everything a community would need to be self-sufficient; a large mill and its supporting businesses to supply all with a place to work, general stores and shops of every kind, and schools to educate the children of the workers.
But, Lafayette had no church to call its own.
No serious study of the history of our fair town would be complete without taking a hard look at one of the folks most responsible for preserving the most important artifacts of that history; the colonial era homes and structures which make North Kingstown the special place that it is. No one man has done more to preserve and document these buildings than Norman Isham. It only seems fitting, since Isham’s home and studio on Boston Neck Road have recently been restored themselves, that we look back on his life.
Whether it be as a backdrop for the historic fishing vessel the “O.K.” or all on its own, the magnificent circa 1932 John P. Burdick House cuts quite a figure for itself there on the edge of Wickford Harbor, just east of the Hussey Bridge. An interesting home, constructed on land that has its own intriguing story, this is a house with a tale to tell.
Most of my friends and relations seem to feel that I have a penchant for making some very obscure selections when it comes to reading materials. I can’t quite understand this; why, during this long holiday weekend I passed the time pouring over the details of this very interesting two-volume work entitled “Runaways, Deserters, & Notorious Villains” written by noted Providence historian and photo archivist Maureen Taylor.
My backyard has an assortment of large and small holes scattered throughout the landscape, all excavated by animals of some sort, and I enjoy watching their occupants scamper from one hole to the next. Most are home to chipmunks, which can be seen during most of the year filling their cheeks with sunflower seeds spilled from the birdfeeders and dashing off to hide them under ground.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American philosopher and poet, wrote, “All life is an experiment.” So this week, to conclude our six-part series on the devastating and relentless pandemic of type 2 diabetes, we conclude with a challenge to readers to undertake an experiment.
The most important thing readers should have learned from last week’s column is that pre-diabetes is reversible. And fancy pharmaceuticals aren’t to thank. Rather, it’s glycemic control, achieved naturally, by managing blood sugar with the help of concentrated brown seaweed. But what’s glycemic control? And what’s so special about brown seaweed?
North Kingstown School Committee officials found themselves in the middle of a debate over curriculum this week as members of the public sparred Tuesday night over the topics of sexuality and gender identity and how appropriate it is for those subjects to be explored by local students. At particular issue was the inclusion of a book titled “Gender Queer” that was recently added to the high school library. The memoir, about gender identity, includes images and discussion of sexual acts.
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