Newport County, R.I. Historical Register of Places
Newport County, R.I. Historical Register of Places
INVENTORY OF HISTORIC RESOURCES
This inventory is an annotated list of some of the properties recorded by the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission. These properties have special significance in the development of Jamestown because they document the patterns of its development or because they illustrate the architectural history of the town. Properties are listed by road or street in alphabetical order. Those which are part of an historic area are identified with a two-letter code:
BV Bay View Drive
CP Conanicut Park
DI Dutch Island
FH Fox Hill
GI Gould Island
OW Ocean Highlands-Walcott Avenue
SH Shoreby Hill
WH Windmill Hill
The key to symbols is as follows:
* properties entered on the National Register
** properties recommended for further study to determine eligibility for listing on the National Register
All inventoried properties are located on the town map or on a map of an historic area. Dating of structures was determined on the basis of plaques, written material, maps, knowledge of local residents, and style and materials of construction. Unless otherwise noted, all structures are of wood-frame construction, are flank gable and are wood clapboard-sided. Buildings are named for their original owner, where known, and for later significant owners, or for their use. Some names are derived from nineteenth-century maps.
ALDEN ROAD
**5 SH - RED HOUSE (1898): An unusually compact, rectangular mass, this handsome, 2-story house has a flaring hip roof with deep eaves. The porch is carved out of the volume of the building, thereby continuing the simple, shingled form. There is a contrast here between the regularity of form and fenestration, the formality of the big rear Palladian window lighting the stair, and the summertime casualness of the cottage's shingling and fieldstone chimneys. This byplay was a facet of sophisticated country house design in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Designed for Margaret (Mrs. Henry S.) Potter of St. Louis, by Newport architect Creighton Withers, the Red House was one of the first houses built in the Shoreby Hill Development.
**11 SH - JAMES TAUSSIG COTTAGE (c. 1898): In contrast to the stylelessness of the Red House, the Taussig Cottage features a wealth of symmetrically disposed Colonial Revival detail. The cross-gabled, gambrel-roofed structure is complicated by an expansive front porch. The richness of its white painted detail is played off against the dwelling's gray shingles. James Taussig was one of the founders of the Jamestown Land Company, developers of Shoreby Hill.
AMERICA WAY
EAST PASSAGE ESTATES (1978 et seq.): East Passage Estates, located between East Shore Road and North Main Road, is a large residential development. Although a recent undertaking, in its scope and form the project has its antecedents in such nineteenth-century Jamestown real-estate speculations as nearby Conanicut Park and Shoreby Hill. Designed by landscape architect Patrick Brady, this development features two-acre lots on curving residential streets, a small common beach at Cranston Cove, and two man-made ponds. East Passage Estates and its companion development, West Reach Estates, are noteworthy for their sampling of dwellings representative of recent architectural styles. These include the "shed" style and several "neo" types such as neo-colonial, neo-French, neo-Tudor, and neo-Mediterranean.
The estates began as a potential industrial venture in 1956 when Commerce Oil Company purchased more than 700 acres here for an oil refinery. Plans for the refinery were drawn up, but it never materialized, and the land remained idle for about eighteen years. In 1976 a zoning change allowed residential development on the Commerce Oil land, and the company created several residential areas, principally East Passage estates (in two sections), a 110-acre parcel; West Reach Estates, with 165 acres, between North Main Road and the West Passage of the Bay; and Bayview Park, a 28-acre tract east of the junction of East Shore Road and Eldred Avenue.
In 1978, the first section of East Passage Estates was opened. East Passage II, adjoining East Passage I, started several years later; its first house was completed in 1984. West Reach Estates and Bayview Park were opened in 1982.
204 - HAIKU HOUSE (1989): One of Jamestown's more unusual houses is this Haiku house, designed by Nikko Houses of Newport Beach, California, in the tradition of sixteenth-century Japanese country houses. This 2-1/2-story, hip-roofed example, with redwood vertical-board sides, has poles for supports and displays large boards that extend from the interior to beyond the cornice, in the tradition of many early twentieth-century bungalows.
BAY VIEW DRIVE HISTORIC DISTRICT
A small historic area, along Bay View Drive east of Conanicus Avenue, is comprised of several wood-shingled residences, all in a style common to Jamestown. Seven houses are sited along the shore of the East Passage, and five of the seven were constructed during the last two decades of the nineteenth century, when most of the island's shingle-style residences were built.
BAY VIEW DRIVE
**24 BV - FRANCIS D. WETHERILL HOUSE / DRIFTWOOD (1888): Driftwood is a cross-gambreled, shingle-clad, 1-1/2-story cottage on a small bayside lot. Simple and direct, without any extraneous detail, even the porch posts of this Shingle Style cottage are shingled.
**30 BV - FOLLY HOUSE (1886-87): This 2-1/2-story, shorefront, shingled summer house, its gable end facing the road, has a 2-1/2-story main section surrounded by a broad, shed-roofed porch, and a 1-1/2-story ell near the road. There is a hip-roof, wood-shingled garage close to the road. The house was built on Friendship Street and moved here in 1890.
**31 BV - JOSEPHINE COLE COTTAGE (1929): A 2-story, gambrel-roofed, wood shingled residence, with a hip-roofed piazza (now partially enclosed), and a gambrel-roofed, 2-story ell at the rear. Although a more recent addition to the district, this house is typical of Jamestown houses.
**40 BV - CHARLES W. SEAVER COTTAGE / CONANICUT YACHT CLUB (1889-90, 1916, 1955 el sec/.): A large, rambling, shingled structure set on a large, grassy lot. The road-facing side comprises a series of connected, 2-story, wood shingled parts, with an entry in a hip-roofed portion at the right side. The water-facing side is radically different due to alterations -- continuous banks of windows in the three tiers facing east across the club's dock to Jamestown Harbor and the Bay. Built as a summer cottage by Charles W. Seaver in 1889-90, it became a summer boarding house in 1945, then was greatly expanded for clubhouse use after 1955 by the Conanicut Yacht Club, who also built the dock.
The island's first yacht club was organized in 1891 as the Conanicut Yacht Club. By 1894 a boathouse and a dock had been built a few blocks south of the East Ferry Landing. Racing, at first with gaff-rigged sailboats, was well underway by 1900. After Hurricane Carol ruined the club pier and weakened the clubhouse in 1954, it was decided to buy the present property, one-half mile north of the ferry. The club remains here today.
**50 BV - A. LAWRENCE WETHERILL COTTAGE / SPINDRIFT (1896-97): With its multiple gables, tall, exterior, fieldstone chimneys, ample size and prominent site, this summer house, set back from the road, is a landmark on the Jamestown waterfront. It was designed by architect Stanford White of New York and built for A.L. Wetherill of Philadelphia.
**74 BV - MARY REMEY WADLEIGH COTTAGE / THE QUARTERDECK (1927): Designed by "Ritter of Boston" and built by Thomas D. Wright, this L-plan chalet-like house, its shingles painted white, was moved here from Conanicus Avenue in 1941. It has been in the Wadleigh family since 1927. The house is well back from the road, its proximity to the shore affording a commanding view of Rose Island to the east.
**96 BV - PASCHAL HACKER COTTAGE / BRYRSTANE (1885-86): Bryrstane (which may incorporate a much earlier dwelling) is a large, 2-1/2-story, gable-on-hip-roofed, shingle-clad, winterized house, with three brick chimneys, one in each of the three parts of the house. Its unprepossessing entrance front, commanding the summit of a broad lawn sweeping down to a private beach, gives no hint of the magnificence of its water side, particularly the view of the nearby Newport Bridge.
BEAVERTAIL ROAD
(off)
** CONANICUT BATTERY / PROSPECT HILL FORT, PROSPECT HILL FIRE CONTROL STATION (1776 and later): Along the west side of Beaver Neck, overlooking the West Passage, are the earthwork remains of several fortifications. Just west of a parking lot, at the highest elevation, is a multi-sided structure. It measures 150 by 75 feet at its longest dimension, and 100 by 50 feet at its shortest. This site was used as an observation post and a communications facility during World War II. The immediate area is cleared of vegetation. Below this, and accessible only by a path, is a large field, with a curving earthworks, erected during the Revolutionary War.
Conanicut Battery was ordered built by Americans in May, 1776, and fitted with six to eight heavy cannons to be used to defend the passage between Conanicut and Dutch Islands. A companion battery at Bonnet Point on the opposite shore was constructed to defend the passage between Dutch Island and the mainland. The Conanicut fort was captured by the British during their occupation of Rhode Island (1776-79) and reportedly occupied and rebuilt; upon their departure the British destroyed the magazines, and the abandoned fort was left to decay. It was never rebuilt. Although it never saw combat, the battery is significant as one of several Revolutionary War-era Narragansett Bay fortifications.
The old fort later became part of a broader twentieth-century military network in the bay. In 1916 the U.S. Government acquired eighteen acres at Prospect Hill; in 1921 the holdings here were increased. Six in-ground concrete observation posts were installed which were actively used in the 1940s as a communications link for operations of the Mine Command.
The fortification at Prospect Hill is a good example of the hurried military preparations made by the colonists in 1776 and is Jamestown's most tangible link to the war for independence.
**177 - MR & MRS J. BERTRAM LIPPINCOTT HOUSE / MEERESBLICK (1893-93); Pritchett & Pritchett of Philadelphia designed this complex comprised of a fieldstone and shingle dwelling, and an accompanying guest-carriage house, sited near the road. A former windmill stands across the road. Both the residence and carriage house are L-shaped structures, simple in overall form but made unique by eccentric flourishes like upturned gable peaks of quasi-Art Nouveau and Crafts inspiration. The panelled interior of the house, originally furnished by Wilbour Brothers, continues the Art and Crafts aesthetic with considerable skill and consistency. The Lippincott House is the only building erected in the never-realized Conanicut Reserve Development. Lippincott was president of the J.B. Lippincott publishing company. His wife Joanna was the daughter of Joseph Wharton; their summer cottage here stands near the northwest end of Mackerel Cove facing south toward the big Wharton house, erected a decade earlier at Horsehead, at the southeast approach to the cove.
189 - J. BERTRAM LIPPINCOTT HOUSE / THE MOORINGS (1916-17): Built for J. Bertram Lippincott. and still in the Lippincott family, the Moorings, despite alterations, is an impressively ample, yet simple, shingled bungalow-a fine example of a Jamestown house. The gable roof kicks out over a long porch facing Mackerel Cove.
282 - AUDLEY CLARKE FARMHOUSE (1923): The Clarke farmhouse is a rambling, 1-1/2-story, gambrel-roofed, shingled structure resembling more a series of farm outbuildings than a residence. Peter Blackwell was the builder of this structure which was designed to resemble an old house that stood across the road. The property, including a field south of the house, is separated from the road by a stone wall.
305 - CRAIG RICHARDSON HOUSE (1988-89): Designed by Craig Richardson, this is a modern, 2-story, wood-shingled residence, set back from the road, along the west side of Mackerel Cove, that incorporates elements from several traditional American styles, including the Shingle Style. Some of the playful elements of this eclectic house include a series of square, barn-like windows in the gable end at the west side (the entrance end); multiple varied gables at the east (water-facing) side; a square stone chimney set at an angle to the ridge line; and stonework facades on some of the courtyard-facing surfaces. The stones are fieldstones that worked themselves up through the soil on Joseph Dutra's Windmill Hill farm. Landscaping includes a vegetable, perennial, and herb garden, and edge plantings. The house is on part of the former Audley Clarke Farm, which was used as a golf course earlier in the century.
CLARKE'S VILLAGE (1946): A cluster of small, plain, frame cottages. A fishing camp was established in 1946 by Arthur S. Clarke of Jamestown who moved several small cottages here from Bates Sanitarium. In the 1950s a group of masons from Cranston built cottages on the north side of the street for their families to use. They all worked on each of the cottages, which they constructed of different kinds of masonry.
**601- BEAVERTAIL FARM (c. 1904): Beavertail Farm is centered on a large, 2-1/2-story, gambrel-roofed. Shingle Style building with a front porch across the south side and part of the east side, and a pair of overscaled gabled dormers. The house occupies a severely-plain grassy lot relatively close to the road. A long 1-1/2-story, gambrel ell terminates in a shingle and fieldstone porte-cochere. The handsome matching shingled barn, built in 1913, backs up to the road. Joseph Wharton purchased the farm in 1899 when it appeared that his summer house at Horsehead would be taken by the government for Fort Wetherill.
** FORT BURNSIDE, Harbor Entrance Control Post, Battery 213, Battery Whiting (1942 et seq.): This fort was established in 1942 at Beavertail Point, a militarily strategic position where Narragansett Bay meets the ocean. In August, the Government took 118 acres of land here, north of the lighthouse. In December the fort was named in honor of Ambrose E. Burnside, Civil War general, prominent Rhode Island industrialist, and former governor of the state. The three most significant structures erected here during the early years of World War II were the Harbor Entrance Command Post (HECP), Battery 213, and Battery Whiting. The HECP, long unused, is occupied by a caretaker; the two batteries are covered with a thick growth of vegetation.
BEAVERTAIL LIGHTHOUSE (1856): Beavertail Lighthouse occupies rocky, windswept, narrow Beavertail Point at the southern end of Conanicut. The site has accommodated a coastal beacon for almost three centuries. Today the site contains five buildings and the remains of a sixth. Most prominent and most important is the 52-foot lighthouse tower, a 10-foot square, straight-sided, stone structure with three window openings in the walls. It is surmounted by a decagonal, iron-clad lantern room. The gray walls, of two different lengths of granite block (eight feet and ten feet), are arranged to create a quoined effect at the corners. The other significant buildings here, both 2-story, hip-roofed, stuccoed-brick structures are the 1856 keeper's house and the assistant keeper's house, built in 1898; the light was automated in 1972.
Beavertail Point has been the site of beacons and lighthouses since the early eighteenth century. Colonial records refer to a watch house at Beavertail in 1705, while orders for building a beacon and maintaining a regular watch at Beavertail are recorded in a 1712 document. In 1749, a wooden tower, 58 feet to the cornice plus 11 feet more for the light, was constructed under the direction of Peter Harrison of Newport, one of America's eminent architects. It was the third lighthouse erected in the colonies. The building burned in 1753 and was replaced by a 64-foot high fieldstone tower, completed in 1755. Burned by the British in their evacuation from Newport in 1779, the lighthouse was repaired in 1783-84 and was used until 1856, when the present tower was constructed.
The Beavertail Lighthouse was chosen as the site of several experiments to improve lighthouse operations. In 1817-18 the lantern was fitted with a lamp which burned a gas manufactured by heating tar and rosin over a coal fire. It was probably the first use of gas as a lighthouse illuminant, although the original oil lamp was refitted after the trial period. Several experimental types of fog signals were installed at Beavertail, the first in 1851. A whistle and fog trumpet, operated with compressed air, were left in place. A steam whistle was later tested, but proved unsatisfactory, and was replaced about 1866 by a reed trumpet. An improved version of the steam whistle, erected in 1881, was very successful. The installation of the whistle/air trumpet and the steam whistle at Beavertail were the first of their types in the United States.
The original beacon, a fixed white light produced by an oil lamp, was converted several times, in 1899 to a flashing white light, to an electric lamp in 1931, and finally to a 45,000-candlepower electric lamp with a flashing green light with a range of 17 miles. The lantern is 45 feet above ground and 64 feet above sea level.
The southern tip of Conanicut which includes the lighthouse, is owned by the State of Rhode Island and operated as part of the state park system. A lighthouse museum is located here.
BLUEBERRY LANE
6 - C. LLOYD THOMAS HOUSE / GREY ROCK (1960): A long, low, flat-roofed house, with vertical siding. Designed by Robert Small and modeled on the Motel on the Mountain in Mahwah, New Jersey, the Thomas House reflects the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright. Architecturally this is one of Jamestown's finer post-World War II cottages. It was built by John Rembijas.
104 THOMAS A. TODD HOUSE / CLOUDTOP (c. 1975): Designed by architect Thomas A. Todd as his summer house, Cloudtop exemplifies what has been called the "mineshaft modern" aesthetic. Its most unique feature is a rooftop observation platform reached by an exterior stair. It is one of a small number of innovative contemporary houses on the island.
BROAD STREET
** CP - REMAINS OF STEAMBOAT WHARF: At the east end of Broad Street there is a jumble of large rocks jutting out into the water. They mark the site of the former steamboat wharf and landing that made Conanicut Park possible. Although little evidence remains of the wharf itself, the large rocks that clearly mark the site are like a number of others in Narragansett Bay that indicate old waterfront structures that were built from colonial times to the early twentieth century to accommodate ferryboats, steamers, excursion boats, coastal vessels, whaling ships, and a host of other craft.
The steamboat landing was built by the developers of Conanicut Park and owned by them until 1907. During the time of active use, the steamers Riverhel/e, Bay Queen, City of Newport, and General, among others, stopped at Conanicut Park; A waiting station stood near the head of the wharf. It was probably torn down soon after 1910. The deeds to the wharf and Broad Street were turned over to the town in 1907. In that year the town built a new wharf. It was last used in the 1930s by the steamer Mount Hope which then arrived at the park only on weekends.
BRYER AVENUE
9 - ADMIRAL CLARICE H. WELLS COTTAGE/LONGWOOD (1886-87): This shingled, 1-1/2-story, Queen Anne summer residence has a porch facing the bay and a rear elevation with an exaggerated second-story overhang. Behind the house, which backs up to Bryer Avenue, is a diminutive board-and-batten carriage shed. C.L. Bevins, Jamestown's gifted resident architect, designed this cottage for Wells.
BUCCANEER WAY
12 - QUONSET HUT (mid-20th century): A typical metal-clad Quonset hut, one of many built throughout Rhode Island following the building's extensive use during World War II. This hut, with its broad side along the road, is a relatively well preserved, good example of a once-important type.
CALVERT PLACE
29 - MARY M. PARKER HOUSE (1913-14): This house, the quintessential Jamestown bungalow, has a low-pitched gable roof, which kicks out over a deep front porch; a low shed dormer; and wood shingling on every available surface save the roof (which has been redone in composition shingle rather than wood). It is devoid of ornament. Its landscaping is ample and casual. Mary Parker was the wife of Commodore James P. Parker.
CARR LANE
**90 - CARR HOMESTEAD (late 18th century): A 2-1/2-story traditional early Rhode Island farmhouse, with a large, brick, center chimney, shingled sides, and a central entry, with transom lights, in a 5-bay facade. The lot includes a corn crib, sheds, and fine stone walls. The date 1776, carved over the doorway of the house, is debatable. It may have been built somewhat later in the eighteenth century; since then it has been owned by the Carr family. The property was established as a farm and continued in agricultural use well into the twentieth century. A long, narrow 1-story building west of the house is the former Quononoquott Dairy, which was operated from the late 1930s to 1945 by Alfred and Maria (Molly) Can-Bowser.
The Jamestown Philomenian Library Association, incorporated in 1847, kept its books here in a cupboard at the head of the back stairs. Known affectionately as "The Homestead," this farmhouse has been a gathering place for many generations of Carrs. It is presently owned by the Carr Homestead Foundation which makes it available to Carr descendants for summer vacations as a means of preserving family traditions and acquainting younger generations with their ancestors' way of life.
CEDAR HILL DRIVE
**90 WH - CEDAR HILL FARM (late 17th century, et seq): Cedar Hill Farm, at the north end of the Windmill Hill Historic District, occupies a rise that overlooks the lower-lying Watson Farms and commands a view southward across the island to the Newport Bridge and Jamestown Village. The farm complex is set well back from Eldred Avenue, where stone walls line the road and fieldstone posts mark the former driveway entry. Centering the farm complex is the c. 1870 George C. Carr House, a 2-1/2-story, five-bay, bracketed residence with a 1-story veranda across the east side, and 1-1/2- and 2-1/2-story additions. The house has a traditional center hall plan. A ten-foot high stone retaining wall built into the hillside elevated the house above the surrounding land and provided it with a level terraced garden. Adjacent to the house, grouped in farmyards enclosed by dry-laid stone walls, are weathered, cedar shingle-clad outbuildings-a shed, a corn crib, a barn, a lean-to sheep shelter, a chicken coop and a garage-dating from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. In 1988 the farm's land was cut up for a housing development. The new houses, designed by John Sigrist in a variety of contemporary styles, surround the old farmhouse and outbuildings.
In the seventeenth century, the farm was part of a larger farm, purchased late in that century by Caleb Carr (1624-1695), a Newport merchant, Quaker leader, and governor of the colony in 1695, and one of the original proprietors of Jamestown. The land went to his son Nicholas (1654-1709), who passed it on to his son Thomas (1696-1776). He built a house about 1720. His farm was typical of those of the period on Conanicut. It produced corn, barley, and oats, and livestock. The western half of the farm went to Thomas's son, Benjamin, in 1764. When Thomas died, the remaining seventy acres were inherited by Nicholas Carr (1732-1813). Nicholas Carr's son Thomas (1772-1837) took over the farm before his father's death in 1813. It was next inherited by Thomas Carr's nephew George C. Carr (1818-1900), who expanded his interests beyond running the family farm. He served for several terms as a state senator, was a member and president of the town council, organized and was president of the Ocean Highlands Land Company, and was president of the Jamestown and Newport Ferry Company in 1888. About 1870 George Carr tore down the dilapidated ancestral home and replaced it with a new house. After George Carr's death in 1900, the property was inherited by his son, John Anthony Carr, who devoted his life solely to agricultural pursuits and sheep raising. John Carr died in 1937.
CLARKE STREET
74 - SERGEANT BENJAMIN MORRELL HOUSE (1890s): A 2-1/2-story, shingled residence, set gable end to the street, with a large shed roof dormer at each side and a 1-story, hip-roofed porch across the front and right side. The house is significant as the former residence of Sergeant Benjamin Morrell, a Black man who fought in the Indian wars in the western United States and who was stationed on Dutch Island in 1889. He purchased several properties on Clarke Street beginning in 1889; by 1913 he owned two houses on this lot. Booker T. Washington, who visited at the Clarke Street house, is said to have been Sgt. Morrell's father-in-law.
CLINTON AVENUE
54 CAPTAIN PHILIP CASWELL HOUSE (c. 1872): A 1-1/2-story, mansard-roofed residence with a flat-roofed piazza across the front. It was built by Captain Philip Caswell after he retired from operating the sail ferry to Newport. Later it was the residence of his grandson, William F. Caswell, who served as town clerk from 1891 to 1907, and was later postmaster.
COLE STREET
10 CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH / MOUNT ZION AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (1868): A 1-1/2-story plain meeting house, set gable end to the street, with a central entry with a molded cap, in a 3-bay facade, and a small, square belfry near the front. The Central Baptist Church Society, organized in 1867, built this church building at the southeast comer of Narragansett and Southwest Avenues. When it was moved here in 1890 it became an A.M.E. church. In 1988 the building was remodeled for residential use.
80 JOHN QUINN HOUSE (c. 1971): Combining rustic weathered sheathing and severe geometric massing and fenestration, the John Quinn House presents a tall, plain facade to the street; in back, the wedge-shaped building opens out as a series of stepped window walls and balconies. This residence is the work of Rhode Island architect William Burgin, who designed it while still an architecture student at the Rhode Island School of Design.
83 THE CASTLE (1883-83): This unusual structure comprises two separate and distinct parts, a typical, rather plain, 2-1/2-story section, and a castellated, octagonal, 3-story tower, finished with a machicolated roof deck at the right front corner of the house. Dr. V. Mott Francis built this structure, called the Castle in the 1887 tax book, as a summer residence.
CONANICUS AVENUE
9 DR. H.J. RHETT COTTAGE / THE QUONONOQUOT CLUB (1901): A 1-1/2-story, shingled, gambrel-roofed cottage set behind a stone wall. The Rhett Cottage, designed by Mantel Fielding of Philadelphia and built by F.A. Alien of Newport, originally stood on another part of this lot. In 1901 it was Jamestown's "new casino," a club and dining room for cottages in the neighborhood. In 1905 it became the summer home of Dr. Rhett, of New Orleans. In 1931 it was moved to its present site.
**17 **19 **23 - MORGAN COTTAGES / THE THREE SISTERS (1897): These three residences, a compact row of end-gable, 2-1/2-story, shingled cottages of standard, vaguely Queen Anne design, each with a handsome porch, form an imposing assemblage. Their elevated site and slope of the land makes each actually 3-1/2 stories tall in front and provides them all with a view of the nearby harbor.
Patrick Morgan, who built the cottages, was a Newport contractor and real-estate developer. Originally, these nearly identical cottages were rented out as part of Morgan's Hotel Thorndike. The hotel stood nearby. Named Betty, Nina and Myra for the three Horgan daughters, the cottages eventually were inherited by their namesakes. Reportedly they had the first electric lights in Jamestown.
41- 43 U.S.O. BUILDING/JAMESTOWN RECREATION BUILDING AND POLICE DEPARTMENT/SITE OF GARDNER HOUSE (1941-43): A large, 1-1/2-story, shingled structure, set above and gable end to the road, with projecting, 1-story, flat-roofed entrance and side wings. The site was occupied for many decades by the Gardner House, constructed in 1883, one of several large late nineteenth-century hotels at the East Ferry (the Thorndike Hotel occupied the adjacent lot, between Union and Lincoln Streets). The old Gardner Hotel was demolished in 1941. The present structure, built as a United Services Organization (USO) center, was opened for use by servicemen in 1942; it operated as a service recreation facility until 1946. Since then it has housed the recreation center and, until recently, the Jamestown Police Department.
47 HUNT BLOCK (1981): This building, at the intersection of Narragansett Avenue opposite the East Ferry Landing, is a long, 2-1/2-story commercial/residential condominium. The site was originally occupied by Albert Caswell's Riverside Hotel, built in 1889. After a destructive fire in 1894 the hotel was replaced by a block of stores known as the Caswell Block, then renamed the Hunt Block for Thomas Hunt, who owned the property for a number of years. Designed by Estes/Burgin Partnership of Providence, the new condominium block was built in 1981. Its ground floor facade is a replica of the earlier commercial block.
53 JAMESTOWN BAY VIEW CONDOMINIUMS (1989): At the east end of Narragansett avenue, at the East Ferry Landing, is a large condominium and restaurant complex, erected in 1989, replacing an earlier hotel and a hotel annex on the site.
The first Bay View Hotel, a 2-1/2-story, mansard-roofed structure, with first and second floor porches, was built about 1873 by W.H. Knowles. In 1889 Knowles' son, Adolphus, built the adjoining large Bay View Hotel, perhaps the island's finest, to the east of the original building, on the site of the Ellery Ferry House. Knowles had moved the late eighteenth-century Ferry House to Knowles Court, where it was used to house hotel employees. The new hotel, 4 1/2-stories tall, with a tower, and porches at all four floors and with room for 200 guests, was a prominent landmark at the corner of Conanicus and Narragansett Avenues. The Bay View, along with the Thorndike Hotel and the Gardner Hotel, dominated the East Ferry area. Boosted by the ferry trade, the hotels prospered until about 1920, then went into decline. The Thorndike Hotel and Gardner House were demolished in 1938 and 1941, respectively. The original Bay View Hotel, last occupied as a hotel in the 1960s, was converted to a commercial building with offices and a store in 1975. After several unsuccessful attempts to renovate the old hotel, it was sold to Ronald J. Jobin, builder and land salesman for Commerce Oil Company, and Donald Loomis, the company's president, in 1984. In the following year, both former Bay View hotels were demolished.
The new structure was designed by ADD, Inc., of Cambridge. Massachusetts, to resemble the old one--steep roof lines, Victorian trim, and the large tower were retained. Shallow porches now suggest the look of the old hotel's porch. The building's skeleton of concrete and steel is wrapped in a wood shingle exterior. The new building is elevated fifteen feet above the mean high water mark, about ten feet higher than the old hotel: underneath is a ground-floor 84-car garage. Roughly twice the size of the old hotel, Bay View Condominiums was planned to contain thirty-five living units and restaurant. Renovations were completed in 1989, the 100th anniversary of the old Bay View Hotel.
**75 SH - SHOREBY HILL CLUB / JAMESTOWN CASINO (c. 1898): This 1-1/2-story, L-plan, shingled Colonial Revival structure, which boasts both gable and gambrel roof forms, occupies a large open lot at the entrance to Shoreby Hill. Built in the late 1890s on Priscilla Road, and known as the Shoreby Hill Club, it was moved to its present site in 1911 when it became The Casino; a large ballroom was added. In the 1930s it functioned as a social center with music, game rooms, and a dining area for summer residents. When it was later sold for a private residence the ballroom was removed. Despite alterations, the building retains handsome detail, notably its porches, twin bay windows, and a Palladian gable window.
141 - BEACH HAVEN / THE BUNGALOW (1886-87): This large, 1-1/2-story, shingled. Queen Anne bungalow is dominated by an immense encircling porch. Large dormers, one with a balcony, enliven the roof. The summer cottage, designed by C.L. Bevins, was built for Dr. David Kindleberger of the United States Navy, who, according to an 1888 newspaper, spent his summers sketching and painting. The cottage, built for his comfort, "might be described as a piazza with the house inside, so broad are the verandas."
150 - BAY VOYAGE HOTEL (1860, 1889-90): The oldest part of this complex, sited along the road at the intersection of Bay View Drive, is a foursquare, 2-1/2-story, shingled, mansard-roof structure. Originally a country house, designed by George C. Mason, prominent Newport architect, and known as Rhoda Ridge, located on Brown's Lane at Middletown Heights across the bay, it was moved here by scow in two sections by its owner, James A. Brown, in 1889. Brown then attached a large annex accommodating the dining room and additional bedrooms. The 1890 thirty-room addition gave the hotel forty bedrooms. One of several hotels at or near the East Ferry, the Bay Voyage still stands today. However, although the exterior largely retains its nineteenth-century appearance, the interior of the building was thoroughly renovated. In 1987 the new building opened as a time-sharing resort and hotel.
211 - IDA KNOWLES HOUSE (1890-91): A pleasant, 2-1/2-story, hip-roofed, late Queen Anne dwelling, with cross gables, a corner turret, and an enveloping porch distinguished by a Japanesque balustrade. The house design is attributed by some to Adolphus C. Knowles because of its distinctive porch brackets. In 1895, soon after its construction, it was the residence of Mrs. Ida Knowles, sister-in-law of Adolphus.
CONANICUT PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT
** The Conanicut Park Historic District, located along East Shore Road and several nearby side streets in the northeast corner of Conanicut Island, comprises several dozen structures and two sites, most dating from the halcyon days of the Conanicut park summer colony of the late nineteenth century. This inventory includes a dozen or so houses and two sites that date from the formative years of the Park (between 1873 and 1875) and several residences added in the 1880s.
Conanicut Park was the brainchild of Lucius D. Davis, publisher of the Newport Daily News, some-time real estate entrepreneur, and former Methodist minister. Methodism is not incidental here, for the inspiration for Conanicut Park (and Davis's earlier and similar Newport development, the Cliffe Cottage Association) was the Methodist camp meeting and most particularly Wesleyan Grove on Martha's Vineyard. A number of Providence and Newport investors backed the Davis-conceived Conanicut Park scheme, the most important being Governor Henry Lippitt, the Providence textile magnate, who became president of the company; Davis was the company's secretary, treasurer, and agent.
In 1872 the investors purchased about 500 acres at the northern tip of the island, the site of the early eighteenth-century Brinley farmhouse and the Point Farm, noted for its unusually large apple orchard. The park site was bounded on the west, north, and east by the waters of Narragansett Bay. From the two-and-a-half mile long shoreline the land slopped gently upward to an elevation of about 100 feet at the intersection of Narragansett Avenue, Highland Avenue, and Conanicut Avenue. Most of the land was well drained except for a swampy area of about 30 acres in the southeast part of the Park.
John H. Mullin, a topographical engineer and surveyor, was engaged in 1873 to design and lay out the property, which combined the "delights of upland and ocean." Mullin's elegant plans for the resort provided for parks with ornamental plantings (more than 30,000 trees were planted), a commercial area near the steamboat wharf, a large residential area, and an intricate system of roads (more than 12 miles of streets were laid out), including a picturesque shore drive along the east shore of the island. The most striking feature of the proposed Park was a large number of very small, rectangular lots. The 2,098 lots platted averaged about 5,000 square feet, or about 50 by 100 feet and were priced at $150 each. Other interesting features of the Park included an elliptical section around "Sunnyside Park," which was to occupy the swamp; adjacent Conanicut Meadow; and the Commons and Woodlawn Farm in the western section of the tract. The company constructed the Conanicut Park Hotel (which could accommodate 100 guests), several cottages, and, along the eastern shore, a large and substantial wharf with a waiting room to serve as a steamboat landing.
The Park's location near the northern end of the island was near the daily run of the Providence, Fall River, and Newport Steamboat Company's passenger steamer that ran between Providence and Newport. Another passenger steamer, General, running between Newport and Wickford (where it made train connections to the main line of the railroad which ran between Boston and New York), also passed close to this end of Conanicut Island, and for many years brought the mail to the Park. Other steamers servicing the Park included the Riverhelle, Day Sta, Bay Queen and City of Newport. The Providence Sunday Journal of August 7, 1887, stated that "The Conanicut Parkers have an important advantage over the Jamestowners' in that the steamboats touching at the Park wharf go to Providence as well as to Newport and Prudence Island and Rocky Point also."
Irving Watson provided a contemporary description of the Park in his 1873 guidebook:
About two hundred lots were taken before the surveys were fully completed and a force of builders is at work putting up cottages. Six or eight miles of streets will soon be completed, and by another season it is expected there will be a large number of residents on the grounds. Many more would now be present were it possible to find accommodations.
In April, 1873, cottage lots went on sale. Deeds stipulated that a cottage of a style approved by the company be built within a year and that adjoining lots be landscaped. There were penalties for non-compliance with provisions of the deed. Within a month, 30 lots were sold and modest frame cottages were going up, among them 947, 1026, and 1031 East Shore Road. The first two of these were built by investors and, though small, were decorated with fancy woodwork. The third cottage was less elaborate; with its simple rectangular shape, end-gable roof, and second-story balcony, barge board and porch, it was clearly inspired by camp-meeting cottages like those at Wesleyan Grove. Worth & Brazier, a contracting firm based on Martha's Vineyard, built at least five Conanicut Park cottages. At least three survive, 883, 887, and 900 East Shore road, all dating from 1873-74. Number 887, the so-called Chapel House, is a characteristic example of the Wesleyan Grove Gothic cottage.
Initially, 1,000 lots were sold at auction. Many were acquired on speculation while a smaller number were purchased by individuals who wished to build summer houses. A creation of the real estate boom of the opening years of the 1870s, Conanicut Park fell victim to the Panic of 1873. When prosperity returned in the late 1870s, Conanicut Park was unable to recover. It was too isolated, too large, and with over 2,000 cottage sites, potentially too heavily developed.
Although a well-planned community, perhaps its failure was as much due to its limited aspirations. Its goals (and houses) were modest in contrast to the housing developments across the bay in Newport and at the southern end of the island, where out-of-staters built larger and more elegant houses, many designed by locally-prominent architects. Samuel Drake, in his 1875 book about the New England coast, described Conanicut Park as a cottage city "accessible to people who do not keep footmen or carriages, or give champagne breakfasts." In a similar vein, the Reverend Frederick Denison's 1880 book found the Park to be a place with varied avenues and drives affording delightful and picturesque views of islands, channels, the ocean, and the hills of the main land...This place", he continued, "is designed for private residence--summer homes--and not for public parades, the flaunts of fashion, and the confusion of excursion parties; it is a charming place for quiet and genteel family residences; the Elysium along the shore.
During the decade of the 1880s, about six more cottages were built. Like their predecessors, these exhibited typical Victorian detailing such as patterned shingles and other forms of decorated exterior siding, towers, and fancy carpenterwork. The finest buildings constructed were the hotel and Charles Fletcher's cottage (which later became a hotel or inn).
In the 1880s the focus of Jamestown resort development shifted to the southern end of the island. Financial difficulties in 1888 brought about the reorganization of the Conanicut Land Company. In 1889 the hotel and other buildings and land owned by the company were offered at public auction and were purchased by Governor Henry Lippitt. Three cottages and a farmhouse were built in the next three years, but bright prospects for the Park appear to have dimmed when Lippitt died in 1891; his heirs were not interested in continuing the Conanicut Park project.
Mariana Tallman, who traveled around Rhode Island in the early 1890s in search of "pleasant places," started her Conanicut Island junket at the Park, which she said, "is emphatically a place of rest." The grounds of the "pleasant and well managed" hotel were cleared to the water's edge, forming a real "park." The hotel itself "perched invitingly among the old trees up the slope, a pretty bit of color with its light gray walls and red turrets, and its pillared veranda green and shady with masses of woodbine". However, she found Charles Fletcher's spacious cottage the most imposing of all. With its round tower, clustering verandas and handsome lawns, it was closed in by a dense hedge of evergreens from the too wild blasts of the east wind. Tallman was also impressed by the "Seaside Cottage." Established in 1878 by the Providence Fountain Street Society, the cottages had an "admirable arrangement by which tired, ill or not over-wealthy city women and children might have a week or two of change and absolute rest," for $3.00 per week. The few quiet cottages here were in "excellent taste."
In the 1890s the Park was almost exclusively serviced by steamboats. Arrangements could be made with the Wickford ferry boat, and one could steam to Providence at night and to Newport in the morning.
Conanicut Park was on the market again in 1900. The heirs of Henry Lippitt then owned about 430 acres that included the wharf, the hotel, four cottages, an ice house, and large farms. The seasonal population at that time was about 300. The Conanicut Park Hotel (whose heyday was in the 1870s and 1880s) was sold at auction in 1899; in 1908 it was razed. In 1909 an approximately 385-acre tract containing 1,579 building lots, a waiting station, two houses, and a steamboat landing, as well as other improvements, was up for auction.
In 1910 the Lippitt heirs sold their holdings. The property remained intact for another 20 years or so, but changed owners several times. The last attempt to deal with the entire tract as a unit was made in 1927 when it was acquired by George C. Wilbur, who hoped to transform it into a stylish seaside country club, but this plan failed. Finally, in 1932 the large tract was divided up and sold at auction.
Today a number of the Park's early and original structures are still standing, including 15 of the 20 earliest houses. Five of the six 1880s cottages are still extant, as are two carriage houses which were converted into residential use. The lighthouse, used as a navigational aid from 1886 to 1933, is also a residence now. A farmhouse and a cottage from the 1890s are still standing.
Gone now are the chapel, hotel, wharf, ferryboat waiting room, ice house, and stables. Camp Seaside, a YWCA camp, closed in 1970. All but one of the camp's old cottages have been replaced and some of the later camp buildings have been remodelled for residential use; the surviving cottage is now a private residence.
Because only a small number of cottages were ever erected, and these went up at odd intervals along East Shore Road and some side roads, they appear more as individual cottages rather than as a unified group. Although a few cottages have been altered from their original appearance, and the important Conanicut Park Hotel was demolished, Charles Fletcher's fine residence still stands, as do many of the cottages. These extant buildings are a legacy of an important era in the history of the state, when Conanicut Park was one of several "steamboat colonies." Despite the fact that Conanicut Park had very limited success and that only some of what was created there survives, it has interest and significance as the first and most self-contained of the resort developments which ultimately transformed Jamestown. Conanicut Park is of interest, further, because the island's oldest summer cottages are to be found there. Finally, the basic layout, or plan, of the Park is still preserved as shown on the town's present plat map. The old features still shown include the elliptical road pattern around Sunnyside Park, which is still shown as a park; the 32-acre section in the southern part of the Park, originally conceived as "Island Park;" and most of the 1873 road pattern.
CORONADO STREET
37 - BUNGALOW (c. 1920): This 1-story, hip-roofed, shingled bungalow at the corner of Cross Street is noteworthy for its carpenterwork porch brackets.
COULTER STREET
**32 - J.D. JOHNSTON HOUSE / DAYBREAK COTTAGE (1911): This very handsome, Japanesque, shingle-clad bungalow, with broad overhanging eaves, and a matching garage, is said to have been designed as a birthday gift for his wife by J.D. Johnston, a Newport architect and builder. Johnston's wife was 90 when she sold the property in 1954 to James F. Hyman. The bungalow occupies a relatively narrow and long lot whose long dimension extends from the end of a dead-end street to the water. Along the south side of the property is a row of maples.
DECATUR AVENUE
25 WOTHERSPOON HOUSE (1897): A 1-1/2-story, shingled. Colonial Revival residence, its gambrel end facing the road fronted by a semicircular, balustrated porch. Although the east elevation has been altered by the addition of a large picture window, a piazza, and dormers, the house is noteworthy historically as part of the small colony here (see Dewey Lane). Mary Wotherspoon, the original owner, was the wife of General W.W. Wotherspoon and the mother of Alexander S., who became a U.S. Navy admiral. After serving in the Navy for two years, Wotherspoon, Senior, entered the army in 1873. He served in the Indian wars, the Philippines, and Cuba before becoming Army Chief of Staff and president of the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks.
DEWEY LANE
2, 8, 14 DEWEY LANE COTTAGES (1897. 1928): Along Dewey Lane, a short, dead end street, and between it and the shore, are three shingled cottages, with fine views across the Bay. The cottages at 2 and 14 Dewey Lane were built in 1897 by Rear Admiral Richard Wainwright. Admiral Wainwright and General Wotherspoon (whose home was at 25 Decatur Avenue) designed their own houses, supervised their construction, and worked with the carpenters. Mrs. Wainwright was General Wotherspoon's sister. Number 8, with three gabled dormers, was built for F.H. Chamberlain in 1928; it was restored in 1988-89. Across the lane is a charming, small shingled guest cottage, and a large, barn-like structure, moved here from Fort Wetherill, where it served as the Administration Building. The short, L-shaped roads-- Decatur Avenue and Dewey Lane--which start off East Shore Road, are appropriately named for U.S. Navy admirals.
DUMPLING DRIVE
15 OW - THE BARNACLE (1886): The Barnacle, as its name implies, perches atop a bay-side rock, the top of which was blasted off to make a level foundation for the structure. It commands a superb view of the bay below. Once an open site, it is now surrounded and largely hidden from view by a dense growth of trees and shrubs and is accessible only by stone-stepped natural paths. The shingled house, designed by C. L. Bevins, features a pyramidal roof of varied pitches, brick chimneys with chimney pots at the apex, twin gables at the water-facing side, and an arcaded porch at the north and east sides. Despite alterations, the cottage, one of two in Jamestown owned by Admiral Thomas O. Selfridge, retains its compact and rather eccentric massing. There is a cluster of wood-shingled auxiliary buildings at the base of the hill, near the road.
34 OW - C.F. FISHER HOUSE (1964): This is a whimsical contemporary dwelling, a series of intersecting, glass-walled pavilions with tentlike roof.
46 OW - WHARTON SHIPYARD (1905 el seq.): This yard, sheltered in a small bay, was established to maintain J.S.L. Wharton's boats, which ran to his house on the rocks. Clingstone, Captain George C. Carr was superintendent of the yard and boat. About 1910, service was expanded to take care of boats belonging to Wharton relatives and friends. At one time, Wharton had as many as twenty boats which he used for transportation and for recreation. After Wharton's death in 1931, the property went to his son Charles, who ran a commercial yard until he died in 1973. The facility continued to be known as the Wharton Shipyard until 1979. In the 1980's the yard underwent extensive renovations. The original building, a wood-shingled, gable-roofed structure set end to the road, was radically remodeled and is now the boatyard office. Two large storage buildings were added, one metal, one shingle-sided.
**67 OW - MARY LOVERING COTTAGE (1890): A 1-1/2-story, shingled cottage sited on a rocky bluff above the water at the Dumplings. The structure has been reduced in size from its original two-and-a-half stories, and has been remodeled several times.
** OW - CLINGSTONE (1902-05): True to its name. Clingstone perches atop an offshore rock. Built not only on a grand site at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, but also on a very grand scale, this overgrown bungalow-chalet rises three-and-one-half stories to intersecting chalet-like gable roofs. The building's structural system is heavy mill-type framing, overdesigned to withstand hurricane force winds. Clingstone is shingled inside as well as out, the ruggedness of the interiors enhanced by massive beachstone fireplaces and burlap covered ceilings. Picture windows offer views in all directions, and, in order to eliminate the need to open the heavy, plate-glass windows, the rooms are provided with ventilating hatches built into the walls.
The story of the genesis of this romantic summer house has two versions. According to one, the house was designed by and for marine artist William Trost Richards to replace the summer house and studio taken by the government for Fort Wetherill in the late 1890s. According to this version of the tale, Richards planned the house (one especially suited to a painter of seascapes) but gave up the project before work began, selling his interest in the site and turning over his plans to J.S. Levering Wharton, whose family summer place was also condemned for Fort Wetherill. Working with J.D. Johnston, Wharton modified Richards's plans. He made the house smaller, added a breakwater, boathouses and repair facilities on Conanicut for his fleet of vessels, and a cottage, also on Conanicut, to house the captain who looked after the Wharton boats and provided water taxi service to and from Clingstone. The other version of the house's origin is that Levering Wharton initiated the project, commissioning Johnston to design the building, and that Wharton got Richards to "front" for him, more or less as a lark, and that Richards agreed, much to the dismay of his family. Whichever is true, the house was built for Lovering Wharton with all the pertinent facilities he required, even to the darkroom in the house for his photography hobby. Clingstone was used into the 1930s. After the 1938 hurricane the house was much damaged, but still sound, and stood abandoned for decades until the present owner bought and renovated what is surely Jamestown's most unique and widely publicized abode.
DUTCH ISLAND
** Dutch Island, a roughly, triangular-shaped, approximately 110-acre island, widest at the north end, lies west of Conanicut Island near the center of the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Although there is no known material evidence of its early (seventeenth and eighteenth century) history, a lighthouse tower and the ruins and remains of nineteenth- and twentieth-century structures-buildings, fortifications, and a wharf-are visible throughout the island.
There are conflicting accounts of the first discovery of Dutch Island. Reportedly Captain Adrian Block, a Dutch merchant, explored the lower bay during an expedition in 1614. According to Sidney Rider, however, Block only saw Block Island on a voyage to and from Europe and New Amsterdam. A second voyage, by Captain Hendricksen, in 1616, found a "certain country, a Bay, and three rivers". The bay, named Sloups Bay, originally referred to all of Narragansett Bay; later Sloups Bay was limited to only the West Passage. In 1636-37, Abraham Pietersen, acting for the Dutch West India Company, purchased the island, then called Quentenis, from the Narragansetts. The Dutch used Quentenis, an outpost for their New Netherland colony, as a trading post between 1636 and 1656, during which time it was of material use to the first Rhode Island settlers by providing them with necessary supplies. The island reverted to Narragansett ownership when the Dutch left. Although it was reportedly fortified, to date there has been no evidence of any settlement or fortification by the Dutch.
The English settlers of Newport initially purchased only the rights to the grass on Dutch Island, and used it for pasturage for sheep. Benedict Arnold and William Coddington acquired the island as part of the purchase of Conanicut in a deed from Cashanaquont, a chief sachem of the Narragansetts. The 1658 purchase agreement from the Indians refers to the island as Acquednessuck and Aquidnesicke; Newport records of 1656 and Jamestown records of 1659 call it Dutch Island.
In 1825, the United States Lighthouse Service acquired a small tract at the southern tip of the island and built a lighthouse there two years later. The island continued in use as a pasturage until 1852, when it was purchased by Powell H. Carpenter, who attempted to establish a fish oil works here. The venture was unsuccessful and in 1863 Carpenter sold the island to the United States government. Major R.R. Hunt of the U.S. Engineers prepared a plan for fortifying the island. In September, 1863, the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, a Black regiment, was moved to Dutch Island from its camp on the Dexter Training Ground in Providence, and Camp Bailey was established. The regiment, comprised of African-American troops from all parts of the Union, went into active training for the front. Two earthworks were constructed, a temporary earthwork at the center of the southeastern part of the island, and the Lower Battery, near the island's southern tip. The temporary earthwork was equipped with seven eight-inch Columbiads (cannon-like guns which could fire either shot or shell), and one 32-pound gun. The southern fortification was a low, octagonal, open barbette battery, but because of its low siting and exposure to high seas that swept across this part of the island, no guns were ever mounted here at what came to be called the "Wash Tub Battery." It is still visible today. Brick-and-granite-lined magazines, including a network of tunnels, were also constructed in the area of the gun emplacements. Between December, 1863, and March, 1864, three batteries of the 14th Regiment went south to fight.
After the Civil War, several new batteries were constructed on Dutch Island. In 1866 a new "middle" barbette battery was proposed to replace a temporary Civil War-era battery; it was completed between 1867 and 1869. The middle battery was a large, high, open earthwork with inner chest-high walls lined with granite blocks. Five 15-inch Rodman guns were mounted. A new battery for the summit of Dutch Island was proposed in 1870, but a new carriage gun design rendered plans for the battery obsolete before it was completed. However, a barracks for government workers was erected in 1872-73. Plans for another new battery ended fruitlessly when all available appropriations were exhausted.
Between 1875 and 1885 the island was relatively uninhabited. The 1875 census listed 13 inhabitants-a civil engineer with his wife, son, and mother; two maids; two laborers; one overseer; one gardener; one boatman; one lightkeeper; and one soldier.
In 1889 the island was garrisoned only by Ordinance Sergeant Benjamin F. Morrell, who, with his family, occupied a cottage atop the island. Other structures-a barn, a mess house, an office and store room, an ice house, a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop, two barracks, and a former officers' quarters-were vacant.
Although the Endicott Board of Coastal Defense recommended a modernization of American coastal fortifications in 1886, it took the Spanish-American War to inspire the rebuilding of Dutch Island into a modern stronghold. Work began in 1898 with the construction of a mine casement, a deep underground cell of winding passages that led to submarine mine chambers far below the West Passage. Three 10-inch disappearing guns were also mounted on the island. During the war the fort was rebuilt into a "modern stronghold" and a battery of heavy mortars installed. In 1898 Dutch Island was named Fort Greble for John T. Greble, the first regular army officer to fall in the Civil War. The work of fortifying the island continued after the Spanish-American War. Four large batteries--Ogden, Hale, Mitchell, and Sedgwick--were completed. Three 10-inch rifles were mounted in Battery Hale, a concrete fortification. Battery Mitchell was equipped with three 6-inch rifles mounted on disappearing carriages. Eight 12-inch mortars were mounted in Battery Sedgwick, located at the northwestern side of the island. Battery Ogden, built over part of the earlier Middle Battery, mounted two three-inch, 15-pound rapid fire guns. In 1902 a 3-story, red brick and concrete fire control station (still standing today) was built north of Battery Mitchell. A mine commander's station was constructed, and searchlights capable of illuminating the bay and underwater minefield were installed between 1907 and 1909. Several other structures, including a tide station, a mine storehouse, a mine loading room, and several cable tanks were also built between 1901 and 1908.
During World War I Fort Greble housed fourteen companies of Rhode Island National Guardsmen who were transferred to the harbor defenses of Narragansett Bay. They were housed in a c. 1900 enlisted mens' barracks built on a hill near the northeastern end of the island. Although damaged by fire in the early 1970s, the surviving arcaded front porch is a picturesque ruin.
By 1916 guns mounted on battleships exceeded the range and accuracy of the shore guns mounted in stationary fortifications, rendering the existing gun emplacements obsolete. Fort Greble's batteries were disarmed between 1917 and 1943. Gradually, the island's fortifications deteriorated. In 1947 the fort was discontinued. In 1958 Dutch Island was declared surplus by the United States government and given to the State of Rhode Island for conservation purposes. When the State created the Bay Island Park system in 1974, Dutch Island was the first property chosen.
* DI - DUTCH ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE (1857): Dutch Island Lighthouse, at the southern end of the island, is a solitary, white, 13-foot square tower, with 15-inch thick brick walls containing windows with masonry lintels and sills. At the top is a six-foot wide lantern, which is at a height of 56 feet above sea level.
The first lighthouse here was erected in 1827, along with a keeper's house. The slate and stone structure was replaced in 1857 by the present tower. In 1867 the tower was re-roofed with a cast iron deck plate with a wrought iron railing. A fog bell was installed in 1885. The light was made automatic in 1931. Following the transfer of the island from the U.S. government to the State of Rhode Island in the late 1950s, all buildings on the site (except for the light tower) were demolished. The light was superseded by a lighted gong buoy in 1979.
EAST FERRY LANDING
STEAM FERRY WHARF: The steam ferry wharf, a paved thoroughfare and parking area with buildings on the south side, dates back to the arrival of the first steam ferry in 1873. The original buildings have been replaced. Presently there is a one-story commercial block, built in 1922, and the 1928 passenger waiting room, recently converted for use as a marina office and store. The former ferry docking area is used by a modern marina whose 600 feet of fixed pier and 40 floating slips incorporate a few of the pilings from the ferry slips. A six-foot high granite monument depicting Roger Williams and Conanicus in relief has stood in the area since 1942.
Several ferry landings existed along the east side of Conanicut, in the vicinity of Narragansett Avenue, from the earliest days of settlement until 1969, when the Newport Bridge was completed. The associated ferry boats, at first driven by wind, then powered by steam, carried passengers, goods, vehicles, animals, and a host of other things between Jamestown and Newport for about three centuries.
Reportedly a ferry service was here as early as 1665. A charter may have been granted as early as 1695 to colonial governor Caleb Carr. The first license on record was granted to Caleb's son John in 1700. The East Ferry linked Jamestown with Newport while the West Ferry plied between Conanicut and South Ferry, then part of South Kingstown. Narragansett Avenue connected the two landings. This route was the most direct line of travel to and from New York City and points west, and southeastern New England. Among others, George Washington used the Jamestown ferries in March, 1781, when he visited Newport to confer with Rochambeau about plans for the southern campaign. Several buildings were located near the eastern ferry landing. By the mid-nineteenth century this area had grown into a small village known as East Ferry. After a steam ferry started running in 1873 the village grew rapidly. The West Ferry was discontinued in 1940 after completion of the Jamestown Bridge. The ferry to Newport continued running until it was put out of service by the opening of the Newport Bridge in 1969.
EAST SHORE ROAD
*63 WH - CARR-WANTON-DUTRA FARM (17th century, et seq.): This farm, along East Shore Road and Weeden Lane, is centered on a farm complex set back from the road. The major structures are a late nineteenth-century, 2-story, shingled farmhouse; a nineteenth-century, 2-story, shingled barn, a c. 1900 barn, another large 2-story outbuilding, a machine shed, and a twentieth-century garage. The farmland, originally 113 acres, rises gradually from its eastern boundary (which was once East Shore Road), the newly-constructed Route 138. The recent highway route took about 14 acres of land. Stone walls mark the Weeden Lane boundary and fields. A new entrance has been created on the north side of Weeden Lane.
This tract of land was part of Governor Caleb Carr's original purchase, part of his extensive Conanicut and Aquidneck Island landholdings. He reportedly built a house here before 1673. In 1693 the property went to his son, Nicholas, and later was purchased by Joseph Wanton, Jr., who was sympathetic to the British during the Revolution. Wanton's property was confiscated during the war and sold after the war. Part of the confiscated estate went to the town and became the site of the windmill. The property was known locally as the Wanton Farm as late as 1912.
Post-Revolutionary War owners included Job Watson, his son Daniel, George Washington Carr and John F. Carr. The last-named built the present farm house in 1888. In 1909 the older house was destroyed by fire. In 1934 the farm was purchased by the grandfather of the present owner, Joseph F. Dutra, Jr. The latter doubled the capacity of the cow barn in 1974 and in 1978 erected a new 40-by-80 machinery barn. Today the tract is one of only a few working farms on the island. It is important to the historical agricultural ambiance of the Windmill Hill Historic District and is an important link to the island's agricultural heritage.
147 - LEWIS HULL FARM (early 20th century): The Lewis Hull farm comprises a 1-1/2-story, shingled farmhouse, set gable end to the road, and a large, shingled barn. The house was designed and built by Lewis Hull about 1923. There are fields behind the buildings.
256 - CARR-HOWLAND FARM (1923): A 2-1/2-story, shingled residence and several detached outbuildings comprise this former farm. It was originally the southern half of John Carr's eighteenth-century farm. John Carr's house is long gone. The present residence, built in 1875, was owned for 70 years by Isaac Howland and his descendants. George Howland, who lived here in 1895, raised poultry (Rhode Island Reds, Barred Plymouth Rocks, and White Wyandottes) and thoroughbred Guernsey cattle. For most of the twentieth century the place has been known as the Howland Farm.
292 -BROWN-PECKHAM-CARR FARM (c. 1861): This property is the northern half of the eighteenth-century John Carr Farm. The south-facing farmhouse, sited near the water at the end of a stone-wall-lined driveway, is a 2-1/2-story, shingled structure with a small, brick chimney toward the rear; a central weather entry, with Greek Revival detailing, in a five-bay facade; recessed corner posts: and an addition at the rear. There are two later shingled outbuildings on the property, which offers a commanding view of Gould Island and the East Passage.
Samuel Brown built this house about 1861, then sold it to Phillip Peckham in 1866. Peckham, in turn, sold it in 1882 to Thomas G. and Clarence C. B. Carr; it remained in the Carr family until the middle of the twentieth century. Thomas G. Carr (1843-1927), born at the Carr homestead, grew cotton in South Carolina in the 1870s; he returned to Jamestown with his brother Clarence and raised sheep.
**340 - FOWLERS ROCKS (1892): Built for Mr. & Mrs. Theophilus Stork, this isolated summer place gets its name from a clump of offshore rocks in the bay. The house is a 2-1/2-story, shingle-clad pile with gable roofs, two hip-roofed dormers, tall brick chimneys, and a pair of circular comer towers. Despite substantial alterations, the basic form of the dwelling is intact. Fowlers Rocks is set back from the road on a private drive. In 1988 a hip-roofed pavilion was added at the north end of the house; it replaced an earlier structure. There is a fine view of the bay to the east over a large expanse of lawn. A 1-1/2-story bungalow at 359 East Shore Road (see following entry) was used as the caretaker's cottage for Fowlers Rocks.
359 - CARETAKER'S COTTAGE (c. 1920): This fine, shingled bungalow has a long shed-roof dormer across the front; a piazza across the front formed by the roof overhang; and a central entry with sidelights, in a five-bay facade. The cottage was built for the caretaker of Fowlers Rocks at 340 East Shore Road (see preceding entry).
409 - ROBERT HENDERSON HOUSE (1930-31): A 1-1/2-story residence with a massive, dominating, central pedimented portico, with double columns, and a sidelighted entry in a 3-bay facade. This residence is the Crescent model of a house sold by the Sears, Roebuck Company through a catalog. Sears, Roebuck provided materials and detailed building instructions for their catalog houses, which were available for several decades in the early twentieth century.
**850 CP - CAJACET / CAPTAIN THOMAS PAINE HOUSE (1690s et seq.): A large, 2-1/2-story, shingled house with a second story overhang; a large, brick, center chimney; a central, simply-framed entry, in a five-bay facade; and several additions. The house, which occupies a 9.5-acre lot along the eastern shore of Conanicut, was built by Captain Thomas Paine, who played the dual role of privateer and pirate. Paine purchased 160 acres of land here in 1690 from Caleb and William Arnold, probably with money from the rich rewards of his sea exploits. In 1690 Paine briefly came out of retirement to defend Newport from marauding French pirates. Newport's fleet of two vessels, commanded by Paine, soundly defeated the five French vessels. The first of many changes to the house were made during the eighteenth century. A room was added at the north end, part of the south end was removed and replaced, and a lean-to addition was made along the west wall.
After the Paine family sold the farm in 1781 it had several different owners, including the Hopkins and Watsons. In 1882 Seth M. Vose, a Providence and Boston art dealer, acquired the estate for a summer house and named it Cajacet. Vose made major changes to the exterior, raising the height of the house, and adding dormers. In 1915 the roof of the wing was extended and a small ell constructed. The house was occupied by the Vose family as a summer residence for about 60 years. In 1949 Mr. & Mrs. Lucius Collins of Wilmington, Delaware, purchased the property. They engaged the services of architect John Hutchins Cady and restored the house to a semblance of its late eighteenth-century appearance. The property then included a superintendent's bungalow, two barns, and a garage.
Noted for its beautiful gardens when owned by John Jay Watson in the mid-nineteenth century, the place has been handsomely landscaped by subsequent owners. Copper beeches, fern-leafed beeches, and other ornamental trees adorn the grounds. In a small family burial plot northwest of the house are the eighteenth-century graves of Captain Paine and his nephew John.
**833 CP - JOHN BRAZIER COTTAGE (1874): A 2-1/2-story, tall and narrow tri-gabled house with wide bracketed eaves or extended roof rafters, and tall narrow windows. The original wrap-around porch has been removed. John Brazier of Worth & Brazier, the original owner, was a contractor and real estate developer. With his partner he built several cottages in Conanicut Park. The residence, in the Cranston family from 1880 to 1926, has since had other owners.
**887 CP - CHAPEL HOUSE (1874): A 1-1/2-story, L-plan, modest Gothic Revival cottage featuring pointed arch (lancet windows), a central entry with drip molding, in a three-bay facade, and a flat roofed wrap-around piazza supported by plain, square posts. It is one of the original Conanicut Park cottages built by Charles Worth of Worth & Brazier. Its unique Gothic form reflects the fact that Charles Worth's base of operations was at Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard; this is very much like an Oak Bluffs cottage there.
This house was never used as a chapel. Its name was given by the Misses Mitchell, who rented it for several years around 1920, because of the long, narrow shape and the treatment of its windows.
**900 CP - WORTH-BAKER-BLAKE-BEEDE COTTAGE (c. 1874): A 1-1/2- story, cross-gabled cottage with a piazza in the front and a smaller piazza at one corner, both flat roofed, and a 2-story bay window. The extended roof rafters are the only decorative detail. The residence is set back from the road on a private roadway, occupying a slight rise facing the Bay. It was built by Charles Worth between October 1873 and April 1874, then went to the Conanicut Land Company, to Baker and later to Blake. Sarah Blake used it as a summer home during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was in the Hebert Beede family for about forty years after 1906.
**921 CP - GEORGE TABER COTTAGE (1874, 1982): A 1-1/2-story, cross-gabled, quasi-Gothic cottage with a flat-roofed wrap-around porch, a central entry in a three-bay facade, bargeboards at the steeply-pitched gables, and a small ell at the rear. A two-bay garage with barge boards, set gable end to the road, is connected to the house. George Taber, who built the residence in 1874, sold it in 1882 to Ralph Hamilton. It remained in the Hamilton family until 1921. In 1982 the house was restored and an addition made. A balustrade was built at the second-story level around the front and sides of the house and the garage added.
**937 CP - ELEANOR H. FARR COTTAGE (1905): An unusual and very plain 1-1/2-story, gabled cottage with a wrap-around, hip-roofed piazza and a large, square, hip-roofed corner tower that butts into a gable roof. The property was owned by the Farr family until 1948.
**947 CP - JOHN B. KILTON COTTAGE (1873): A 1-1/2-story, cross-gabled cottage with carpenterwork details at the gables and several small carpenterwork dormers that break the cornice line. The structure has lost some of its original architectural integrity by replacement of the original porch, destroyed by fire in 1904, by re-siding with aluminum, and by replacement of the front doorway with a window. John Kilton was a Providence merchant and an investor in the Conanicut Park project. Although somewhat altered from its original appearance, the residence is noteworthy as the oldest extant cottage, and one of the most elaborately finished, at Conanicut Park. It was also used as a developer's model cottage designed not only to sell, but also to interest others in buying and building.
**1026 CP - JENNIE LIPPITT HOUSE / STONEWALL COTTAGE (1873): An L-plan, 1-1/2-story cottage, with a 2-1/2-story square tower with mansard roof; small, gabled, bracketed dormers that break the cornice line; and a 1-story, flat-roofed, wrap-around piazza. The four gabled dormers on the tower match the house dormers. The cottage, sited below the road on a nicely landscaped lot, was built by Jennie Lippitt of the textile manufacturing family from Providence that helped provide the financial backing that made Conanicut Park possible.
**1031 CP - DAVID M. HOYT COTTAGE (1873): A small, 1-1/2-story cottage, set gable end to the road, with narrow window openings, decorative bargeboards and a wrap-around bracketed piazza. The major second floor room opens out onto a balcony at the porch level. David Hoyt was principal of Classical High School in Providence.
**1035 CP - SUSAN GRAVES COTTAGE (1875): A 1-1/2-story residence with a vergeboard in the road-facing gable end; a shed-roofed wrap-around porch, with carpenterwork brackets; a central entry in a three-bay facade; and an addition at the rear. Despite some alterations from its original appearance, this cottage, built by the Reverend and Mrs. H. C. Graves, is nearly identical to the slightly earlier adjacent Hoyt Cottage (1031 East Shore Road).
**1053 CP - DEXTER-ARNOLD COTTAGE (1876): This 2-story, cross-gabled residence with wrap-around porch, still has some of its original Victorian detail preserved, particularly on the gables. It was built by Samuel Dexter on Prospect Avenue, on the Heights, and was one of two cottages moved to sites nearer the steamboat landing in 1882. Dexter sold to the Conanicut Land Company, who sold it to Minnie S. Arnold. In 1915, when the Whittlesey Family owned the cottage, it was called The Shanty.
**1076 CP - CHARLES FLETCHER COTTAGE / POINT VIEW HOTEL / JAMESTOWN INN (1885): A large 2-1/2 story, clapboard-and shingle-sided-structure with a variety of roof lines and shapes; multiple tall brick chimney stacks; a wrap-around piazza; and bulging, semi-octagonal bays, one carried up in a tower. Built by Charles Fletcher, a prominent Providence textile manufacturer, it was far and away the most elaborate residence in the Park. According to the Providence Journal of August 7, 1887, "The very handsome cottage...attracts attention from the steamboats that ply up and down the blue Narragansett, and with its stable, pavilion, perfect lawn, shore frontage, bathing house and pier is one of the most complete summer residences on the island." Mariana Tallman's book described "Charles Fletcher's spacious cottage" as the "most imposing of all, with its round tower, clustering verandas and handsome lawns, closed in by a dense hedge of evergreens." In 1915 the place was sold to Andrew and Nellie Erickson, who ran it as the Point View Hotel and restaurant. Nellie ran it until her death at age 93, then it was operated until 1968 by her son Theodore. After it was sold, it continued in use as a summer hotel until 1972. About 1990 it was enlarged and converted into condominiums.
The adjacent 1-1/2-story, clapboard-sided residence (at 1070 East Shore Road) was originally the carriage house for Charles Fletcher's summer house. In 1915 it was converted into a cottage for year-round use by the Ericksons, and in 1970 was sold separately from the hotel property. In the late 1980s it underwent extensive renovations.
**1093 CP - LILLA STEVENS COTTAGE / ROSSMERE (1891): A late addition to Conanicut Park, this cottage is a large, 2-1/2-story, cross-gabled, clapboard and shingle-clad residence with a 1-story, hip-roofed, wrap-around porch with spindlework, a gable overhang, and a small alcove above the first floor at the left rear. The ample and neat grounds include a small, 1-story, hip-roofed outbuilding with an exterior brick chimney and a fine garage-shed. In 1899 the property was sold to Lottie A. Ross.
**1095 CP - MARY JERNEGAN COTTAGE (1887): A typical Conanicut Park cottage, this 1-1/2-story residence has a large gabled dormer at each side, a hip-roofed wrap-around piazza (which was recently altered), and a large, rectangular brick chimney. The house is set back from the road on a large, grassy lot. It was owned by Dr. Holmes and Mary E. Jernegan, who built it, until 1892.
ELDRED AVENUE / ROUTE 138 WEST
CEDAR CEMETERY / HISTORICAL CEMETERY NO. 5: The relatively large Cedar Cemetery, set behind stone walls along Eldred Avenue, and adjacent to the Old Friends Burial Ground, was established in 1861. It contains numerous gravestones of island residents, including early grave markers of the Arnold family (dated 1697, 1716, and 1732) moved here from Taylor Point in the late nineteenth century.
WH - OLD FRIENDS BURIAL GROUND, HISTORICAL CEMETERY NO. 6: This burying ground, slightly less than an acre in size, bounded by dry-laid stone walls and screened by cedar trees, contains some of the oldest of Jamestown's graves. Gravestones here date from the early eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. The earliest stones are uninscribed and probably date before 1710. The rest are simple, neatly-carved, and well-preserved examples of funerary art. Along Eldred Avenue is a wrought iron entry gate erected at the end of the nineteenth century by Mrs. Isaac Howland who raised the money to repair the walls, build steps to approach it, and erect the iron gates with the marker "Friends Cemetery."
The first Friends Meeting House was erected about 1710 on the grounds of the Friends Cemetery. Ferrys at each end of Eldred Avenue connected the Windmill Hill area farms with Newport to the east and the mainland towns to the west. The meeting house was moved to the new location on North Main Road in 1734. The Friends Cemetery is now under the care of Cedar Cemetery Corporation.
EMERSON ROAD
**16 SH - JEREMIAH H. TEFFT COTTAGE (1911-12): A 2-1/2-story, shingled, cross-gabled cottage, with a hip-roof, a roof overhang and a porch across the front and part of the right side. It is the most recent of the cottages along the common.
**24 SH - EPHRON CATLIN COTTAGE (1898-99): This is an ample, shingle-clad, 2-1/2-story, cross gabled, slightly asymmetrical Colonial Revival dwelling with Palladian windows at the front and right side, and a cross-octagonal gable. It may be the work of Creighton Withers, who designed several early Shoreby Hill summer houses. A recent renovation replaced the original porch with a lower-pitched, shed-roofed porch with a broad second-story platform. The original owner was one of the group of St. Louis men who pioneered this shorefront summer colony. This house remained in the Catlin Family until 1953.
**34 SH - EMILY C. W1CKHAM HOUSE (1898-99): A big, handsome, early Shoreby Hill summer place, the shingle-clad, 2-1/2-story Wickham House has a gambrel roof which cascades down and out over the front porch, supported by single and double classical columns. On the east side the porch is formed by the gambrel roof side, but on the west side it projects from the body of the house.
**40 SH - MARION L. DAVIS HOUSE (1898-99): The Davis House is another of Shoreby Hill's distinctive big summer houses, girdled by a deep porch. This design has a flank gable with a central cross gable. The eaves, accented by jack rafters, are carried across the gables as pents. Like the, House (5 Alden Road), here the porch is a series of broad, arched openings. A second story sleeping porch on the east side follows the same motif. Attributed to Creighton Withers, this residence is akin to his contemporaneous Red House.
**41 SH - EDWARD MALLINCKRODT HOUSE (1898-99): This fieldstone and shingle, gambrel-roofed. Colonial Revival cottage is one of the most ambitious and attractive of the Shoreby Hill summer houses erected by the initial St. Louis cottagers. The gambrel is carried down and extends out over the porch, which nearly encircles the building. On both front and rear elevations several of the dormers are linked by shed-roofed hyphens sporting big, showy, oval windows with patterned glazing. Other windows have round or segmental heads and also boast elaborate glazing patterns.
**46 SH - CAROLINE BRYANT HOUSE (1912-13): The design of this gambrel-roofed, shingle-clad. Colonial Revival summer house is attributed to its first owner. Despite its date the house is very like a number of Shoreby Hill's earliest cottages, with fancy dormers and the roof kicked out over a broad, enveloping porch. There is a wing at the rear.
FAIRVIEW STREET
**10 CP - JAMES A. YOUNG CARRIAGE HOUSE (1885): A 1-1/2-story, cross-gabled residence with shingle and clapboard sides and a 1-story, flat-roofed, wraparound piazza. This structure was built as a barn for a nearby house which was probably erected in 1881, and which may have gone out of existence by 1900. Another house stood on the property in the 1920s and 1930s. It was badly damaged in the 1938 hurricane and subsequently torn down.
**14 CP - SAMUEL IRONS HOUSE / HENDRY'S RETREAT (c. 1876): A typical 1-1/2-story, cross-gabled Conanicut Park residence distinguished by fine carpenterwork detailing in the cornice-piercing dormers and in the gable ends. Other features include bay windows, finials, and a central, double-door entry in a 1-story, flat roofed, wraparound porch. At the rear of the small, privet-bordered lot, is a small garage.
The house was built in 1875-76 by Samuel Irons on the heights, and moved to its site here nearer the steamboat landing in 1881. It remained in the Irons family until 1922; since then it has been owned by Irene Husted and her daughter, Eleanor, who married James Hendry. Eleanor and James called it Hendry's Retreat in the mid-twentieth century. In 1969 the interior was renovated for year-round use.
**20 CP - DAVIS COTTAGE (c. 1881): This 1-1/2-story summer cottage, located at the corner of East Shore Road, has a 1-story, hip-roofed piazza across the front. It has been somewhat altered from its original appearance through window changes, expansion of the kitchen area in the rear, and by residing with aluminum. The original owner was Lucius D. Davis, who conceived the idea of Conanicut Park.
FORT GETTY ROAD
SITE OF FORT GETTY: Today very little remains of Fort Getty, a concrete fortification constructed in 1901 on the peninsula known as Fox Hill, along the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Throughout most of its history the peninsula was used only for farming. In 1900 the War Department purchased a 31-acre tract here and in the following year erected fortifications. The place was named Fort Getty in honor of Brevet Major General George W. Getty who had a long army career. The first garrison was established in 1909. During World War I, Fort Getty was temporarily occupied as an outpost of nearby Fort Greble, then reverted to caretaker status. During World War II, Fort Getty was again used for military purposes. In 1940, a coast artillery unit was quartered in newly-constructed barracks; a searchlight unit was also based on the peninsula. A number of guns were installed during the course of the war, including three-inch, six-inch, and twelve-inch disappearing rifles. During the last years of the war, an Army School Center was established at Fort Getty for the indoctrination of German prisoners-of-war in the principles of democratic government. Groups of German POWs passed through the school every 60 days. The last class was graduated in December, 1945. In all, 1,166 German prisoners completed the schools at Fort Getty and Fort Wetherill. Fort Getty was declared excess property by the United States Government in the 1970s and turned over to the State of Rhode Island. The concrete fortifications were largely demolished at that time. Most of the peninsula is now a campground used by recreational vehicles.
**881 FH - JONATHAN LAW FARMHOUSE (mid-18th century): Along the south side of Fort Getty Road is a shingled residence with a large, off-center brick chimney and a 1-story ell on the east side. Nearby is a large, wood-shingled barn; another shingled outbuilding is located near the road. Governor Arnold's grandson Benedict left the farm to his nephew Jonathan Law in 1733. It was later the property and residence of Hazard Knowles, then was owned by several other families. Benedict Arnold is buried on a small plot on the farm, as are a number of his siblings, his father, Josiah Arnold, and Josiah's two wives.
**994 FH - FOX HILL FARM (mid-18th century): Located north of the road, this farm is centered on a gambrel-roofed farmhouse. A wing was added at the west (left) end in the mid-twentieth century. Northwest of the house is a large, old, wood-shingled barn with an attached open shed. This farmland, bounded and divided by stone walls, slopes down to the waters of the bay. Along with Windmill Hill, this rural landscape is the finest on the island.
Benedict Arnold, grandson of Governor Arnold, left this property with a house to his nephew, Benedict Robinson, in 1733. The present house may incorporate part of the building mentioned in Arnold's will.
Fox Hill Farm was the residence of Sydney and Catharine Morris (Kit) Wright (1889-1988). Mrs. Wright was a philanthropist, author (in prose and verse), and artist, and the granddaughter of Joseph Wharton of Philadelphia (who built Horsehead).
FORT WETHERILL ROAD
** FORT WETHERILL: The southern part of the main section of Conanicut Island is a hilly, upland area, its ocean-facing coast an irregular and spectacularly rugged, and rocky shoreline with 80-to-100-foot high cliffs. This coastal area, between Mackerel Cove and the East Passage of Narragansett Bay, remained farmland for centuries until large and elegant summer homes were erected here during the late nineteenth century. Several of those that were sited directly along the ocean were destroyed to make room for a fortification, Fort Wetherill, in the early twentieth century. After World War II, the military post was vacated and subsequently became a state park. Concrete fortifications remain in place to provide visitors with a fine view of southern Rhode Island's rugged coastal scenery, and the ocean to the south. In addition to the massive concrete structures used as gun emplacements, several other military buildings, used in connection with a submarine cable, still stand at Fort Cove, and nearby, on a peninsula, and now buried under the concrete work of a Fort Wetherill fortification, is the site of Fort Dumpling.
The area today is comprised of three interrelated but separate and distinct features: 1) the old Fort Dumpling site, 2) Fort Wetherill, mostly concrete gun emplacements, and 3) the submarine mine and cable storage and placement facility, comprised of four stuccoed buildings and a quay at Fort Cove. See entries directly below.
* Site of Fort Dumpling: This part of Conanicut, commanding the narrowest part of the East Passage of Narragansett Bay, had been recognized as a strategic defense position as early as 1524 by Italian explorer Giovanni de Verrazano, but it was not until two and a half centuries later, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, that the site was fortified. Both British military officers and Colonial official Robert Melville saw its potential geographic advantage. Apparently the colonists were the first to construct fortifications on the promontory, one of seven or eight sites along Narragansett Bay chosen as defense positions during the war. During 1775-76 the Dumpling battery was a small post with heavy armament of eight 18- pound guns. Upon the British occupation of Newport, British forces overran and controlled Conanicut; a detachment was posted at Fort Dumpling. In 1779, when the British left Rhode Island, they destroyed the battery.
In 1798-1800, during a period of strained maritime relations with France, a fort was constructed here by Major Louis Toussard. Known for a time as Fort Louis, it was constructed as a massive elliptical stonework tower, its dimensions measuring 180-by-81 feet on the ground. It was to mount eight heavy guns on the seaward side, half in casements and half in barbettes. According to some historians, the fort was actually armed with the gun battery and manned for harbor defense during the War of 1812 and the Civil War, but the Newport Journal of December 3, 1898, quotes G.W. Cullen, who said that the fort was never fortified, armed, or garrisoned. As early as 1802, the effect of the tower was considered insufficient to accomplish the purpose of defending the mile-wide channel here. An 1820 report by the Board of Engineers considered the Dumpling work worthless. A large and costly fort was proposed but never realized. Fort Dumpling was still standing in 1870 when the U.S. Corps of Engineers sought an appropriation for its renovation, either by encasing it in an iron plate or by surrounding it with an earth face. The plan never materialized. Throughout the nineteenth century the tower stood as a spectacular and romantic landmark, depicted graphically in almost every published account of this part of the Bay.
The fort was badly deteriorated, but still standing near the end of the century. It was identified on an 1895 map as "Fort Brown or Fort Dumpling," but soon after its end came following yet another war and national crisis, this one the result of the destruction of the United States battleship Maine in February, 1898. By then the old, crumbling fort was considered a nuisance. It was destroyed on November 26, 1898, and on or near its immediate site a new fortification was erected.
** Fort Wetherill: In addition to the Fort Dumpling site, the United States Government condemned more than 61 acres of land between 1898 and 1902, including part of the Ocean Highlands tract and the summer home of William Trost Richards, and other fine, large, summer homes along the coast. The new fort, named for Captain Alexander M. Wetherill who was killed at San Juan Hill, Cuba, in 1898, was started by 1902; it was enlarged between 1904 and 1907. Major George W. Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal, oversaw the construction. The ample quay and sheltered harbor of Fort Cove were used to unload supplies for the construction of the fort.
** Submarine Mine & Cable Facility: Three buildings, used to store and soak submarine cables, submarine mines, and other military equipment, were constructed at the cove, a 1-story and a 2-story building in 1908 and a 1-story structure in 1911. The 1908 buildings have concrete foundations, composite columns, and beams of concrete-encased, helical reinforcing rods. They both have interior trolley cranes supported by steel beams which span concrete columns. The central building contains concrete bins, about six feet deep, which were used for immersion of submarine cables. The building at the west end of this group, erected in 1911, has walls that were constructed by erecting wooden columns and ties for a framework, over which were placed metal mesh and a concrete veneer. This structure also has a concrete foundation and a trolley crane.
In 1916 several 12-inch disappearing guns were installed. After World War, I Fort Wetherill was placed in a caretaker status. World War II re-started military activity here. In 1940 a submarine mine storehouse, a long, 1-story structure, was added to the facility at Fort Cove, which was the base for the army's mine-planting ship, the General Absalom Baird, and new barracks and troop facilities were constructed for part of a coast artillery unit from Fort Adams that came here to activate and begin training on the batteries. Guns installed during the war included two 3-inch barbettes, 12-inch disappearing rifles, 12-inch barbettes, two 6-inch shielded rapid-fire rifles, and 3-inch fixed anti-aircraft guns above Sand Beach and West Coves.
After World War II, Fort Wetherill was again deactivated. In the 1970s it was declared excess property by the government. Most of the land, including concrete fortifications, became a state park. The easternmost part of the former fort, the submarine storage facilities at Fort Cove, including four stuccoed buildings dating from both world wars, is now used by the Jamestown Highway Department.
**133 OW - HARRY POTTER HOUSE (1890): This interesting Colonial Revival residence features a towering gambrel-roofed block with hooded dormers, a sweeping porch on the water side, and a square, hip-roofed tower over the porch. Built as a summer residence, the Harry Potter House overlooks Fort Wetherill and the approaches to the Bay.
FOX HILL HISTORIC DISTRICT
** This area, at the northwestern part of Beaver Head, is comprised of two large, 2-1/2-story, eighteenth-century farmhouses, outbuildings, and open farmland. The properties, separated from each other by Fort Getty Road (nos. 881 and 994), are the last surviving farms on what was originally Governor Benedict Arnold's 1,000 acre farm.
FRIENDSHIP STREET
11 - MEADOWSIDE (1887-88): Meadowside, a 1-1/2-story structure represents Jamestown's Shingle Style to perfection, a compact mass bulging with thrust-out porches and bays. The idiom is most closely associated with C. L. Bevins, to whom this fine house has been attributed. Built on a relatively steep hill above Conanicus Avenue and the bay, its east-facing facade takes advantage of the elevation with open and closed porches and a deck above one of the porches. The east side also contains gable and hip-roofed dormers. The house was built for Elizabeth Logan, daughter of Admiral David Porter and wife of Lieutenant L. C. Logan. In 1917 Logan was a rear admiral with a winter residence in Washington, D.C.
GOULD ISLAND
One of Narragansett Bay's smaller islands, Gould Island lies off Conanicut's eastern shore in the East Passage. The approximately 52-acre tract, which attains an elevation of 60 feet, contains several buildings erected in connection with a U.S. Navy torpedo testing facility that first came to the island about 1918. The island was known variously as Aguspemokick, or Aguepinoquk, by its original Indian owners, when purchased from the Narragansett sachem Koshtotop by Thomas Gould in 1657. In 1660 Aquinaumpau, who had been a planter on the island for three or four years, gave up his rights to the land. The island was sold to Dr. John Cranston in 1673, then to Caleb and Nicholas Carr. Both left shares to their sons; thereafter, the island was owned by a number of people. A dwelling house is mentioned in deeds as early as 1858. A later Victorian house may have been built by F.E. Homans in 1880. In 1889 the lighthouse, a white tower with a light 47 feet above the water and a visibility of 12 miles, was built at the eastern side of the island. The lighthouse operated until 1847; it was razed in 1960.
Before World War I, a summer house was built on the island. During the war, torpedoes were fired from a barge anchored off the northern end of the island. The United States government took the island over by proclamation in 1918 for testing and repairing torpedoes, as a storage facility for high explosives, as part of the Newport torpedo station, and as a test facility for Navy aircraft. In 1920 the government acquired control of the rest of Gould Island. Subsequently, several buildings were erected for torpedo and warhead storage and to house a detachment of marines. In 1921 two seaplanes were assigned to Gould Island to experiment with air-dropped torpedoes, and two hangers and a concrete ramp were constructed at the southern end of the island. The seaplane facility was later used as a base for anti-submarine warfare.
During World War II, more buildings were erected on Gould Island. In 1941 a degaussing station was established for demagnetizing and thus neutralizing ships to prevent their attracting or detonating magnetic mines or torpedoes. In 1942 a torpedo facility was built, including a torpedo shop, a power plant, and a range operations center, to direct the proof-firing of torpedoes manufactured at the Goat Island Naval Torpedo Station. The Gould Island facility was capable of proof-firing 100 torpedoes a day.
Seventeen acres on Gould Island were acquired by the State of Rhode Island in 1975; in 1983 20 more acres were declared surplus by the Navy. Today, a large brick building still stands at the northern end of the island and is mostly unused, except for occasional torpedo testing. All other buildings are vacant. The island is now more important as a rookery. It supports unusual colonies of glossy ibis, great egrets, common terns, black-crowned night herons, herring gulls, and black-backed gulls.
GREEN LANE
5 - TAYLOR REAL ESTATE OFFICE (1897): This dwelling, with a high hip roof accented by big, showy, gabled dormers with extended eaves, designed by Creighton Withers, was originally located on Narragansett Avenue. Once the Jamestown office of A. O'D. Taylor, a major Newport realtor, it was used as a tea room in 1914 and later housed a beauty parlor. By 1921 it had been moved to its present site. The house occupies a small lot in the village commercial district.
16 - HEDGEROW (1888): An interesting and unusual, attenuated, 3-story, shingled house with white trim. It features tall, narrow, 6-paned windows, a central double door entry, a gabled peak in the front, a front porch, and patterned shingles at the sides. A low hedge across the short lot probably accounts for the structure's name. The town clerk's office was housed here in 1889.
56 - WILLIAM S. ALLISON COTTAGE (1895): A good, characteristic Jamestown example of the shingled, late nineteenth-century summer cottage. This 1-1/2-story, gable- and gambrel-roofed house has a piazza along the right side formed by the second-story overhang, and a lantern-like circular tower. It is set back from the road on a large lot, screened from view by a tall privet hedge. Like so many other Jamestown summer residents, the Allisons, its original owners, were from Philadelphia.
GRINNELL STREET
39-60 - BUNGALOWS (c. 1910-1920): Grinnell Street, immediately west of the Shoreby Hill development, has one of the best collections of bungalows in Jamestown. Here are fine examples of Jamestown's typical modest, shingled, early twentieth-century bungalows. Numbers 39, 43, 52, 55, and 60 have particular architectural appeal.
HAMILTON AVENUE
**83 - LYMAN-COTTRELL FARMHOUSE / ROCK HILL FARM (late 18th century): A typical early Rhode Island farmhouse, this 2-1/2-story structure has a large, stuccoed, brick chimney; a central, enclosed weather entry in a 5-bay, south-facing facade; and a small ell at the north side. The house is at the end of the private drive, one-quarter mile from the road. Fields are close to the house. In front is a dry-laid stone wall right-of-way, part of "Stanton Road" (a paper street).
The house, originally the focus of a large farm, was built anew or enlarged from an existing house by Major Daniel Lyman of Newport. Although the Lymans only lived here for about a year, the farm, operated by tenant farmers, continued under Lyman ownership until 1844, when the house and a 200-acre tract were purchased by John Stanton Cottrell, whose family came here from South Kingstown and acquired extensive landholdings in the southern part of Conanicut, including land on Beaver Neck. John's father also owned and operated West Ferry. John was an active farmer, but his son Frederick took little interest in farming. Instead, he became one of the initial land developers on the island following the inauguration of steam ferry service between East Ferry and Newport. Frederick was instrumental in organizing the Jamestown and Newport Ferry Company, was part owner of the Ferry Meadow Company, and was president of the Ocean Highlands Company. He lived on the farm until his death in 1884. In that year, Walcott Avenue was laid out across the farm. Admiral Thomas O. Selfridge purchased the southeast corner of the farm and built his shore cottage there in 1886. In 1887 the farm was platted for development, and other fine large houses were subsequently erected. Today, the old farmhouse is surrounded by 32 acres of open land.
HARBOR STREET
11 - THE MOVABLE CHAPEL (1898-99, 1933): A 1-1/2-story, cross-gabled residence, with several triangular stained glass windows; a small brick exterior chimney; a 1-story bay window in front; and several additions at the rear. Today a residence on a small landscaped lot, the structure was built as a movable church on wheels. The idea for a movable chapel was conceived by the Reverend Charles E. Preston of Jamestown's St. Matthew's Episcopal Church as a means of providing religious services for summer residents at the northern end of the island; then the chapel could migrate south, to be near the year-round population in winter. Newport architect Charles Bevins drew up the plans and the Archibald Wheel Works of Lawrence, Massachusetts, made the wheels. The 27-by-18-foot chapel, which could accommodate 100 people, was launched April 17, 1899. It was pulled northward by ten pair of oxen, but traveled only three miles north of the village, to Stork's Hill, where the chapel came to rest on land donated by Thomas G. Carr. After the Reverend Preston left the island, the new rector refused to take over the chapel. Before 1915 it was moved to North Road, still in service as a chapel. In 1933 it was moved to its present site, enlarged, and converted to residential use.
HAWTHORNE ROAD
**4 SH - CHARLES H. BAILEY HOUSE (1898-99): The big, imposing, white-painted Bailey House, distinguished by a colossal, tetrastyle, temple-form portico, provides a remarkable design contrast in the midst of Shoreby Hill's shingled informality. Nonetheless, it was built at the same time the other major houses went up. It is really more "Greek Revival" than Colonial Revival-a flank-gable, 5-bay, 2-story block fronted by a portico. Its twin, single-story, glassed-in porches beside the great portico are delightful late Victorian elaborations on the early Victorian theme. The Baileys were, like most first generation Shoreby cottagers, from St. Louis. In keeping with the architectural panache of their house, the hedge was trimmed ornamentally in a scalloped fashion, and beds of canna were planted in front of the house. According to local lore, this is a smaller version of Bailey's St. Louis house.
**10 SH - T. REMINGTON WRIGHT HOUSE (1916): A 1-1/2-story, shingled residence with a flank-gable roof that accommodates a big, cross-gabled dormer and a roofline that extends over the front porch. Wright was a builder and occasionally designed houses. This very simple bungalow is a product of the former, and probably the latter, vocation as well.
**18 SH - HAWTHORNE COTTAGE (1895-96): This 2-1/2-story, shingled residence, its gambrel roof set end to the road, has a front porch formed by the second story overhang; a pediment at the side; a bay window; and an ell at the rear. A tall privet hedge screens the house from the street. This place was built on Conanicus Avenue in 1895-96 and moved to the present site about 1899. Its original owner, Louis W. Anthony, a local builder, rented it as a summer cottage for many years before it was sold and converted to a year-round residence.
HIGH STREET
**7 OW - LYDIA E. SEARS COTTAGE (1890); This rambling, ample, shingled summer house has a hip-roofed main block, a central chimney, and a hip-roofed ell. It was built for Lydia Sears, wife of Major Clinton B. Sears of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
**10 OW - LT. RICHARD C. DERBY HOUSE / EDGEWATER (1883; c. 1910): A tall, shingled, 2-1/2-story, shingle-clad, gabled dwelling, with a 2-story entrance pavillion. Designed and built by J.D. Johnston, the house appears to have been altered in the early twentieth century.
HIGHLAND DRIVE
30- MCINTYRE HOUSE (1970); This modern house, designed by Sam Cate, is one of several "shed"-style residences on Jamestown (see also 920 North Main Road). A multi-shed-roofed structure, it has vertical board walls, a wood-shingled roof, variously sized and shaped windows, and a recessed entry. Nearby is a matching garage and studio.
The modern shed style originated in the 1960s largely through the ideas of several architects, most notably Charles Moore and Robert Venturi. The most distinctive feature is the multi-directional roof which, as exemplified in the Mclntyre House, gives the appearance that the house was made up of two distinctive forms joined together. One of the more interesting recent houses in Jamestown, it enjoys a fine site near the north end of Mackerel Cove.
65 - HEFLIN HOUSE (c. 1980): This 2-1/2-story, shingled, transitional Modern/Postmodern house has a gabled roof pierced by an oval-fronted stair tower and an observation deck, and an elevated entrance that is accessible via a monumental flight of steps. The house is set back from the road on landscaped grounds. It was designed by Estes/Burgin Partnership.
**179 OW - FORMER WISTAR MORRIS CARRIAGE HOUSE (1884, c. 1984?): A 1-1/2-story, gambrel-roofed carriage house with end overhang may possibly have been designed by Stanford White. Divided from the main estate in 1953, and used since then as a summer residence, it has more recently been redesigned for year-round use by the owner's son, Bernard Wharton, of the architectural firm Shope, Reno Wharton.
**195 OW - WISTAR MORRIS HOUSE/HIGHLAND (1884-86): This big, 2-1/2-story (and rear 3-1/2-story), shingle-clad, Queen Anne house has four massive chimneys, an almost mansard roof (disguised by a profusion of cross gables), and a porch wrapping around three sides of the building. Local tradition attributes Highland to Stanford White, but it is unlike any of his documented buildings in plan, form or detail. Highland was built for Philadelphian Wistar Morris. It commands an elevated site in the Ocean Highlands plat. The former carriage house on this property is now a residence on another lot (see preceding entry).
**196 OW - DR. JOHN MARSHALL HOUSE / CEDAR POINT (1916): This 2-story, hip-roofed, stuccoed summer house, is essentially rectangular in form. A projecting bay and chimney stack complicate the entrance elevation. The second-story windows are connected visually to the roofline and the first-floor windows are likewise connected to a continuous beltcourse. Perched on a rocky outcrop above Mackerel Cove, it enjoys a superb setting. The house was designed by Bickley of the architectural firm of DeArmond, Ashmeade, & Bickley.
**216 OW - J. BERTRAM LIPPINCOTT COTTAGE / STONE HOUSE AND FLAGSTONES (1926, 1960s): Determinedly "French Provincial", this stone rubble cottage is a series of 1-1/2-story pavilions with high slate-clad roofs and tall brick chimneys. The dominant central pavillion contains a high-ceiling living hall opening out through French doors onto a terrace overlooking Mackerel Cove. Flagstones, the garage converted into a residence in the 1960s, was originally to have been a drive-through gatehouse.
Designed by Albert Harkness, this was the third Jamestown summer house built by the Lippincotts. Mr. & Mrs. Lippincott turned over their original house (built in the early 1890s) and an adjacent bungalow to their children and built this house for themselves. Stone House is tucked into a comer near the Horsehead property, Mrs. Lippincott's parents' summer home. As it stands, Stone House and Flagstones are fine examples of the creatively eclectic houses of the 1920s.
**227 OW - MYROCK (1930): The 2-1/2-story Myrock, designed by LeRoy Ward, Inc., a New York-based architectural firm, exemplifies the taste for casual, picturesque, Cape Cod-inspired, shingle-and-white trim houses of the early twentieth century.
**240 OW - JOSEPH WHARTON HOUSE/MARBELLA/HORSEHEAD (1882-84): Horsehead is a massive, turreted landmark, sited on a bold promontory overseeing the approaches to Narragansett Bay where it joins the ocean. Legend has it that the place was named for a large offshore rock, now vanished, which resembled a horse's head, but on a mid-nineteenth-century map "Horse Head" is shown on land, east of Mackerel Cove. Marbella, the original name, refers to a promontory facing the Mediterranean at Marbella, Spain.
The stone and shingle house has a gable roof brought down to the first story on the entrance front and overscale double dormers. The major feature of the exterior is a circular corner tower terminating in a belvedere below a bonnet roof. The seafront and gable is accented by a recessed porch with squat stone columns. On the rear elevation the house is a full story taller due to the slope of the land, and there is a big, west-facing porch which once overlooked a grass tennis court. Just north of the cottage is a matching carriage house-barn accented by an octagonal turret echoing that of the main house. On the barn turret's peak is a horsehead weathervane.
Joseph Wharton, a wealthy Philadelphia-based industrialist with Newport connections, was a Quaker. He began summering at the Robinson House on Washington Street in Newport in the 1860s, occasionally sailing over to Conanicut to picnic, explore, and collect marine specimens. In 1882 he acquired more than 30 acres in the Ocean Highlands tract and set about building his summer house. Wharton participated in the design process, insisting initially that the house be closer to the cliffs. It is likely that C.L. Bevins was the architect. Horsehead recalls Bevins's design vocabulary and it is known that Bevins designed very early additions to the house. J.D. Johnston was the builder and may also have had a hand in designing the barn-carriage house. Beautifully maintained, Horsehead is one of the outstanding summer houses of the New England coast.
**314 OW - NEVILLE LEARY COTTAGE (1928-29): The 1-1/2-story, split-log cottage, designed by Harkness & Geddes, is a courtyard house with gabled pavilions defining three sides of the entrance court.
61 - BUNGALOW (c. 1920): This diminutive, clapboard cottage has hip and shed roofs and a series of very small windows contrasting with one big, multi-paned picture window. The west wing was added about 1945. This residence was built by William H. Brooks, chief engineer for several Jamestown steamboats.
82 - GEORGE C. MASON HOUSE (1874-75): This 2-story, clapboard dwelling, at the comer of High Street, has a low, flank-gable roof with a central cross-gable displaying remnants of original stickwork bracing; small bay windows at the sides; a full-width front porch; and board-and-batten vertical boarding in the gables after the Swiss fashion.
George Champlin Mason, designer of the cottage, was a prominent Newporter who combined careers as an architect, author, historian, and leader in many good causes, from the Newport Historical Society to Trinity Church to Newport Hospital. He also dabbled in real estate on two of thirty-four lots he purchased in the Howland Plat. The twin to this house stands at 67 Cole Street. A very similar cottage, also designed by the Mason office, was built in 1880 at 76 Howland Avenue.
The Panic of 1873 wreaked havoc with Mason's finances and depressed the real estate market. He sold off the other lots without making any improvements. Number 82 Howland is a Swiss chalet, all but identical to a half-dozen or more such modest cottages designed most probably not by Mason himself but by his son, namesake, and partner in architectural practice.
JAMESTOWN-VERRAZANO BRIDGE
(1992): The Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge, a concrete, balanced cantilever bridge with 52 spans, is the second bridge to span the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Opened in 1992, it took seven years to build and cost roughly $164 million. The trestle or causeway portion, designed by Gordon R. Archibald, Inc. of Pawtucket, used 29 cast-in-place spans. The main structure was designed by T.Y. Lin International of San Francisco. Of the 20 approach spans of the main portion, 15 were pre-cast at Davisville, moved by barge to the site, and lifted into place. The remaining spans were cast in place. Thousands of steel strands within the structure were stressed to strengthen the concrete and connect the span segments into one solid structure. The bridge is 75 feet wide with walkways on either side and four travel lanes. It replaced the badly deteriorated 1940 bridge whose two 11-foot lanes could not safely handle the heavy traffic of the 1980s.
The 1940 Jamestown Bridge, with its high superstructure, had a very different profile from that of its successor. It was a narrow, steel cantilever bridge, designed by Parsons, Klapp, Brinckeroff and Douglas, the New York firm which later designed the Newport Bridge. It was built in 18 months at a cost of $3 million.
LEDGE ROAD
**65 OW - CAROLYN NEWTON COTTAGE (1928-29): The 1-1/2-story Newton Cottage, designed by Thomas Pym Cope of Philadelphia, is a fieldstone structure with dark-stained riven weatherboarding in the gables. The T-shaped structure has steep pitched roofs and stone central chimney. Carolyn Newton, the daughter of A.E. Newton, a Samuel Johnson scholar, entertained Thomas Mann, W.H. Auden, and other authors and poets here. The original perennial garden, in shades of grey, was designed by Helen Eliason.
LINCOLN STREET
20 - LIONEL H. CHAMPLIN HOUSE / VINECROFT (1888-89): A great, rambling, 2-1/2-story, shingle-covered pile, Vinecroft's simplicity is countered by a single dominant element, a 3-story, hip-roofed tower accented by a triangular third-story oriel (added later). Built by Lionel Champlin, presumably as a summer rental, it was purchased in 1894 by T. Chester Wallbridge, of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Wallbridge, who used it as a summer residence, remodelled it about 1902. Mrs. Emily Craven purchased the place in 1922, and ran the E & E Tearoom here for at least ten years. In the late 1980s, following renovation, it was converted to a bed-and-breakfast. Its original dark-stained shingles are now beige-colored.
24 - THE HONEYSUCKLES (1882): Like neighboring Vinecroft, The Honeysuckles, built by William A. Champlin, is a great ark of a building sprouting bay windows, oriels, gables, and pediments; it too has a hip-roofed tower, but the feature is less dominant here. It was sold to James Richardson of St. Louis, in 1889, then to his daughter, Mrs. F. H. Rosengarten of Philadelphia in 1893. The tower was added about 1901. In 1930 Emily Craven joined it to the house on the next lot (on Green Lane) and renamed it The Anchorage. It became a popular summer boarding house; meals were served at Vinecroft. The Honeysuckles, at the corner of Green Lane, was renovated between about 1988 and 1990.
LONGFELLOW ROAD
**29 SH - DAVID R. FRANCIS COTTAGE (c. 1903): The Francis House, a shingled building with dark-painted trim, is one of the outstanding summer cottages in Shoreby Hill. In form it i