by JHS | Nov 4, 2021 | From the Collection
In May of 1776, the Americans hastily built an earthwork battery in a large field on the west side of the Beavertail peninsula on Conanicut Island. British diarist Frederick Mackenzie later described the fortification as a “Battery or Redoubt with 4 embrasures” facing...
by JHS | Oct 4, 2021 | From the Collection
The early 1840s in Newport saw the rise of the “estate era” in gardening. Large tracts of land were purchased by people of means wanting to display their wealth by surrounding their estates with European style landscaping. In order to maintain these lavish gardens...
by JHS | Sep 1, 2021 | From the Collection
Behind the circulation desk of the Jamestown Philomenian Library are two square rigged ship half models. The half hull models are on loan to the Library from the JHS collection. They hung for a number of years in the lobby of the Gardner House, a large summer hotel in...
by JHS | Aug 1, 2021 | From the Collection
In the early 1940s, when you drove east over the recently completed Jamestown Bridge, the land before you was open farmland. The entire landscape changed in 1946 when James G. Head and Sydney Rowe formed the Federal Building and Development Corporation. Head and Rowe...
by JHS | Jul 9, 2021 | From the Collection
Hunt’s Drug Store stood at the corner of Conanicus and Narragansett avenues where the East Ferry Deli is now. It was owned by Thomas E. Hunt (1883-1965), Jamestown’s first year-round pharmacist. Hunt graduated from the Rhode Island College School of Pharmacy in 1904...
by JHS | Jun 9, 2021 | From the Collection
Sheep played a large part in the early days of the island of Conanicut. As early as 1637, when the Narragansett granted the right to the grasses of the island to the Newport settlers, sheep were grazed on the island. Sheep and wool remained important island products...
