by Peter Fay | Aug 24, 2023 | 2023 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
Jamestown Slaves linked to Sierra Leone, Gambia rivers Bunch Island in the Sierra Leone River, 1784. A woman enslaved in Jamestown by Sayles Carr was one of 75 captives to be purchased on the voyage along the West African river in 1742. NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED...
by Rosemary Enright and Sue Maden | Jul 20, 2023 | 2023 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
Narragansett Bay ferryboats made way from Virginia The Jamestown on Narragansett Bay. Before arriving in Rhode Island in 1958 to provide service between Conanicut and Aquidneck islands, the ferryboat was named Richmond and served the state of Virginia. For 78 years,...
by Rosemary Enright and Sue Maden | Jun 15, 2023 | 2023 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
Before the Newport Pell Bridge was completed in 1969, the only way to get from Jamestown to Newport was to take the ferry or drive through Providence. Although the schedule changed from year to year, ferries ran about every hour in the winter and every half hour in...
by Peter Fay | May 25, 2023 | 2023 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
Dinah Battey, of Jamestown, 20, married her husband in 1711. Six days after her wedding, on the sailing ferry home from Newport, the boat capsized, and she tragically drowned. Little was more dangerous in Colonial Rhode Island than crossing the bay in ferries. Family...
by Rosemary Enright and Sue Maden | Apr 27, 2023 | 2023 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
Most of the Portuguese immigrants who came to Jamestown at the turn of the 20th century were from the Azores, an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic about 900 miles off the Portuguese coast. Many of these immigrants spoke of their homeland as the Western Isles rather than...
by Rosemary Enright and Sue Maden | Mar 16, 2023 | 2023 Articles, Jamestown History Articles
A wedding photo of Joseph Perry and Margaret McMenamin from June 1941. Standing behind them, from left, are the best man, Henry Serpa, Margaret’s father, Patrick McManimen, and the maid of honor, Annie McManimen. In 1880, more than 80 percent of the people living in...