by JHS | Oct 19, 2021 | 2021 Articles
Golf became popular in the United States in the late 1880s and Jamestown’s summer residents were among the earliest enthusiasts. In 1893, Mary and Ellen Macauley who summered in “Mist” on Racquet Road, Brooks Stevens, and D.C.W. Falls began the process that would...
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 | Oct 4, 2021 | JHS in the News, Library Exhibits
The September exhibit in the JHS library display case features Jamestown’s many resort hotels and the room keys they used. The earliest full-service hotel was the Bay View, opened by William Knowles, one of the last sail ferry captains, in 1882. The Gardner (where...
by JHS | Sep 13, 2021 | Events
Because of restraints of the COVID pandemic, this year’s members fundraiser was a combination of a cocktail party held on August 26 at the lovely 1927 Sarah Cresswell cottage, which had been recently restored and beautifully landscaped, and guided tours of three of...
by JHS | Sep 4, 2021 | 2021 Articles
Ellen Tucker, the eldest child of Pardon and Sarah Waite Tucker, was born three days after Christmas in 1847 at the Hutchinson farm on North Road. Ellen’s early schooling was in the Jamestown schools, but when she was in her mid-teens, her father sent her away to...
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 27, 2021 | JHS in the News, Library Exhibits
The August exhibit in the JHS library display case features early gifts to the Jamestown Historical Society’s collection and the people who gave them. The first object donated to the collection was presented at the second meeting of the society on August 26, 1912, by...
by JHS | Aug 19, 2021 | 2021 Articles
In the summer of 1912, Elizabeth Carr Locke, a California-based descendant of Caleb Carr who was in Jamestown for the summer, had 200 posters printed and distributed around the island asking anybody interested in forming a historical society to meet at Town Hall on...
by JHS | Aug 11, 2021 | Events
Art in the Cemetery Changing Fashion of Grave Markers The guest speaker for the Jamestown Historical Society’s 2021 annual meeting was Anne Tait, MFA, Professor of Art at Roger Williams University. Her presentation was titled “Art in the Cemetery, Changing Fashion of...
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...
