Just as golf was becoming popular in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century, Jamestown’s first golf course, a 9-hole Conanicut Golf Club was officially formed in 1895. Six holes were located south of Hamilton Avenue, mostly on the pastures of the Cottrell Farm north of Blueberry Lane and west of Walcott Avenue.

In 1827 the Philadelphia Horticultural Society hosted the first American flower show with the aim “to inspire taste for one of the most rational and pleasing amusements of man”. Flower shows have played important roles for most gardeners and Jamestown proved no different.

The Governor Carr carried passengers and vehicles across the East Passage between Jamestown and Newport from 1927 through 1958.

This lighthouse is located in the West Passage just north of the Jamestown Bridge. It was completed in 1899 and served to warn vessels away from the Plum Beach shoal which extended east from the Narragansett shore toward Conanicut Island.

The Jamestown Historical Society has a remarkable collection of signs that served wildly different purposes.

In the JHS Collection are examples, spanning almost 200 years, of Jamestowners’ interest in collecting and sharing their favorite recipes.

The initial contract for building the Jamestown-Verrazzano bridge was awarded in December 1984 to Clarke-Fitzpatrick Inc., the lowest of six bidders at $63.9 million. Ground was broken September 26. 1985, and construction began. Estimated time to complete – three years.

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 the West Passage of Narragansett Bay.

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.

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.