(x y if I : iiilf: 'liiii Illili:; ^'^^t^iidilp ''' arianQHTallman Tent v., Chautauqua;' "JVeToArKaveT) Tourteen" W '^ Press of ths Jouksai, Company, 1S93 \ IGntereJ acconling to Act of Congress, in the year 1893, by the PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO., la the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. PLEASANT PLAeES IK RriODE ISLAND, AND HOW TO REACH THEM. By ,MARIA:NrA M>Ti\LLMA]N^, AUTHOR OF -'TENT V., CHAUTAUQUA," "THE PAIRHAVEN FOURTEEN.' 9^1^^ PEOVIDENCE: The Providence Journal Company, 1S93. N- TO MY FRIEND ALICE, Whose companionship in many of these rambles has made their memory doubly pleasant. CONTENTS. PART l.-ALONG SHORE. NEWPORT. NARItAOANSBTT PIER AND POINT JUDITH. WATCH HHX,. BLOCK ISLAND. QUONOOONTAUG BEACH. CHARLERTOWN AND JIATUNUCK. CONANICUT PARIC AND JAMESTOW^ST. PRUDENCE PARK AND PRUDENCE ISLAND. BRISTOL FERRT. BRISTOL NECK AND MTTLE'S NARROWS. SAUNDEUSTOWN AND NARRAGANSETT FERRY. TIVERTON HEIGHTS AND STONE BRIDGE TILLAGE. , S.AICONNET POINT AND LITTLE COMPTON. PAT^TTJXET, OLD AND NEW. FIEIJyS POINT. NARRAGANSETT BAT, PART ll.-INLAND AND UPLAND. IN AND ABOUT PROVIDENCE. ■RTEST GREENWICH, COVENTRY, EXETER AND BEACH POND. THE PAV^TUXET RIVER. CUMBERLAND HILL AND SNEACH POND. THROUGH THE NORTHERN TOVWSTSHIPS. DIAMOND HILL. QUTNSNICKET. FOSTER AND SCITUATB. IJNCOLN AND NORTH SMITHFDELD. BURRHX^TLIiB AND HERRING POND. TJ3.IE ROCK. INTRODUCTION. IN preparing this little book for a summer public, in quest of pleasant places to be found within our boundary lines, the writer is only too conscious how insuflBcient it is as a representative of even our own small State. It would be hard to find elsewhere on our coast an equally limited amount of ter- ritory in which are found so many phases of life, so great variety of scenery and so large a fund of legend and history as lie latent or discovered within our own borders. Aristocratic South County, with its wealth of legendary lore, traditions of slave days and Indian occapancy, the bleak hills and shores of Oharlestown where the last of the Narragansetts still abide; the craggy hills of Cumberland, breeze-swept and bracing of air as true mountain regions; the limestone crags and kilns of Lime Rock, sitting remotely on the Lincoln hills; the dreamy old town of Bristol, its quaint architecture and sleepy, green-arched streets like a bit out of a past century, and the teeming foreign factory villages of the Pawtuxet and Blackstone valleys; all these have their own peculiar life and atmosphere; and on the remote and desolate shores of Quonocontaug or the rocky point of sea-beaten Sakonnet are counterparts of the bleak Maine coast that dawn like a revelation on Rhode Islanders who know only the fa- miliar shores of our fair bay. By no means a complete or even comprehensive guide-book of the State is this volume of sketches to be considered, but merely as its name indicates, an index to a few of the "pleasant places" to which accident or design has led. No doubt many readers will aver, and justly, that they know within their own precincts, many spots fairer and more interesting than those pictured in these pages; but if one will but trouble himself to glance at the list of abiding places, small and great, in fair Rhode Island, he will realize that long years would' be required, in visiting and familiarizing one's self with all. Only those most typical and most picturesque which have come under the writer's notice have been selected, while the field of exploration is practically limitless. M. M. T. PART FIRST. Along Shore. NEWPORT. [Two hours from Providence by Continental Steamboat Co., fare 60 cents round trip, or by Old Colony Railroad.] IT is wliolly superfluous, at this late day, to attempt to say anytliing new concerning a watering place of not only national, but world- vade fame : it is sketclied again briefly here simply because a Rhode Island guidebook with- out Newport would be guite too like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. Newport has had the experience, unique in sea-faring towns, of rising, decaying. Only a jumble of wharves anl warehouses, some green with moss and mouldering with age, a tangle of narrow and muddy streets with scant " elbow room" on the worn and funevem. sMewalIvS ; shabby old wooden houses edging as near the highway as possible, with old-fashioned door caps and fan lights, and a general look of discouragement and decay. These are what greet him, but let him take the and rising agaiu from the ashes of de- parted mercantile industry in a new and unparalleled splendor. It is this linMng of its old by-gone and forgotten life of manufactories and commerce mth its new one of wealth and fashion that gives Newport of to-day a double cliarm. To the stranger approaching the historic old town by water, tlie first sight of New- port proper is a sad blow. Where are the elegant villas, the magnificent drives, the citizens of wealth and fashion, of which he has so long and so often heard? EASTON POINT. cable ear waiting by the Post Office at the head of the dock, and be whisked up the hUl, past churches galore, and cross- ing Bellevue avenue with a transient, but bewildering glimpse of fairy land, past a few of the fine old mansions with ample, Enghsh-lilie grounds, and down a long incllae again eastward to famous Easton's beach and the sea. Here, about the ample and commodious new building erected there with its acces- sories of cafe, piazzas and multitudinous bath houses is always a vast and chang- 10 PLEASANT PLACES IN ItUODE ISLAND. Ing throng of patricians and plebeians batlilng or boliolding. At the noon hour, the fubliiomilile bathing time, resplendent are the equipages that grace the sand, awaiting my hidy's daily dip; while "wandering excursionists lunch and gsxze, and stroll on to the wilder and lonelier attractions of the second beach, on to r^ ,r^.^ AVIIEKE BERKELEY LTVTED. the left, or follow to the right the famous " Clilf walli," past Newport's most mag- nificent summer homes southward to Ochre Point. The second beach claims Newport's grandest shore sceneiy ; here lie those huge rent dill's dubbed respec- tively Paradise and Purgatory I'ocks ; though in point of beauty there seems very little to choose between them. Purgatory rock has, of course, the usiml legend of a famous leap by a mytliical hero across its yawning chasm, and ho who would undertake it must be indeed a strong-hearted athlete. There is fas- cination in lingering here, watching the booming surf and flying feathers of spray on hidden reefs far out at sea. Beyond lies Sachuest Point, the hanging rocks and the fair shore scenery beloved by Bishop Berkeley of old. Turning in the other direction and following the beaten path leading over the Clijl''', rising mo- mently higher from the ocean, the way grows fairer as one journeys, and as the velvety, well-kept grounds of the wealthy dwellers on this lovely coast, vie with each other in profusion of luxury, one has opportunity to see what gorgeous palatial abodes may rise in the name of cottages. Millionaires from all over the land have liere their summer homes, and gay junketings and days of mldsumnu'r madness pass here that have no counterpart elsewhere outside Oulda's novels. Still on to the southern point of llhode Island, otherwise Land's End, where the gray rocks drop in lessening detached rauks to the water's edge, brilliant in gold and brown of wave- washed rock weed and barnacle, the coast turns sharply westward, and liailey's beach, with the famed spouting rock, lies beyond. Visitors are plenty here after a wild southwester has been raging, for with a thunderous shock into the black caverns below, the wild swinging billows are driven with the force of the whole Atlantic at their backs, and up through the narrow rock tunnel they ascend and fly in a white fountain of spray forty feet in the sunny air. Again, one may listen and watch in vain, when old ocean is contrary, and wiU hear but a sullen guj-gling wash somewhere down in the black spaces below. On this south shore is the dreaded Bronton's reef, ofl' wliose inhospitable rocks has swung night and day since mariners mul- tiplied on these seas the stauucli light- ship, with its two signal lights faintly seen, rising and falling with the swell, away over at Narragansetl Pier by night. Bounding the point at Castle Hill— but NBWrORT'S OLDEST. one must have a carriage to come all this way at one trip— Conanicut Island lies across the harbor, with a white line always showing about the southern rocks where gray Beaver Tail light rises ; and all the way between, tlie water is crowded witli craft of every description, that make up the gayest harbor on the United States NEWPORT. 11 coast. Men-of-war, G-overnment cruisers, pleasure yachts, great and small, from the Idng of floating pleasure craft — down to the butterfly hits of catboats. Excursion steamers, water boats, launches for Goat Island and the Torpedo Station, the great Wickford and Jamestown ferryboats, the Block Island and Pier steamers, lumber and coal schooners, and farthest up north the training ship with her scores of erect Ungs." On the farthest of the two Lime Roclfs rises the square white lighthouse guarded by our heroine of Narragansett, Ida Lewis, now a middle aged woman. It is worth one's while, in visiting the G-ov- ernment station over on Goat Island- where the tiny steam launches take one lor a trtflmg sum— to stroll out to the long noi'thern breakwater there, and see the stranded collection of old and new buoys. THE CASESrO. and athletic young lads aboard— and be- tween these all the rowboats, flittiug with their uniformed crews. Even Clark Russell would have a difficult task before Mm in describing in detail the effect of this astonishingly lively port. The long gray frontage of Fort Adams juts out into the bay from the Island's southwest peninsula, and strives to meet that queer little round baby of a fort over on Conanl- cut's gray rocks— christened the "Dump- awaiting transplantation. Some are crusted thickly with eel-grass, sea-weed, shells and bai-nacles ; and the bell-buoys show here for the huge thtags they are— not at all the flat-topped rafts they seem, rocking on the water. Drives are of endless diversion In and about Newport, for one may traverse the island over and daily find something new to please and interest; the old island graveyards, the pleasant country homes 12 PLEASANT PLACES IN RHODE ISLAND. Inland, the ancient histories of Portsmjutli and Middletown, as "well as tlie gay society life In the lieart of the town. J5elle\-ue avenue is the gn-and rallying place for the resplendent turnouts, tlie fine saddle horses and the gay t.illyhos that belong distinctively to Newport, and on a sunny afternoon they are out in full force. The many bazaars that line this Parisian-like avenue are dazzling "with their sho"wy fronts of exquisite and novel iujxuries, from millinery to hothouse exotics ; and the stranger "^\4io may not enter "within its gates may yet behold the Newport aris- tocracy entering and emerging from the homesteads hidden in the heart of -wooded parks, -with a quaint little porter's lodge by the gate, all gray stone, pointed latticed slits of "windows and i\'y-shrouded sides. There are the t"Wo fine hotels, the Ocean House and Aquidneck, the im- posing Rogers High School, and In pretty little Touro Park the Perry monument and, chief joy and treasure of Ne"wport, the mysterious old stone to"wer, once green "With riotous ivj, but now for its better preservation bare and gray, "with the un- broken lines of its many ai'ches, defying history and legend for its origin. Over its building historians and chroniclers W. K. ^'A^\DE1KBIL,T•S MARBLE PA1l4.CE. Casino here, which, attractive and beau- tiful as its interior is, compares but poorly in outer effect with Narragansett's and its gray springing arch by the ocean. Here in the white and gold ball-room as- semble the belles and beaux in the full bravery of their elaborate raiment; and matrons and mammas who have out- gi'cwn gauze, soLice themselves with dia- monds. It is a glittering pageant. August sees the tennis tournaments, the fox hunts— elaborate travesties on the old English sport— and the gayest gatherings, yet the social season lasts well into Autumn. Outside the fashionable pageant, there is much of interest in the heart of the to"wn— the fine old churches, the famous Redwood Library, the pleasant old have wrangled in vain ; and no one may ever surely know ■whether it is a monu- ment of the Vikings who have left scanty trace along our shores in an occasional carving or unaccountable skeleton, or only "What Benedict Arnold too briefly de- scribes of " my stone-built Avind mill. " Those of us poetically inchned "will prefer tlie version that the "skeleton in armor" "was obliging enough to give to Longfellow •: "So for my lady's bower Built I this lofty tower, "VNTiicb to this very hour Stjinds looking seaward." But of this and other historical spots in old Newport, guide books are full of legend and description, and to particular- ize farther "would be needless. NARRAQANSETT PIER. [TMrty-five miles from Providence. By rail, New York, Providence and Boston Kailroad to Kings- ton Narragansett Pier Railroad to Pier, gl.50 round trip. Or by small steamer from Newport, 75 cents round trip. Largest and best hotels, Gladstone, Kockingham, Mathewson and Berwick. Massasoit best of lower priced.] IN itself, Narragansett Pier is far from being sucla a show-place as Newport. Its attractions need time and famil- iarity to reveal, and it often happens that the one-day tourist departs without having seen any of these prime attrac- tions—the rocks, the Casino, the Hazard castle, Canonohet, the Ocean Road cot- tages or Point Judith— and hears away, therefore, a very disappointing impression of this far-famed watering place. With a competent guide and a comfortable car- riage, a gi-eat deal is to he seen in a single day, in the "off-hours," when it is not absolutely essential to he present at either the bathing beach or the Casino. One may turn northward, if he like, through the picturesque Tillages of Peace Dale, the home of the Hazards, and Wakefield, surrounded by the lionie of many weird, wUd legends : wandering up to the lovely MJanouna Lake near Wake- field, whei'e among two or three other charming summer cottages, Mr. H. S. Bloodgood's most delightful house stands enshrined among the trees— the scene of the old Indian legend of the ghost of Manouna, the remorseful mother who murdered lier babies in the " Crying Bog" across the way, and whose unap- peased shade nightly flits and wails along the darfe lake's surface. And there is the Hunnowill Hill down beneath the Tower Hill heights, a clustered rock hillock rising from the long salt marsli, where the old slave owner lashed his runaway slave to a tree, and left him naked tlU"ough the night at the mercy of the myriad mosqultos that have infested the marsh from years remote, tto find him stone dead in the morning. South County is fortunate in ha%lng bards to sing and chronicle lier many old legends, and be- tween Shepherd Tom, Miss Caroline Haz- ard and Miss Carpenter's graceful writ- ings there is little left untold, and the glamour of well-written verse lies over all this legendary land. The Pier is unique as a watering place on this account. Probably not another CASINO FIRE PLACE. favorite resort, in tlie whole coimtry round, lias so many nooks and byways quaint with story and legend, and though the tide of summer festiviby may wane low, there is always something between the uplands and the ocean to reward the irtroUer and the lingerer as long as they may choose to tariy, or over nine of 14 PLEASANT PLACES IN RHODE ISLAND. tlie adjustable miles peculiar to tlie South County, by a ■winding ro;\d, the traveller may journey from the I'ior to the Row- land Robinson mansion and Gilbert Stuart birthplace, keeping the ocean in sight most of the time and -winding in and out among scenery tiiat, every Inch of the way, is either picturos(iue or historic, and mainly both. It is a devious way, if one trusts to oral instruction, but we haA'e lut ou a simpler direction. Cross the high green pasture.^ where sheep are grazing, where a long line of white runs far up into the tranciuil luirbor, lenping u1 the black ril)s of an old wreck that lies there yet among the sand and harsh sea grass ; Conanicut, with the long gray line of her ancient bluiTs along the bar- ren western shores, and away to the SDuth t'.eaver Tail lighthouse, looming a darlcer gray above the pale gray of sea fog, and wild surges forever leaping and. THE CASINO. the Pettaquamscut bridge northward, turn to the left, pass a white school- house numbered 2*2, and from thence— foUoAV the telegraph poles. They wiU lead Infallibly round all the corners to the very lane at the journey's end. But on the way, the old Rowland Robinson place, with quite as much, if not more, claim to distinction, is to be visited, and the prettiest part of the drive is on the hither side of it. Whale Rock light, dark red in the distance, is passed far out at sea. Bonnet Head, do%vn beyond stri^ing at Its base ; bej'oud all, the near, tranciuU, blue sea: and, farthest of all, t;ie wliite wings of the fleet that lie al- v;ays in fair Newport's anchorage. Along t!»e roadside, though dwelling houses be few and far between, there are the hun- dred and (me little no-account things that malce a country drive Interesting, and an enjoyable ^'isifc to this most la- teresting part of North Kingstown ought to be granted a whole day. South from the Pier to Point Judith Is, ho\^ ever, the favorite drive ; It is a short JSf ABB AG AN SETT PIEB. 15 six miles over a fine macadam Idgliway, ■wltli the blue ocean always to the left, and passing the " rock cottages" -which are soon to claim supremacy as the nucleus of Narragansett social life. Mrs. Ores- son's lovely home, unpretending enough Avithout, with its gray halconies and twining green vines, but full to overflow- ing with al] manner of dainty luxm-ics within, Mr. Cook's, Mr. E. H. Sanford's, one of the most picturesciue, and the David Stevenson place, one of the newest and finest, and of which a detailed de- scription may not he out of place, as typical of a growing phase of luxurious summer life on our hay. No longer is this last imposing erection a nameless clhild, for it has been chilst- Point Judith, Advancing across the lawns and ascending to the family portals with joyous and easy confidence, in full faith that the butleu is ushering them Into the famous Casino ! It is small wonder, in- deed, nor would the delusion be at once dispelled, for the Casino hallway is a mere child beside this of the Suwanee vUla, High, massive and echoing, the polished floor gleams with oak tiles, covered here and there with rugs ; oaken chairs curi- ously carved and covered with embossed leather stand inA'ltingly here and there ; the great walls of tmted plasters have their bareness broken by engravings framed in shaded oak and hung in slant- ing lines with odd but picturesque effect. Everything in the great hall is oak, to SEA ^1EW OF SUWAKEE VTTTiA. ened " Suwanee Villa," in compliment to Mrs. Stevenson's maiden name. Coming upon the great gray mass, oval casements and Dutch doors screened with gold-brown shutters peeping out amid the massive battlements, huge granite steps leading up to the stone-pUlared balconies, and the ruddy gold and red of nasturtiums in rich flame between tlie gray stone and green turf, and the whole rising stately before the clear sweep of the blue Atlan- tic background— seeing it thus, the word "cottage" rises in one's mind as a most ridiculous misnomer, and prepares one to hear without astonishment the story that is getting to be a stale joke to the dwell- ers within. That of freoLuent sojourners in the land, faring north, perhaps, from the carved festoons that run about the frieze, and the broad stairways ; and the crowning glory is the huge mantel with sombre-twisted pillars, all of black oak, that stretches to the ceiling, and whose dark and sombre beauty is relieved only by a single tall, slender vase, a dash of blue In the centre. When the ruddy flames are leaping in the fireplace and tingetng the great, dark crossbeams of the room, then it is simply perfect. Between hallway and parlor is a triangular space Avith high arched alcove on the left, and here on its pedestal, like a heathen god on its throne, stands in sohtary state a huge Japanese vase, aU black, red and gold, and big enough to have sheltered that luckless young lover who made himself historical 16 PLEASANT PLACES IN IIIIOBE ISLAND. by sliutting himself Int^j an ancient clr ck- case. The parlor Is a long room loolcing soutln\ara, liuisLied in Tvlille wood and fiiruished with crimson damask, witli por- tieres of old gold and t'lectilc blue, In heavy hangings. A cushioned divan in gold brown plush, cosily tills the southern window reci'ss, piled high with pale blue salin cushions. The mantel mirror car- ries out the design of the elaborate carved wood frieze in similar festoons garlanded about its edges in putty work directly on Its face. Shaded oak frames, framing en- gravings and process rei)roductions, are hung everywhere through the house— the only exceptions being two bits of cU paintings reposing on the gold-brown man- tel draping li^ easil franits. Out of the drawing room opens the music room, like- wise with polished tiled floor, as are they all, and in shape a horseshoe, looking sea- ward. Rattan furniture reigns here, even to the music stool, upholstered with gay cretonne. Beyond, and opening from the hall, is the dining room, stately and spa- clous also, with its long polished table, ponderous leather chairs, and massive sideboards glittering with silver. Cabinets built In the walls give gleams of bright- ness from the many hued bits of dainty china, crystal and pottery. The seaw;ird- looking balcony- stretches before tlie din- ing room, tlie long glass doors stand open, and one dines h\ blissful conleinpladon of the dancing waves, the tiittijjg yachts, the flying breakers, and the blue and white of sea and .sli^' . The ghssy table is extinguished beneath a cloth only at broaktnst time ; a hall-dozen ex