Village People

Recently I kayaked over to Annawamscutt, where now just a beach and a cluster of cottages are left to identify what was once a village. I saw osprey, a night heron, three red-tailed hawks and the usual gulls, geese and cormorants along the way; but no signs of industry, only nature and leisure. My launching point was my home port of Allin’s Cove in what was once known as the village of West Barrington, a former fishing ground for the Wampanoag long before it assumed its rather dull English name. The old post office no longer exists, the lace factory is now elderly housing. Only the corner barbershop, the marina and boatyard remain to signify the once thriving, working-class community of Bay Springs. Long a summer getaway for hordes of Pawtucket residents, the character of my neighborhood is changing. The spectrum ranges through teachers, restaurant owners, exiled New Yorkers, internationals, single moms, retirees, sailors, salvagers, handy men, artists, musicians and accountants, with a few lifers and Pawtucket natives still in the mix. Now both Annawamscutt and West Barrington are fringe neighborhoods in the East Bay town of Barrington linked by a coastline and a bike path. Such is the way of a village.

Rhode Island was once a jumble of villages – fragments of farm and cove, mill and woods that still resonate today if only as part of a certain independent crankiness statewide. Some have retained their names, if not their cultural distinctiveness. Others have disappeared. Many, I suspect, I have visited without even realizing it, for I could not tell you where to find them on any map.

They include Arctic in West Warwick, Arkwright, Quidnick and Summit in Coventry, Barberville and Locustville in Hopkinton, Coggeshall in Warren, Conimicut, Cowesett and Hoxsie in Warwick, Dyerville and Wanskuck in Providence, Forestdale in North Smithfield, Gazzaville, Mapleville, Mohegan, Saxonville, Tarklin and Whipple in Burrillville, Greystone in North Providence, Harmony in Glocester, Hummocks in Portsmouth, Liberty in Exeter, Lime Rock in Lincoln, Omega in East Providence, Stillwater in Smithfield, Vernon in Foster and White Rock in Westerly.

One of the advantages of working in South County at the Independent has been the opportunity to visit the vestiges of old mill towns and beach communities in villages such as Quonochontaug in Charlestown, Ashaway and Moscow in Hopkinton, Galilee and Jerusalem in Narragansett, Misquamicut, Watch Hill and Weekapaug in Westerly, Wood River Junction and Wyoming in Richmond, Rocky Brook, Perryville and Usquepaugh in South Kingstown, Frenchtown in East Greenwich, Hamilton and Slocum in North Kingstown. Work has taken me to the village of Pontiac in Warwick, identified by the Pontiac Mills, which are still condos-in-waiting. I’ve been to Fruit Hill in North Providence to get to Rhode Island College and Knightsville in Cranston to get to the Community College of Rhode Island. I marathoned through Apponaug, a village in Warwick, back in the day when the Ocean State Marathon began in the village of Narragansett Pier. I’ve taken leisurely drives to Sakonnet at the very tip of Little Compton and performed theater at a library and grabbed a bite to eat respectively and respectfully in the villages of Hope and Chopmist in Scituate.

In all, Rhode Island is home to as many as 250 villages, although more than a few are mostly defunct and a number of them survive only as ghost towns. Some have interesting pedigrees. Consider the following places in Westerly: The village of Avondale was originally called Lotteryville because its inhabitants at one time had won a state lottery to build homes there. The village of Misquamicut was once called Pleasant View supposedly because a prominent Victorian-era woman paused there on horseback and remarked on the “pleasant view.” The community of Napatree was wiped off the map by the Hurricane of ’38.

As I sign off on this post from a computer located in Wakefield village – or the village of “Historic Wakefield” to you travelers out there on Route 1 who might miss it through all the sprawl – I end with the week’s ceremonial question: What is your favorite Rhode Island village?