Wickford Historic District | |
![]() Wickford from the air, looking east. | |
Location | North Kingstown, Rhode Island |
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Coordinates | 41°34′26″N71°27′41″W / 41.57389°N 71.46139°W |
Area | 380 acres (150 ha) |
Architect | Tefft, T.A.; Sawtelle, W.C. |
Architectural style | Greek Revival, Late Victorian, Federal |
NRHP reference No. | 74000013 [1] |
Added to NRHP | December 31, 1974 |
Wickford is a small village in the town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, United States, which is named after Wickford in Essex, England. Wickford is located on the west side of Narragansett Bay, just about a 20-minute drive across two bridges from Newport, Rhode Island. The village is built around one of the most well-protected natural harbors on the eastern seaboard, and features one of the largest collections of 18th century dwellings to be found anywhere in the Northeast. Today the majority of the village's historic homes and buildings (most in private hands) remain largely intact upon their original foundations.
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Wickford is generally said to have been settled around 1637, when theologian and Rhode Island state founder Roger Williams bought a parcel of land from sachem Canonicus and established a trading post there. Prior to European contact, the lands in and around Wickford had long served as dwelling, fishing, and hunting grounds to the Narragansett people, who were one of New England's more powerful and prominent tribes at the time when Williams found his way to their shores.
Richard Smith established a trading post on Narragansett Bay near the mouth of Cocumscussoc Brook at about the same time as Williams' purchase. He was a Puritan from Gloucester, England who had originally settled in the Plymouth Colony's town of Taunton. In 1637, he built what appears to have been a rather grand, gabled house on the site, which Williams described in his letters as the first English house in the area. This house was also heavily fortified, and thus became known as Smith's Castle .
During 1651, Smith purchased Roger Williams' trading post, and continued expanding his holdings over the years, building what came to be called the Cocumscussoc Plantation. His plantation became a center of social, religious, and political life in the area. During King Philip's War, the only incident of an individual being hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason on American soil took place at Smith's Castle in 1676. Joshua Tefft was executed by this method, an English colonist accused of having fought on the side of the Narragansetts during the Great Swamp Fight.
During King Philip's War, many of the homes were destroyed that had been built during this brief period of expansion. One of the homes that went was Smith's Castle, which was burned to the ground in 1676. Two years later, Richard Smith Jr. built a new home on the old foundation, retaining the name "Smith's Castle". This structure remains standing today and is one of the area's most visited historic sites.
Following King Philip's War, Wickford grew steadily as a port and shipbuilding center. To this day, the waterfront remains very active. Captain Lodowick Updike developed much of the early village between 1709–1715 after inheriting the land in 1692 from his grandfather Richard Smith, owner of Smith's Castle and the surrounding lands. The village was often interchangeably called "Updike's New Town" or "Wickford" in honor of the English home town of the wife of Governor John Winthrop of Connecticut. [2] In 1707, the Old Narragansett Church was founded in downtown Wickford, and survives as the oldest Episcopal church building in the northeastern United States. The British military attempted to raid Wickford during the American Revolution in 1776, but the "Wickford gun" was used to thwart the invading British expedition, a single cannon commissioned by the General Assembly for the town to defend itself. Later, the gun was taken to Point Judith, despite local Tories' attempts to disarm the weapon. There it was used to force a British ship to surrender its crew. The prisoners were removed to Providence. [3]
In 1755, painter Gilbert Stuart was born in Saunderstown, a village to the south of Wickford, in a snuff-mill that still stands and is open to the public in season. Other famous residents have included novelist Owen Wister, who for decades summered in a home just to the south of the village. Wickford was also home to Paule Stetson Loring, artist for Yachting magazine and other publications, and longtime editorial page cartoonist for The Providence Journal . A popular urban legend maintains that novelist John Updike hailed originally from Wickford—but this is not the case. Updike was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Updike did, however, use Wickford as the model for the fictional village of Eastwick in his novel, The Witches of Eastwick (Knopf: 1984). (Nevertheless, a branch of the Updike, or Op Den Dyck, family was among the first settling families of Wickford; the original village was at one time called Updike's Newtown. The descendants of Richard Smith and Lodowick Updike intermarried and the Updikes were residents of Smith's Castle in the colonial era.) Christian leader Joshua V. Himes grew up in Wickford.
The Wickford Art Festival—held in July of every year since 1962 and hosted by the Wickford Art Association—is one of the leading such events on the eastern seaboard, attracting hundreds of prominent artists and thousands of spectators from across the country and around the world.
Roger Williams was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and later the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a staunch advocate for religious freedom, separation of church and state, and fair dealings with the Native Americans.
North Kingstown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States, and is part of the Providence metropolitan area. The population was 27,732 in the 2020 census. North Kingstown is home to the birthplace of American portraitist Gilbert Stuart, who was born in the village of Saunderstown. Within the town is Quonset Point, location of the former Naval Air Station Quonset Point, known for the invention of the Quonset hut, as well as the historic village of Wickford.
Bristol is a town in Bristol County, Rhode Island, US, as well as the historic county seat. It is a deep water seaport named after Bristol, England.
The Narragansett people are an Algonquian American Indian tribe from Rhode Island. Today, Narragansett people are enrolled in the federally recognized Narragansett Indian Tribe. They gained federal recognition in 1983.
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded by Roger Williams. It was an English colony from 1636 until 1707, and then a colony of Great Britain until the American Revolution in 1776, when it became the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
Thomas Alexander Tefft was an American architect, from Providence, Rhode Island. Tefft, one of the nation's first professionally trained architects, is considered a master of Rundbogenstil and a leading American proponent of its use. Prior to his untimely death, Tefft "offered the most advanced designs of [his] day in America"
Daniel Berkeley Updike was an American printer and historian of typography. In 1880 he joined the publishers Houghton, Mifflin & Company, of Boston as an errand boy. He worked for the firm's Riverside Press and trained as a printer but soon moved to typographic design. In 1896 he founded the Merrymount Press.
Smith's Castle, built in 1678, is a house museum at 55 Richard Smith Drive, near Wickford, a village in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Smith's Castle is one of the oldest houses in the state. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993 as Cocumscussoc Archeological Site due to the artifacts and information that digs have yielded in the area. It is located just off U.S. Route 1 in Rhode Island.
Rabbitt Island is a small island in Wickford Harbor, Narragansett Bay, Wickford, Rhode Island. Roger Williams received the island from Chief Canonicus' wife as a gift for a place to raise his goats. Richard Smith, who built Smith's Castle, later owned the island.
Old Narragansett Church is a historic Episcopal church located at 60 Church Lane in Wickford, Rhode Island, believed to be the oldest Episcopal church building in the Northeastern United States.
St. Paul's Church is a historic church at 55 Main Street in the village of Wickford within the town of North Kingstown, Rhode Island. It is a single-story Romanesque Revival structure, designed by Rhode Island architect Thomas Tefft and built in 1847. Its main rectangular block has a gable roof, and narrow round-arch windows on the side walls with molded surrounds. The front of the church is asymmetrical, with the tower on the left and its entry slightly off-center between the tower and a small projecting narthex area. The square tower has single narrow round-arch windows on the first level, paired round-arch windows on the second, and clock faces on the third. A roof skirt rises to an open octagonal belfry, which is capped by a steeple and spire.
Richard Smith (1596–1666) was the first European settler in the Narragansett country in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He established a trading post on the western side of the Narragansett Bay at a place called Cocumscussoc which became the village of Wickford in modern-day North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
William Baulston (c.1605—c.1678) was a colonial New England innkeeper who was active in the civil and military affairs of both the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was a founding settler of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, was continuously elected to the highest positions in the colony, and was one of the ten Assistants named in the Rhode Island Royal Charter.
The Narragansett Runestone, also known as the Quidnessett Rock, is a 2.5 t (2,500 kg) slab of metasandstone located in Rhode Island, United States. It is inscribed with two rows of symbols, which some have indicated resemble ancient runic characters.
Sarah Updike Goddard was an early American printer, as well as a co-founder and publisher of the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, the first newspaper founded in Providence, Rhode Island. She worked closely with her son William and daughter Mary Katherine, who both also became printers and publishers, forming one of the earliest influential publishing dynasties in the American colonies.
Stonewall John was a seventeenth century Narragansett leader in Rhode Island who was a skilled stone mason and blacksmith often credited with building stone wall fortifications at Queen's Fort in Exeter and Stony Fort, and blockhouses at the Great Swamp Fort.
Cocumscussoc is a brook and surrounding region in Wickford, Rhode Island. The Cocumscussoc Brook flows into Mill Cove off of Wickford Harbor. Roger Williams started a trading post with the Narragansetts in the 1630s, likely northeast of the brook and harbor. The exact location of Williams' trading post is not known, but Smith's Castle (1678) was located nearby. This homestead was originally a fortified house and trading post of Richard Smith. Female sachem Quaiapen lived near Cocumscussoc and was associated with nearby Queen's Fort after inheriting her husband's lands in 1657. Most of Cocumscussoc was used for agriculture, though the last dairy farm closed in 1948. The creation of a railroad in the 1800s and the expansion of Route 1 greatly altered the course of Cocumscussoc Brook. Today Cocumscussoc State Park preserves much of the land surrounding Cocumscussoc Brook.
John Smith was a founding settler of Providence in what would become the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Smith joined Roger Williams at the Seekonk River in 1635 after both were expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony. In early 1636 they crossed the river to found Providence where Smith later built and operated the town's gristmill.