One of the delights of my recent Walk Across New England (WANE) was walking through history.
And a particular highlight of that aspect was a near-sunset stroll through the historical “Rice City” near the Connecticut border on Rhode Island’s North-South Trail.
The congregation dates to 1813, but the building goes back “only” to the 1840s.
As this informative Reddit thread put it –
One of the villages that was created [In the late 18th century / early 19th century] was Rice City. It was built along the Providence and Norwich Turnpike and spread north up Vaughn Hollow Road. The toll for this turnpike still stands today, albeit hardly…. At first, the village primarily consisted of a hotel and a few taverns. In fact, the village received its name from one of the tavern owners, Samuel Rice. The people of Rice City quickly became known as a rowdy group of individuals who lived a wild life of sin. Stories spread far and wide about their long nights of heavy drinking and gambling. While the village was home to a few taverns, none were more boisterous than the tavern owned by Rice.. However, with the Second Great Awakening sweeping through America in the 19th century, new preachers and churches began to pop up in Rice City and the town’s wild ways began to subside. Two of these churches still stand today…
A sign outside one the private homes that’s a 1800 building.
That little snippet sets the scene for the wild-frontier-turn-village vibe that I found in Rice City.
The amateur historian in me, who loves to take it in by walking and seeing, lamented how I did not have enough time to take it all in. There are twenty-seventy buildings, some of which are nearly three hundred years old, and a place I wanted to savor more than the time available to me.
I had miles to make to the public lands, always scarce in Rhode Island, before dark came. And due to the locations, it’s a bit difficult to see on foot.
Luckily, I stayed with my buddy Tim for a few days after the hike. He and his wife, Tracey, live less than a 15-minute drive from this site.
While Tim worked, Tracey and I drove to the place and walked through this open-air museum for a couple of hours. Her and Tim’s motorcycle rides in this area proved invaluable in helping to find the buildings listed above, which a historical archive confirmed.
We drove up on an overcast day, reminding me that I time my New England walk well before the colors of autumn gave way to the overcast gray skies of November.
The first stop was looking at the nearby 1840s school next to the church.
1840s schoolhouse.
The separate doors for boys and girls, and the time period of the construction, showed the transition from the rough and tumble “truck stop” on this route from Providence to a more place of families, farms, and worship, as indicated above, that came about from one of America’s periodic religious movements that seem to happen in our country.
Nearby were the two buildings I literally walked past on my hike, missing them because of the setting sun.
1817 Democrat schoolhouse.
The “Democrat Schoolhouse” pre-dates public schooling in this country and may almost be thought of as a proto-charter school. An earlier sign that Rice City changed from a rowdy town at the edge of the frontier in Colonial-era America to a settlement.
And next door? The 1804 Potter house, a small store and lodging that made my inner thru-hiker wish it was still open on some level!
1804 Potter house.
Further down the road, on a literal level, we found the (in)famous circa 1796 site of the Rice Tavern, which gives the area its name.
The infamous Rice Tavern.
Privately owned and not quite as well preserved as the others, it does evoke the era well.
Part of me conjured up the sounds of drinking, gambling, and some other activities that, no doubt, happened behind those walls.
But the Gen Xer in me also immediately thought of a scene from a particular famous space opera –
Tracey and I hunted around for the toll booth with no luck at first, but then a lightbulb went off and she remembered the building from an earlier ride.
Sure enough, at the outskirts of the area, we spotted the building in question.
A bit dilapidated and covered in TGIF-like tchotchkes, a circa 1732 building that once collected tolls does not seem too bad of shape overall.
Just down the road from this area is the Vernon Tavern from 1760. You can see the foundations of the old buildings across the street that served horses and coaches.
A private home that appears in excellent condition.
The following day, I got inspired to play local historian again and check out some other aspects of my home state that I did not see much of growing up.
First up meant a visit to the old railroad depots of Summit and Greene.
1862 Summit Baptist Church. From Patch.com
To again quote the Reddi thread linked above –
Unfortunately, just as quickly as it rose, Rice City met its demise. In 1853, the Hartford, Providence, and Fishkill railroad (now the Washington bike path) was built through western Rhode Island and much of the traffic that once made its way into Rice City via the Providence and Norwich Turnpike disappeared. Before long, the businesses in Rice City realized they couldn’t compete with new rail-stop villages like Greene and the numerous taverns and small shops were forced to close.
The railroad, now a rail trail, I briefly crossed on my walk.
A portion of the path that’s a few minutes’ bike ride from my childhood home. From the Providence Journal.
The Summit General Store, recently reopened, is a significant landmark in its own right. And a good place to grab some coffee before I drove to the Nathaniel Greene Homestead.
The Greene Homestead. The rear of the house is currently located on a paved road.
Located in what is now the Anthony Village of the Pawtuxet River Valley, it is a mere ten-minute walk from my childhood home. And something I never toured!
Gen. Nathaniel Greene is considered second only to Washington among American generals during the American Revolutionary War, and his name lives on in the southern United States through the many landmarks and cities that now bear his name.
As with many locals, I did not appreciate the area’s history until much later, after I left. The Greene Homestead was “just there.”
When I signed the visitor register on the last day open for the season, no less, the number of visitors across the United States, and even a few international visitors, underscored the importance of these places I never gave much thought to growing up.
Beyond the military importance of Greene himself, the location of this homestead underscores the importance of rivers in New England history, as they powered the mill and foundry that made the Greene fortune.
The Pawtuxet River just after a dam.
My own family is deeply tied into this area, too.
The late-nineteenth century brought textile mills to this area. With dams to power them, Rhode Island became an economic powerhouse that seems distant in time today.
Anthony Mill. – now an apartment complex. The smokestack? Partially took down sometime after I left. The Catholic school and church I attended are still there, standing just behind the shopping center.
By the late 1800s and early 1900s, many Catholic immigrants arrived in the area, and the churches, social clubs, and school names still reflect this pattern. French Canadians, Azorean Portuguese, Poles, and southern Italians all worked the mills.
You can see why the pre-dam river got called “Flat River” as another name.
A few miles downriver, and perhaps a fifteen-minute drive away, sits the site of the Natick mills.
A nearly forgotten labor strike throughout New England notoriously involved armed troops with machine guns trying to quell the strike of the almost entirely foreign-born workforce in Natick, specifically.
The 1930 census tells many tales about this mill village. Almost every household had two parents from Italy, sometimes a grandparent or two, perhaps a child or two born in Italy, and nearly all the children born in the United States, including my paternal grandmother.
Growing up, many of the last names in the rural part of the state reflected an earlier era.
The various last names that reflect traditional ethnic Catholic identity?
Mainly in industrial areas near Providence. A trend that began to change in the 1970s and 1980s, as the grandchildren of immigrants came of age and moved to the “remote” part of Rhode Island to start their own families.
From colonial taverns to textile strikes, the past 250+ years of Rhode Island history aren’t just abstract; they’re personal.
If my walk through New England let me reconnect with the outdoors that shaped me, and explore the region’s colonial and early American past, then this post-hike journey let me walk through the landscape of my own family history. The river valleys powered the mills and foundries that drew immigrants to Rhode Island; people who shaped the region’s culture, food, and even its language.
And now, more than a hundred years later, I find myself in a desert landscape, writing about New England and the roots I still carry with me.
And here’s a non-historical 1990s covered bridge near my friends’ home. Classic New England…if not really classic Rhode Island. 🙂