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IN OLD NARRAGANSETT

ROMANCES AND REALITIES

BY
ALICE MORSE EARLE

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK, 1898

TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK

FOREWORD

Some of these stories of old Narragansett are familiar fireside tales to those who have lived in that picturesque land; some are but vague traditions, others summer dreams; a few are family chronicles; still others are outlined in that interesting memoir, Thomas R. Hazard’s “Recollections of the Olden Times,” or in Updike’s “Narragansett Church.” Old Narragansett was, properly, all the lands occupied by the Narragansett Indians at the coming of the English. Narragansett is now, popularly, the coast sweep of the western shore of Narragansett Bay from Wickford to Point Judith. In 1685 Narragansett was made a separate government apart from Rhode Island, and was called the Kings Province. When reunited with Rhode Island this was changed to King’s County. For many years, and by some old people to-day, it is called the South County, but its legal name is Washington County, which was given it in 1781; Washington being a more agreeable and tolerable name at that date to loyal Americans than King’s. Narragansett was owned by a comparatively small number of persons, and estates were large, one family owned a tract nine miles long and three wide. Thomas Stanton had a “lordship” four and a half miles long and two wide. Colonel Champlin owned two thousand acres, Thomas Hazard twelve thousand acres. Farms of five, six, even ten miles square existed.