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    Misquamicut
    Misquamicut
    Misquamicut
    Ebook166 pages54 minutes

    Misquamicut

    By Donald L. Gentile and Bernard L. Gordon

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    About this ebook

    Originally named Pleasant View, Misquamicut is a lovely stretch of beach located in southern Rhode Island. Court Bliven and his wife named the area for its remarkable views. They built the first cottage, called the Pioneer, in 1894 and the Wigwam Hotel in 1905. The trolley came to the area in 1908, and by 1911, there were three major hotels, a casino, a village square, and 150 cottages. Its Victorian charm attracted visitors from all parts of the country, but the Hurricane of 1938 devastated Misquamicut and destroyed many of its photographs. Misquamicut brings together more than 200 vintage postcards, many very rare, in chronological order dating from 1894 to today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 12, 2010
    ISBN9781439637579
    Misquamicut
    Author

    Donald L. Gentile

    Donald L. Gentile and Bernard L. Gordon have lived in Misquamicut all their lives. Almost all the postcards in Misquamicut have come from their personal collections. Many of the postcards from the 1960s to 2008 were published by Gordon, whose postcard collection numbers in the thousands.

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      Book preview

      Misquamicut - Donald L. Gentile

      possible.

      INTRODUCTION

      Misquamicut’s history begins with the geology that physically shaped the area. Two glacial periods 17,000 and 21,000 years ago configured the area topography. With the melting of the glaciers, rocks, large boulders, and sediment, called outwash, were deposited along our coast. As the sea level rose, the salt ponds and barrier beaches were formed. The Winnapaug Pond and the Maschaug Pond were a result of this process. The moraine in Misquamicut ends at the Shore Road, and south of the Shore Road is the coastal plain. The elevation of the coastal plain is from sea level to about 20 feet, which lends this area to coastal flooding. The Misquamicut Hills area, located on the moraine, has an elevation of nearly 100 feet above sea level. This terminal moraine extends to the Atlantic Ocean at both Weekapaug and Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Between these two moraines lie nearly 10 miles of the beautiful, sandy, dune-capped beaches of Weekapaug, Misquamicut, and Watch Hill.

      The area had been mapped and explored in the 1500s by explorer Giovanni diVerrazzano, and again by Adriaen Block in 1614. In the spring of 1632, the Pequots engaged in a bitter war with the Narragansetts (which included the Eastern Niantics) for control of the area called Misquamicut, a Native American word meaning red fish for the abundance of salmon found at this location. In 1660, Native American chief Sosoa transferred the title of his Misquamicut lands, or Ascomicut, to Westerly’s early settlers. They had petitioned the Assembly of the Providence Plantations at Portsmouth on August 27, 1661, to purchase the land in a transaction known as the Misquamicut Purchase. Farms were developed off the Shore Road as early as the 1700s. In Misquamicut these were the Clark, Crandall, and Saunders farms. The beach at Misquamicut was void of any permanent buildings for hundreds of years. A few fish shacks existed on the beach, but farmers considered the beach useless except for seaweed, which they gathered for fertilizer. In the summers by the late 1800s, people began to come to the shores of Misquamicut. Because of the lack of any boarding facilities, people would pitch tents and camp on the dunes and the beach, which led to clusters of tents in certain areas. The tent city at the end of Benson Avenue was quite considerable, and had its own celebration every August.

      Misquamicut did not develop into a community until the early 1900s. Between 1894 and 1910, more than 140 cottages and businesses were built and established here. By 1920 there were four major hotels and a village center called Post Office Square. The 1920s and 1930s brought visitors here in large numbers. Pleasant View was becoming well known, and people were coming here from all parts of the country. Its name was changed back to Misquamicutt by the United States Postal Service in 1928. Misquamicut suffered major hurricanes in both 1938 and 1954. In the 1940s, the military police patrolled the Misquamicut shores day and night. In 1959 the Misquamicut State Beach opened. By the late 1960s, Misquamicut was known as Sin City for its rowdy bars and nightlife. In 1975, Route 78 was built and people came here by the thousands. After much improvement over recent years, Misquamicut is a first-class residential and resort community. The constant throughout Misquamicut’s history has always been and always will be its natural beauty.

      —Don Gentile February 2009

      One

      PLEASANT VIEW 1894–1928

      During the summer of 1894, Court Bliven had a tent with his family just east of Capt. James Thompson’s small fish house. It was such a delightful place to spend the summer that Bliven told his friends and neighbors about it. He bought the lot from William Saunders and erected The Pioneer, the first cottage at Pleasant View.

      Even though this postcard reads The Dunes, Weekapaug, it is a view from the Weekapaug side of the breachway, looking west at the Pleasant View dunes. The farms along the Shore Road at this time were the Clark, Crandall, and Saunders farms.

      This was the second cottage built by Court Bliven at Pleasant View, Rhode Island. It was built by Bliven in 1895 adjacent to The Pioneer Cottage. This building, along with an addition, became The Wigwam Hotel in 1905.

      These are the original Pleasant View Cottages built in the period from 1894 to 1900. After the Pioneer cottage was completed in August 1894, Bliven’s friends from Westerly purchased the sandy strip of beach adjacent to his cottage. Building immediately commenced and real estate sales had begun at Pleasant View. These 50-foot-by-150-foot lots sold for $50 in 1894.

      Trudy Bliven was down at the shore with her husband to inspect the progress of their new cottage, the Pioneer. When their horse and buggy came to the top of the dune next to their new cottage, she examined the panoramic views afforded from Watch Hill to Weekapaug and exclaimed, What a pleasant view! This became the name of this new beach area in Westerly.

      The hotel era arrived in 1903, when

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