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Images of
Quonset & Quidnessett
Quidnessett, bordered on the north
by the Hunts River and on the south by Fishing Cove and the Mill Creek, has
never possessed a defined village center, however it is most remarkable in that
it has really had three different and distinct lives as a community. The first
goes back all the way to the first half of the 1600’s when the earliest settlers
in the region began to clear and farm the land. The only locus of industry was
at the terminus of the Hunt River where both an iron forge and a mill existed;
additionally a long-standing gristmill was located on Camp Avenue at the head of
Mill Creek. During this phase of its history, Quidnessett was divided into North
and South and possessed a district schoolhouse in each of these districts.
The second
phase of the regions history involved the buying up and consolidated of many
smaller farms into a number of enormous “gentlemen’s estate” owned by some of
the most powerful men in the region. These men include industrial tycoon Charles
Davol, powerful textile barons C. Prescott Knight and Joseph Fletcher, brewer
William Hanley, Providence businessmen John Carter Brown, Moses Brown Ives
Goddard, and Crawford Allen, and New York City businessman Charles Welling and
his wife Katherine among others. Between them these men owned virtually the
entire Quidnessett area and utilized the land as their own private playground
installing hunting preserves, horse farms, and even a full sized racetrack for
trotters. The final phase of Quidnessett’s history is marked by the acquisition
of nearly all of South Quidnessett for development of a military base in the
late 1930’s. The base, named Quonset Point/Davisville, was constructed in
record time as pressure mounted for the US to enter WWII. Over the years the
remaining land in Quidnessett has been developed for housing.
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