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Images of
Saunderstown
Originally
named Willettville after the region’s first settler in 1680, Andrew Willett, the
son of the first mayor of New York City, this area has a long history as a
farming community, then later a fishing and shipbuilding center, and finally as
a summer resort area. It received its present name in honor of the ship
building family of John Aldrich Saunders, who settled there in 1856, at the
invitation of the Carpenter family, the direct descendants of the original
Willett settlers, and Lafayette businessman Robert Rodman, and constructed a
marine railway and shipyard. The Saunders family constructed ships there as
well as maintained a summer hotel and a ferry service to Jamestown, Newport,
Wickford, and Providence. It was during this remarkable timeframe that
Saunderstown became renowned as a literary summer community attracting the likes
of the Whartons, LaFarges, Lockwoods, Wisters, and Roosevelts. Over the last 50
years or so, the areas homes have largely been slowly converted to year round
residences.
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