Rhode Island History

King's Providence, 1882

2011-01-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

The full, searchable, text of "King's Pocket-book of Providence, R.I.", published originally by Moses King, Cambridge, Mass., in 1882 through Tibbitts, Shaw & Co., Providence, RI can be found at this link.

This month in Rhode Island history - May

2007-05-01T03:01:00.000-04:00

May 1650 - William Dyre is elected Attorney-General and Hugh Burt is elected Solicitor-General.

Origin of the Shoreline/Northeast Corridor Through Rhode Island

2005-10-14T07:45:00.000-04:00

The stretch of railroad which runs through East Greenwich was originally known as the Providence & Stonington Railroad. Construction began at Providence at Fields Point (its northern terminus) in 1832 and was completed to Stonington (its southern terminus) in 1837.

A ferry took passengers from Fields Point to Fox Point where the Boston-bound passengers and freight transferred to the Boston & Providence Railroad, crossed the Seekonk River at India Point (originally over a covered railroad bridge) to the Seekonk shore (East Providence didn't exist as such yet), then to Boston.

Of interesting note is that some of the bridges along this line, including the stone railroad bridge at King Street were designed by West Point's George Washington Whistler, husband to Anna Matilda Whistler (aka Whistler's Mother). George died of cholera in 1849 while working as chief engineer for Tsar Nicolas I, supervising the construction of the railroad between Moscow and St Petersburg.

Removal of the Old Jamestown Bridge

2005-10-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

image courtesy of www.HistoryThroughPhotos.com

The RIDOT has awarded the demolition contract to Cashman Equipment Corporation for a bid price of $19,450,000. The old bridge, designed by Parsons, Klapp, Brinckerhoff and Douglas of New York was built at a total cost of $3,002,218.02.

Chronology of the old Jamestown Bridge:

1933-1938 Funding & approval for the bridge

1938-1940 Construction

July 27, 1940 Christening

August 2-4, 1940 Dedication

1940-1969 Operation of the bridge by the Jamestown Bridge Commission

1969-1990 Operation of the bridge by the State of Rhode Island

Welcome!

2005-08-11T21:45:00.000-04:00

Welcome the the Rhode Island History Blog. I chose to start this weblog because I had heard about people and places of Rhode Island but could not find out that much about them. The toughest question I have gotten so far is, "what is Duby's Grove and where is it?"

About the only thing I could find about it was that it was an amusement park along the Pawtuxet River, in Warwick and that it had a train station (see http://www.historythroughphotos.com/RR_Depots/Railroad_Depots_D.html ).