Upon entering the nineteenth-century stable that is now 48 Crestwood Road during the Great Depression, a visitor to the old Waterhouse estate ‘on the hill’ which lies between Warwick and East Greenwich would have found a gloomy, cavernous space. They might have seen a young girl playing on a tire swing that hung from a beam on the first floor, or perhaps they would have seen her father watching vigilantly out of one of the building’s few windows. His bargain with the landowner? To keep an eye on the comings and goings of workmen in lieu of paying the rent that he could not afford to pay.

What a surprise that visitor would have had when returning to the same property just over thirty years later… Upstairs: a light-filled and airy modern home replete with fashionable furnishings imported from Copenhagen, geometrical light shades, pale birch woodwork, crisp white walls and an abstract painting, all arranged around a black, cantilevered hearth of reinforced concrete set into white masonry. Downstairs: a barely begun drafting room soon to be fitted out with bespoke cabinets and bookshelves. Outside: a sprawling garden of one and a quarter acres with magnificent views of Greenwich Bay, also in the process of being tamed…

The authors of these changes were Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee and J. Carol Fulkerson. Pattee was an architect and landscape architect by profession and a keen traveller, photographer and conservationist by avocation who purchased the property in 1955. By that point the stable had already been converted into a habitable dwelling by its previous owners, but a lot of work remained to be done in order to bring the house and its grounds up to Pattee’s exacting standards. These emphasised a comprehensive understanding of design which integrated approaches to architecture, landscape architecture, ecology and interior decoration ‘for [the purpose of healthy] living’.

This was a philosophy that Pattee developed over many years as a result of her educational background. She began her career as an architectural draftswoman, having obtained a BS degree in architecture from MIT in 1916, before shifting her focus to landscape architecture, which she studied at the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women from 1916 to 1918. Here, she would have learned about botany, planting and surveying. Ecology and conservation issues would have been present in her training too, but it was not until the 1950s that these came to the forefront of her work as an educator and advocate for good design practice.

One topic of concern to Pattee and the nascent conservation movement in Rhode Island in general at this time was the sustainable development of the local shoreline. For Pattee, this necessitated a reconciliation of the functional needs of people and the requirements of the natural environment. In recent times, this has been realised in the planning of the nearby Buttonwoods Beach. Today, these principles are so often taken for granted that it is easy to miss the novelty of the way in which Pattee's home reconfigured the relationship between house, user and landscape in order to reflect the integrity of all three.

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According to local legend, in 1776 militia from the Head of Westport broke ranks with the remainder of their contingent to eat bread and cheese and to drink from the brook. The brook could also have been named after simple meals eaten on its banks by picnickers, farm and mill workers, and lovers of nature. As its importance to the residents of Westport evolved, Bread and Cheese Brook’s ambiguous name continued to reflect its practical and recreational uses. In the 18th century, the land that forms the Brookside Conservation Area held farms and homes of prominent Westport families including the Babcocks and the Giffords. Bread and Cheese Brook was central to this early agricultural economy, its water important to livestock and its banks a popular spot to dine on produce from fields and pastures In addition to his farm, George Gifford built a grain mill powered by the flow of the brook’s waters. In keeping with Westport’s colorful place names, locals referred to Gifford’s enterprise as Mouse Mill, since it supposedly processed only enough grain to feed a mouse. As Westport’s economy expanded and technology improved, the Giffords converted the Mouse Mill into a shingle and wagon spoke factory. A bit further downstream, where the brook joins the Noquochoke River, more powerful currents powered larger mills in the 19th century. Perhaps mill workers joined farmhands eating a quick lunch beside the brook. In the 20th century, lunch at the brook moved indoors to the Brookside restaurant where diners enjoyed the view through windows. By 2009, the restaurant stood abandoned and Westport voters approved expenditure from the Community Preservation Fund to protect the socially and environmentally important area and to provide public access. Today, the Brookside Conservation Area is managed by the Westport Land Conservation Trust for the benefit of residents and visitors. Although people today might be more likely to bring peanut butter and jelly to the brook rather than bread and cheese, lunching on its banks is still an important part of the brook’s identity along with fishing, hiking, and enjoying the picturesque remains of the century-old Granite Bridge. Although Westport’s economy no longer depends on Bread and Cheese Brook, the health of the Westport River Watershed and the town’s aquifer still rely on this small portion of the river system. The Westport River Watershed Alliance works with the town of Westport to monitor the conditions of Bread and Cheese Brook to ensure its future enjoyment by picnickers, hikers, and nature lovers.

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The water near the landing is part of an estuary, which means that salt water moving in from Buzzard’s Bay meets fresh water washing down the river. It’s a unique and beautiful natural space. At the time of King Philip’s War, in the late 1670s, the west branch of the Westport River (then called the Acoaxet River) was inhabited by a branch of the Sakonnet people led by Mamanuah, whose stepmother was Awashonks, sachem of the Sakonnets who inhabited the west side of Little Compton. The English at that time considered the entire area to be part of Plymouth Colony, whose leaders refused to acknowledge the dual leadership of the Sakonnet people. They preferred to deal solely with Mamanuah, whose land holdings were more extensive than Awashonks’. To reward Mamanuah and his people for their assistance in fighting King Philip, the English granted them deeds to some of their ancestral lands on the Acoaxet River including the area around Adamsville Landing. These deeds became a source of power for the native inhabitants, who sold their land in piecemeal to the English settlers in ways that were “troublesome and costly” to the purchasers. With this land as leverage, Mamanuah’s people were more able to resist the indentured servitude and displacement experienced by Awashonks’ people. However, in the sixty years that followed King Philp’s War, the Adamsville area gradually became English property as a result of systemic colonization, coercion, and indebtedness. An 1861 census report of native peoples in Massachusetts indicated that the west side of the Westport River remained the “most numerous settlement” of the descendants of the Sakonnets, although they no longer held deeds to the land. Official documents can’t tell the whole story of the land. Information included in historical timelines—and in historical tours—is limited, carefully worded and selected, and never neutral. We should always be asking more questions. How did ideas of land ownership differ between the English and the Sakonnets? What role did the threat of violence play in the dealings between these cultures? Today, Adamsville Landing is a common destination for kayakers and canoers on scenic day trips. Maybe, today, as you take this tour, that’s what you’re doing. What does it mean to be paddling here? Who does this land belong to, and what does it mean to own a river? A salt marsh? A forest? Who else has paddled here, and when, and why? How can you engage more deeply and critically with the many, many histories of the land around you?

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An ongoing four-year project of the Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA) is an initiative to reverse the nitrification of Cockeast Pond by planting half a million oysters in a fraction of the pond’s area. Residents of Westport have long been familiar with oysters as source of food–and employment–but oysters might also be capable of solving a crippling environmental problem. It’s an exciting and new solution to a well-known problem. Pollution from human activity emits nitrogen via surface runoff, human and animal waste discharge, and emissions from combustion. Surface runoff, the flow of excess waters over Earth’s surface, is a particularly significant problem. Many farmers and homeowners treat their soil with nitrate-rich fertilizers, pesticides, and more, and when rainwater soaks through this soil it carries nitrates with it wherever it’s going. High levels of nitrogen in bodies of water cultivate the growth of algal blooms. Algae feed on nitrates and phosphates. When an excess of these nutrients appears, algae growth explodes. When algae die, their decomposition consumes oxygen. If there are enough algae, this process can deplete a body of water of oxygen. Since marine animals require oxygen to survive, algal blooms kill off fish and shellfish, as well as more complex species of plants that process nitrogen differently than algae. In addition, harmful bacteria can thrive as a result of algal blooms and sicken humans and animals that enter the infected body of water. Beaches have often closed off as a result of algae blooms. How do oysters fit into this? For decades, scientists have known that oysters are able to filter water and use its elements to build tissue and store waste ingredients in surrounding sediment. Microbes break down this sediment and release nitrogen into the water, where it emerges into the atmosphere as harmless gas in a process known as denitrification. So what would happen if someone put 500,000 oysters in a pond plagued by algal blooms? This was the question asked by researchers from the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), which has partnered with WRWA to test a theory that oysters could bring the nitrogen levels of Cockeast Pond under control. After 30,000 oysters passed a baseline survivability test in the spring of 2016, the EPA awarded the SMAST researchers over half a million dollars to take the next, much larger step. If this method of denitrification is successful, it will mean much more than the survival of Cockeast Pond. “Addressing the nitrogen problem along the South Coast, Cape Cod and the South Shore will cost billions of dollars if we only consider traditional strategies such as bigger wastewater treatment plants and more sewer lines,” reported Dr. Brian Howes from UMass Dartmouth. “We just don’t have the time or money for that course. It is, therefore, imperative that we find soft solutions that leverage nature, in this case the oyster, to make progress.” Success in the case of Cockeast Pond could lead to billions of dollars saved down the road if this method were applied all over the country and even the world.  Nothing is certain, but as of fall 2017, things are looking up.

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Pardon Gray Preserve has about 160 acres of mixed hardwoods that, when added to the adjacent Weetamoo Woods and Pocasset Ridge, is a highly valuable continuous canopy forest region. Within this forest are significant stands of a rare “coastal oak–holly” forest type, sometimes referred to as maritime oak holly.

While native holly is widespread in the southeastern United States, it only grows in southern New England along coastal areas. In scattered areas of this region a combination of climate, soils, and maritime conditions result in a particular mix of holly and oaks that is globally rare. The American holly tree (Ilex opaca) is the signature species of this natural community. It is the only native broadleaf evergreen tree in New England, and graces our otherwise drab winter forests with its glossy green foliage and red berries.

When the Pilgrims landed the week before Christmas in 1620 on the coast of what is now Massachusetts, the evergreen prickly leaves and red berries of the American holly reminded them of the English holly (Ilex aquifolium), a symbol of Christmas for centuries in England and Europe. Wild holly was widely gathered as a Christmas green, though in recent times it has been replaced by nursery grown horticultural varieties.

Oak–holly forests are oak-dominated with a prominent sub-canopy of American holly. Because of its slow growth and relatively short stature, holly is seldom dominant. It is rather an understory component, blending between the shrub layer and the sub-canopy. Oak–holly typically mixes with other forest types, often at the upper edge of forested wetlands such as red maple swamps. Upslope it often grades into oak–heath forest, which is precisely the situation at Pardon Gray Preserve. It is found along the corridor of forested wetland adjacent to the stone wall that borders the open field, and then fades into the drier, oak–heath forest found on drier soils higher up, east of the Ridge Trail.

Other trees typical to oak–holly forests include red, black, scarlet, and white oaks; black and yellow birch; sassafras; black cherry; American beech; tupelo; American hornbeam; and eastern hophornbeam. The understory includes a diverse shrub layer of sweet pepperbush, high bush and low bush blueberries, black huckleberry, wild red raspberry, sheep laurel, bayberry, and arrowwood viburnum. There is also a great diversity of woodland wildflowers and ferns to be found in the herbaceous layer on the forest floor.

Pardon Gray Preserve was protected primarily because of its assemblage of natural communities, as well as the ecological importance of the large regional forest of which it is part. All the forests of the Pocassetlands region are secondary growth, meaning they have been cut multiple times since European settlement. While some patches were suitable for small farm plots, rocky, glacial soils resulted in pasturing and wood lots for most of this area. The 1938 hurricane leveled essentially all large trees in this region, so the oldest trees in the Sakonnet forests are in the 100-125 year range.

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Vernal pools are temporary wetlands that annually fill with water in the winter and early spring and then become dry when the weather turns warmer, although some pools may not completely evaporate in a wet summer. When pools periodically dry, predatory fish cannot survive, and this results in a protected breeding environment for all sorts of critters. Vernal pools are excellent habitats for many amphibians and invertebrates to complete part of their life cycles.

Creatures found at the Pardon Gray pool include wood frogs, spotted salamanders, marble salamanders, and fairy shrimp. These species require the protected waters of a vernal pool to survive. Other local species may use the vernal pool but can survive in nearby wetland habitats. These include spring peepers, gray tree frogs, green frogs, leopard frogs, pickerel frogs, red-spotted salamanders, several species of turtles, dragonflies, and whirligig beetle larvae. Vernal pools also supply drinking water for other wildlife. When in proximity to other pools, vernal pools enable amphibians and reptiles to pass from one wetland to another.

Vernal pools are reproductive hatcheries for terrestrial amphibians. Though most of us do not encounter these creatures as we trek through the woods, several thousand wood frogs use a moderate-sized vernal pool to breed before returning to the forest. The nutrients and energy from decaying vegetation on the pool floor nourish the frogs and salamanders of the nearby woods. The complexity of these food webs within the pools maintains a balance that enables a sufficient number of individuals of each species to survive and maintain the population in future years.

Each fall as leaves drop into the pool, bacteria and fungi begin the decaying process at the base of the food chain. Zooplankton feed on the bacteria and fungi, and a variety of insect larvae feed on the leaves, a process continued by adult insect forms, snails, and small crustaceans. The leaves also provide food for hatching tadpoles. These creatures in turn become food for predaceous diving beetles, dragon and damsel flies, and water scorpions. Salamander larvae join the list of pool carnivores. Joining the food web nearer the top of the chains are turtles, snakes, wading birds, and raccoon.

The presence of vernal pools at Pardon Gray Preserve is important to maintaining the biodiversity on both a local and global scale.

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The 65-acre meadow alongside Main Road may be the most valuable wildlife habitat of Pardon Gray Preserve. Grasslands and open fields are disappearing in the Northeast due to the diminishing number of farms and expanding human development. This trend endangers the survival of eastern grassland nesting birds, along with the grasslands’ associated flora and fauna.

For thousands of years, open fields and scrublands were widespread across New England. Giovanni da Verrazano’s log from his 1524 exploration of Narragansett Bay described fields that “extend for 25 to 30 leagues; they are open and free of any obstacles or trees.” The 16th century landscape included a vast system of coastal salt marshes. Millions of beaver dams flooded woodlands to create “beaver meadows.” Native Americans burned woody vegetation surrounding their villages to create fields for farming, hunting, and wild berries. After European settlement, as much as two-thirds of New England forests were cleared for villages and farms, creating additional fields and meadows.

As development of Rhode Island expanded in the mid-1800s, this panorama of open fields began to disappear, and large grasslands are now scarce. Preserving the grassland at Pardon Gray Preserve is a primary goal of Tiverton Land Trust stewardship of the property. Two underlying conditions make meadows difficult to sustain. The first condition is natural: the default biome in New England is northern hardwood forest. Without beavers, haying, or pasturing, most land will eventually become forest.

The second condition is human-caused: the introduction of alien plant species that, in only a few years, can turn grassland into a thicket of plants foreign to our native ecosystems. Invasive species—because they didn’t evolve here—have few natural controls, and they disrupt the natural food web. The complex system of native plants and animals can break down and lead to disintegration of a natural community. The Tiverton Land Trust has worked hard to sustain the grassland habitat at Pardon Gray Preserve by planting native grasses and employing a late-season mowing regimen, after bird nesting.

An on-going experiment with a local beef farmer is also showing promising results. Pasturing livestock is a traditional activity that sustains grasslands and can coexist with ground nesting birds. However, normal grazing does little to stem the spread of alien plants because the animals avoid unfamiliar vegetation in favor of their usual forage. Restricting livestock to small grazing areas and using a daily “rotational” method causes grazing animals to be less selective. Each day the herd is moved to a different enclosure, and this creates a competitive urge to rush into the new area and graze aggressively, ahead of their herd mates. This “mob psychology” results in consumption of invasive plants, a more desirable control than herbicides. The hooved feet of grazing animals periodically trample the soil, keeping it from becoming compacted, and distribute nature’s best fertilizer.

Vast grasslands once stretched across the American Great Plains, with millions of acres of productive tall grass prairies. That ecosystem had its own rotational grazing—gigantic herds of American bison. While Pardon Gray’s operation is microscopic in comparison, the Tiverton Land Trust utilizes a similar natural method of sustaining its grassland, which supports local agriculture and helps preserve an important part of Tiverton’s farming history.

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In 1880, about 104,000 people lived in Providence. Thirty years later, the city’s population had more than doubled, reaching over 223,000 people. Most of this population increase was due to immigration; among those attracted to the city’s numerous manufacturing and industrial jobs were Irish, Italians, French Canadians, and Germans. This rapid population growth fueled the dramatic expansion of new residential areas at the city’s edges – areas like the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood of Mashapaug Pond. Today, although the people who call the neighborhood home have changed over time, Reservoir Triangle remains one of the most ethnically diverse spaces in the city.

In recent years, immigrants have come from such places as Cambodia, Ghana, and Vietnam. Since the 1950s, a large number of Latino immigrants also have made Providence their home. Today, Latinos make up close to forty percent of the city’s population and tiny Rhode Island is the twelfth most Hispanic state in the country. Asian Americans are also well represented within Providence, consisting of seven percent of the city’s population.

These groups – like the immigrants to the region in the early twentieth century – are united in their common interest to create new lives for themselves, using both what they find here in their new country as well as skills, traditions, and practices brought from their homelands. Immigrant groups and refugees in the United States face many challenges, but there is much to learn from neighborhoods where diverse groups work together to create positive change. In the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood, Mashapaug Pond can be the catalyst that unites these groups.

Mashapaug Pond, with its contaminated water and restricted access, can be an imposing site to newcomers in the neighborhood. Sokeo Ros, who moved to the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood from Cambodia, says that many of his neighbors avoid the pond: “It’s a beautiful neighborhood. It’s quiet, it’s not loud, it’s nice. There’s a lot of trees, which I like. I love trees. And then there’s this pond. That nobody goes near.” The big fences that surround the contaminated land of the former Gorham plant intimidate residents, block their view of the pond and create a culture of fear.

For some residents, the pond beckons with the opportunity to fish and enjoy nature in the city.  Samnang Yong, another Cambodian resident who grew up in the neighborhood in the 1980’s, remembers shopping at local Asian markets and fishing in the pond: “Coming from a country where we were just always fishing in our backyard. We don't expect anything, we just go and fish for food.” Now  years of pollution have made the fish unsafe to eat. Discouraging this practice and educating people about the pond is an ongoing struggle.

Some area residents try to teach their neighbors about the pond. Ana Quezada, originally from the Dominican Republic, works with the Environmental Justice League on outreach and education. She compares the neighborhood – and especially the presence of the pond and its plant and animal life – to her experiences growing up in the Dominican Republic. “Well for me being near the pond is normal because I come from the Dominican Republic. There it is hot all the time. We had a lot of mosquitos and we used to see all kinds of wild things.” Ana Quezada notes that her husband enjoys sitting out by the pond and that she has community events at her house. She hopes that in the future the cleaned up pond will be a more vibrant and lively space for all members of this diverse community.

Discussion Questions

Besides the United States, what other countries do you have ties to?

Do you smell any food being cooked in your neighborhood? What types of food does your family make at home?

What can the immigrant history of this area teach us about Providence and the United States?

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Rhode Island has a long history of industrial manufacturing. Slater Mill, on the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, is considered  the “birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution.” By the early 1800s, that fervor for manufacturing had spread, and companies, like the Gorham Manufacturing Company, appeared throughout the state. Known for its world-class products in bronze and silver, Gorham left behind a toxic legacy at the site where its Mashapaug Pond factory operated for nearly 100 years.

Today, the Gorham Manufacturing Company is infamous in the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood for polluting the water, soil, and air of the community. For all of the nineteenth century, and most of the twentieth century, there were few restrictions on companies’ use of potentially harmful materials.  At Gorham, workers regularly used cleaners with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), solvents, heavy metals such as lead, and other contaminants. With little thought to the environmental impact, these pollutants leached into the surrounding soil and water.

By the 1960s, industrial manufacturing had largely left Rhode Island and other states, and Americans were left to deal with the waste that factories had produced. The Environmental  Protection Agency (EPA), established in 1970, set guidelines to control industrial dumping and provided ways to force polluters to clean up contaminated sites. Two years later, the Clean Water Act of 1972, set water quality standards and prohibited the dumping industrial waste directly into waterways.

Textron, Inc., bought Gorham’s assets shortly before the passage of the Clean Water Act. In doing so they became responsible for the cleanup of the Gorham site, including Mashapaug Cove and the ground water. With help from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Textron has funded the effort to make the Gorham site safe for human use. It is a long process that is taking many years. Thus far, Textron has completed the ground remediation of the area that is now home to Alvarez High School and the Mashapaug Commons shopping center. Air filtration systems have also been added to both the school, shopping center, and nearby homes on Adelaide Avenue, ensuring the safety of local residents.

Further cleanup work includes covering contaminated soil with clean infill, dredging the Gorham “cove” of Mashapaug Pond to remove toxic sediment, and undertaking groundwater remediation throughout the area. Although it has been a slow process, this parcel will soon be safe for human recreational use. Eventually, the polluted land will hold a new neighborhood park and athletic fields for Alvarez High School.

Today, high levels of heavy metals, VOCs, PAHs, and dioxin are still found in the sediment of Mashapaug Cove. Carp, bass, and perch swim valiantly through the water, collecting chemical contaminants in their tissues. None of the fish in the pond are safe for human consumption. It is impossible to know whether these toxins are due solely to Gorham or if they have continually accumulated through storm-water runoff. Despite the extensive remediation work, Mashapaug Pond and the fish within it will remain contaminated, a legacy of the state’s industrial heritage.

Discussion Questions