When schoolteacher Josephine Field Wilbor returned to her hometown of Little Compton in 1910, she found one room schoolhouses with outhouse lavatories, classrooms without heat or electricity, and students of all ages crammed into the same space. Educated at one of the nation’s first “normal” schools for teachers (now Rhode Island College), Wilbor made it her life mission to improve public education in Little Compton.
The problems Wilbor encountered ran deeper than upgrade of the town’s school buildings. Previous reformers like Sarah Brownell met resistance from residents reluctant to spend money on improving the schools or change the existing system, even for health reasons. When Brownell closed the Union School on the Common in 1891 because of uninhabitable conditions, parents demanded that it be reopened.
Long-time resident Carlton Brownell recalled the conditions of the district #2 schoolhouse in 1925: “I don’t remember when they first decided we shouldn’t drink out of the dipper in the bucket anymore. They provided paper cups and they were like little envelopes, they were ridiculous. So everyone would hold ‘em and put their whole hand right in the water. So there’s your great effort at sanitation. … It was primitive.”
Increasing numbers of students also placed strain on the system. After dropping below one-thousand residents in the 1880s, Little Compton’s population, fed by Azorean and Portuguese immigrants, boomed by the time Wilbor returned to town. The cramped, run-down, and unsanitary schools were ill-equipped to provide a modern education to the town’s growing number of children.
After assuming her position as director of Union School, Wilbor campaigned to organize the schools by grade level, citing the difficulties of teaching a multitude of education levels in the same place. In response to teachers’ claims that it was difficult to teach and learn in non-graded, one-room schoolhouses, many residents echoed the sentiment, So what? Countless Little Compton children had gone through the same system and had made out just fine.
Future Little Compton school superintendent, Benjamin S. Tubman, summed up this sentiment in a 1928 article in the Providence Journal: “One never heard them extolling the superiority of their grandfather’s venerable oxcart over the family automobile as a means of traveling.”
Wilbor won a minor victory with partial grading of the schools, and from 1918 to 1921, Little Compton had its own high school on the second floor of town hall. In 1921, Wilbor ran for town treasurer and tax collector and became the first woman in Rhode Island to hold an elective position other than school committee member. Through these positions, she advocated for increased school spending.
But Wilbor had even bigger fish to fry: a modern central school building for all grade levels. She rallied the support of the school committee and the Rhode Island Commissioner of Education. A heated battle ensued between education reformers and residents who claimed a new school would break the town.
In the midst of this battle, at the age of 48, Josephine Wilbor succumbed to pneumonia, her strength broken under the pressure of her work, according to her obituary. The fight for education reform did not end with Wilbor’s death. Buoyed by increasing support from Little Compton residents, construction began in 1928 on the Common, and doors opened to students in fall of 1929.
In a salute to Wilbor’s tireless dedication, officials named the new facility Josephine F. Wilbur School. Although Wilbor’s name was apparently misspelled, her school continues to serve the educational needs of Little Compton’s children.
]]>In 1891, American author Jane G. Austin (not to be confused with the better-known English writer, Jane Austen), wrote in the preface to her novel, Betty Alden: The First-Born Daughter of the Pilgrims, “He who would read for himself the story of this noble woman must seek it through ancient volumes and mouldering records, until at Little Compton in Rhode Island he finds upon her gravestone the last affectionate and honorable mention of Elizabeth, daughter of John and Priscilla Alden, and wife of William Pabodie.”
Elizabeth Pabodie (or Peabody), commonly known as Betty Alden, is famous for being the first white woman born in New England. It’s impossible to know if that’s the historical truth—and it took almost 200 years for her to be given that distinction.
Born in 1623 or 1624 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Betty Alden was the daughter of Mayflower pilgrims John and Priscilla Alden. She married William Pabodie in Duxbury, Massachusetts, around the age of twenty and gave birth to thirteen children. In her 60s, she, William, and two of their children moved to Little Compton.
Just like any other woman in her time and circumstances, Betty worked hard and raised her children, scratching out life in a new colony. There is no evidence to suggest that her death in 1717 received special tribute or acknowledgement. However, 175 years later, Betty Alden became memorialized in popular imagination because of the timing and location of her birth.
The life of Betty’s husband, William Pabodie, included several notable accomplishments—Little Compton founder, first town clerk, prayer service leader—but he is overshadowed by his wife’s legendary status, a historical reversal of fortune that might provoke some people to say, It’s about time.
Local reverence for Betty began in the second half of the nineteenth century, and it remains strong. During the period known as the Colonial Revival, Americans looked to an idealized—and sometimes fictional—past for comfort in the face of changing times that included waves of immigrants, rapid industrialization and new technology, and changing family dynamics and gender roles.
Despite the poems, novels, and Betty Alden folklore, it’s possible that she wasn’t actually the first white girl born in New England. Detractors claim it’s unlikely that no other white girls were born in the three-year period between the landing of the Mayflower and Betty’s birth, given the double-digit numbers of children common to families of the era.
But Betty is the one we continue to remember. Town historian Sarah Soule Wilbour started raising funds for the monument in 1847. In June of 1882, she noted in her diary, “We went to see the monument put up yesterday. It is a great satisfaction to me to know that the thing is done. I have had it on my mind for 35 years.” Betty Alden’s simple original grave marker is embedded into the west side of this memorial.
]]>In the Old Burial Ground is an odd grave maker. It reads, “In memory of Elizabeth, who Should have been the Wife of Mr. Simeon Palmer… died Augst 14th 1776 in the 64th year of her age.” A clue to the meaning of this inscription may lie in a 1901 account by a Little Compton resident of an eccentric belief held by local minister Richard Billings, who “firmly believed in cats as an article of diet, and fatted them for the purpose.”
Little Compton’s original proprietors set aside the land for the Burial Ground in 1678, and the oldest marker belongs to Mary Rouse Price, who died in 1698. Other stones mark the graves of children who died with alarming frequency in the early years of the town, victims of epidemics, and many of Little Compton’s most notable residents including Primus Collins and Betty Alden, whose stories are also available on Rhode Tour.
The story of Simeon and Elizabeth Palmer might be the Burial Ground’s most unusual. Lying next to the woman who “should have been the wife of Simeon Palmer” is the grave of Lidia Palmer, identified as the “Wife of Simeon Palmer.” According to one local legend, Simeon Palmer jilted Elizabeth during their courtship and married Lidia instead. In fact, Elizabeth actually was the wife of Simeon for 21 years. They married in 1755, after Simeon’s first wife, Lidia, died.
In 1901, Little Compton resident M.L.T. Alden offered another explanation for the perplexing stone. If his account is true, it is even more fascinating than the legend.
According to Alden, whose source was “the antiquarian of the village,” Simeon Palmer adopted Reverend Billings’ habit of including cat meat as part of his regular diet, perhaps because an attack of heat stroke left him “mildly insane.” Simeon attempted to force his wife and baby daughter to partake in his cat meat diet, but Elizabeth would not have it. She took their daughter and moved into her parents’ home.
Simeon and Elizabeth continued to maintain a semblance of a marriage. Simeon visited his wife and daughter on Sundays, and Elizabeth took care of her husband’s laundry and mending. But Simeon remained bitter about this arrangement, and when Elizabeth died he ordered her gravestone engraved with the unusual epitaph. The “should have been” referred to Elizabeth’s refusal to perform her duties as a wife by living with her husband.
Church records indicate that Simeon married a third time and moved to New York State. Whether he continued to eat cats is unknown.
]]>Primus Collins was a man with great responsibilities within his community. He mediated disputes, ensured that laws were obeyed, and handed out punishments when necessary. He was similar to any other governor, with one exception—Primus Collins had once been a slave.
Collins was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1777, to enslaved parents Sorphox and Phillis. At the age of four, Primus’s master gave him to Colonel William Richmond of Little Compton with a term of twenty-five years of servitude. During the Revolutionary War, Richmond gained fame by raising a regiment to fight for America’s independence.
According to the 1800 Federal census, Collins belonged to a small group of twenty-two enslaved African-Americans in Little Compton. Colonel Richmond owned other enslaved persons, including Saul and Saul’s wife (name unknown). Richmond gave one of the couple’s children to local clergyman Mase Shepard.
By the end of the American Revolution, most slaves in Little Compton had been freed or their contracts turned into apprenticeships. Some had joined the black regiments in the Revolutionary War with the promise of freedom in exchange for serving. Primus remained enslaved.
Around 1800, Colonel Richmond freed Collins, releasing him from his term of service about five years early. There are no records to indicate why Richmond’s attitude toward slavery changed, but he also gave Collins a farm plot adjacent to his own land that became known as Primus’ Flat Iron because of its triangular shape.
This land gave Collins the legal right to vote in state and local elections as a free, property-owning man. However, the first time Collins tried to vote, the moderator at the polling station would not allow him to cast a ballot. His former master, Colonel William Richmond, who had encouraged Collins to vote in the first place, interceded on his behalf, raising his cane and shouting, “That man shall vote!” and Collins was able to cast his ballot.
The legal status of freed slaves was unclear in early nineteenth century America. The voting laws in some states allowed people like Primus Collins access to local politics. Perhaps in response, Little Compton’s Isaac Wilbour, Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, supposedly inserted the word “white” into the state voting statute. The voting rights issue would not be resolved until the passage of the 15th amendment in 1870.
In spite of this, Collins continued to vote in Little Compton throughout his long life. He married, purchased additional land, and upon his death in 1858 left this inheritance to his daughters, including Lucy, shown in the photograph. Collins was nominated to serve on the Rhode Island General Assembly, but racial sentiments prevailed and he was not appointed.
Throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, black communities in New England chose their governors on an appointed “‘Lection Day,” an event that combined North American and West African celebratory traditions.
‘Lection Day usually began with a procession to the polling place, and a “grand jollification” when the ballots were counted and the winner of the election was declared. The celebration included singing, dancing, and another procession to the home of the new governor, who treated supporters to food and rum.
It was a fitting celebration for a new governor, and for the life of a remarkable man who achieved success far beyond the boundaries that confined him. His grave is located in the Old Burial Grounds next to his wife and daughters.
]]>Designated the “Oldest Continuously Operating Store in the United States” in 2007 by Rhode Island officials, Gray’s Store was forced to close after the unexpected death of its owner Grayton Waite in 2012. The store was first established by Samuel Church in 1788, and the Gray Family purchased it in 1879. Grayton Waite was the sixth generation of that family to own and operate the store. His son Jonah is now the seventh-generation owner of the store and he hopes to reopen the business in a way that will benefit the community.
Gray’s Store was also the site of the first post office in all of Little Compton. It remained the only post office from 1804 until a second office was established on the Commons in 1830. Both Manchester’s Store and Gray’s Store had post offices inside them, with the official post office rotating between the stores depending on which political party was in power and had the ability to appoint a new postmaster.
Mary Moniz ran the third Adamsville Post Office from a small building on Crandall Road built on family land. The fourth post office, pictured here and still in use today on Crandall Road, was built in the 1950s by George Carr, the Postmaster at the time.
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]]>Adamsville’s first mill was established by Philip Taber prior to 1700. Most early mills in the Little Compton area were wind-powered, but in order to saw wood, it was necessary to have water power. The Adamsville mill pond provided power for both a sawmill and a gristmill. The present gristmill dates from the mid-nineteenth century, and it originally used a horizontal water wheel. After a hurricane damaged the original water-powered works, the remnants of a 1946 Cains Mayonnaise truck powered the mill for many years. Today an electric motor turns its historic mill stone and still grinds the finest jonnycake meal.
Corn meal pancakes, known as "jonnycakes," have been a staple of the New England diet ever since English settlers discovered that wheat and other grains did not grow well in Little Compton, but corn, central to the local Native American diet, did. They remained a common everyday food well into the twentieth century, frequently eaten with thick cream skimmed from raw milk. Jonnycakes are now a popular local breakfast food. Prepared "thick" in other areas of Rhode Island, Little Compton jonnycakes are preferred "thin."
]]>Ebenezer Church built the original general store in 1820 and sold it to his partner Philip Manchester in 1864. Philip’s son Abraham slept every night at the store from the time he was six years old, taking over its operation as an adult. He was known as a shrewd businessman and a leader in the community. Abraham and his sisters often said, "if Manchester’s didn’t have it, you didn’t need it." The store stayed in the Manchester family through the 1950s. In the 1960s it closed and reopened as a restaurant.
Manchester’s was a popular restaurant and tavern for over 30 years providing both a gathering place and a place of employment for many local people. Elliott Loomis opened it in 1969. Betty DeLotto was the owner on March 12, 2002 when a fire destroyed the historic building. Adamsville still mourns the loss of this local landmark.
]]>In the early 1800s local Baptists established the Christian Baptist Church here at the top of Adamsville Hill; after the church closed, the building was later used as a school. Today, the buried foundation is all that remains of the building that once stood on this site.
The Christian Baptist Church's minister may have been Francisco Veray. He was the first recorded person from Portugal to live in Little Compton, anglicizing his name to "Francis Veray." He, along with his wife, daughter and grandchildren, is buried in the center plot of the cemetery adjacent to the church.
Shortly after Veray's death in 1866, it appears the church closed. The building quickly reopened as the Number Six School. Originally, the school was farther down Adamsville Hill, most likely in the small blue house that still stands on the hill's slopes today. The school had one teacher who taught grades 1-8, and it operated until 1929, when the Wilbur School opened on the Little Compton Commons.
Once it stopped functioning as a school the building housed the Bell Whist Club for a short time. It was eventually auctioned in 1930; the new owners moved it across the border into Darmouth, MA, to serve as an office for a propane business.
]]>Little Compton was once full of Odd Fellows. That’s no insult. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is a fraternal and philanthropic organization established in seventeenth-century England. It arrived on American shores in 1819, and in 1875, Seaconnet Lodge #39 of the Odd Fellows was formed in Little Compton.
According to one possible explanation for the origin of the name “Odd Fellows,” groups formed for charitable purposes in seventeenth-century England were unusual, and their members might have been considered "odd fellows." Initially, the organization restricted membership to Protestant men, but in 1851 the Odd Fellows formed a women’s auxiliary group, whose members were called Magnolia Rebekahs.
In Little Compton, Odd Fellows membership quickly exceeded the capacity of Seaconnet Lodge. On March 1, 1877, some members departed to found Electra Lodge #41 in nearby Adamsville. Despite the physical separation of the two lodges, Odd Fellows member Walter Elwell remembered, “The Seaconnet and Electra were back and forth visiting. Not every meeting but I would say fifty percent of the meetings.”
The two lodges also produced a young girl’s group, called the Theta Roses, and another branch of the Odd Fellows called the Encampment. During the peak of involvement in Little Compton, Odd Fellows meetings drew up to sixty people every week.
However, the group declined quickly. In 1967, the Electra Lodge closed due to inactivity and its remaining members rejoined the Seaconnet Lodge. According to Walter Elwell, “Like every fraternal organization, they’re in trouble.” The former Electra Lodge hall first became a pottery shop called Stone Bridge Dishes, and later became a private residence.
Despite these setbacks, memories of the Odd Fellows remain strong within Little Compton and Adamsville. Boy Scouts troops met at the Electra Lodge, people were married there, and the space was great for dancing. James Brady credits his existence to a USO dance held at the Electra Lodge: “Every time I drive by the Odd Fellows Hall, I say, 'My God, that’s the place where my mom and dad met. And if they hadn’t met, well, for the last sixty-six years, I wouldn’t be here.'"
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]]>“Young man, if you don’t get out you’re going to end up with a little round hole in the middle of your forehead.”
The words were polite and calm, but ominous, spoken to a youthful group of summer people during a late night visit to Briggs Beach during Prohibition, according to local resident Howard Huntoon.
Little Compton’s fourteen beautiful miles of coastline have long attracted tourists and sun bathers, but during Prohibition, the beaches also provided a convenient route to smuggle illegal alcohol. “Rum running” became an important way for locals to earn money, especially during the early years of the Great Depression.
Although the rum runners broke the law, their friends and neighbors usually looked the other way and even lied to local enforcement agencies to protect this income stream. Seasonal residents returning for the summer sometimes found cash in their mailboxes, payment for the use of their empty barns and land as hiding places for illegal booze.
Prohibition banned alcoholic drinks from 1920 until 1933, the result of the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Most residents of Little Compton didn’t support Prohibition, and some took advantage of the demand for liquor to earn much-needed money for their families. Eleanor Simons, the daughter of Little Compton farmer John Flores, remembered her father’s secret rum running:
“I think people didn’t want anybody to know but I think they survived better because of it. Dad’s farm wasn’t as profitable to carry us through.”
The potential profits also enticed businessmen from other areas of the East Coast to set up shop. Manuel Avila came to Little Compton after Prohibition closed his bar in New Bedford, looking for a place with less of the competition and violence that was associated with the illegal liquor trade. In Little Compton he became a central figure in rum running.
Avila kept a safe house on Amesbury Lane where his trusted runners could eat, wash, and rest. In 1927, he bought the old Cornell farmhouse on Adamsville Hill. The house became the center of operations for his “gravel business,” a cover for his rum running. Located uphill from the Westport River, the house allowed for secret liquor deliveries at night and there were numerous places where the booze could be quickly hidden on the farm.
Today, the rum runners are often portrayed as exciting figures—cowboys on boats—but rum running required rough edges and desperate deeds, more than the romantic stories indicate. Rum runners faced the constant threat of being arrested or shot, either by the Coast Guard or by their rivals. Smuggling liquor during Prohibition was a dangerous, illegal business in an economically desperate time.
Many people also remember the Little Compton rum runners as farmers and fishermen, husbands and brothers. Manny Avila was known as a strong family man. His godson, Barry Federman, remembered Manny and his wife Nettie as “very fine, generous people, some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet.”
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]]>Imagine a stereotypical small farm with a few chickens pecking around the yard, the sun shining on their bright red feathers. This image is close to the reality in Little Compton today, but for a few decades the town was the center of an international poultry industry built upon a local chicken known as the Rhode Island Red.
The qualities that made this bird so popular didn’t occur by accident. Little Compton farmers bred the Rhode Island Red in response to a need for a meatier bird with more reliable egg laying capacities. Their success was the result of effective crossbreeding and innovations in hen-raising.
The story begins far from Little Compton in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Local farmer William Tripp bought Chittagong chickens from a New Bedford sailor to breed with his own stock. These Asian chickens had the brilliant feathers and reliable egg laying for which the Rhode Island Red would become famous. This early form of the famous chicken developed a reputation among local farmers, and Isaac Wilbour, of Prospect Hill Farm, stopped by to see what all the fuss was about.
Wilbour bought a few of Tripp’s marvelous hens and cross-bred them with local roosters, resulting in healthy, meaty hens with a prodigious egg-laying capacity. By the 1890s, Wilbour’s farm became the first large-scale poultry business in the world, exporting 150,000 dozen (1.8 million) eggs per year. To understand the scale of this operation, most other farmers at the time had fewer than 500 hens, compared to Wilbour’s 5,000. Other Little Compton farmers soon followed suit, and the town became the international poultry capital.
In 1898, Wilbour also had the honor of naming the breed during a visit to his farm by two professors from the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station - now the University of Rhode Island.
This dominance did not last. By the early twentieth century, New England poultry farming, unable to compete with other areas of the country where feed and transport costs were lower, began to decline in favor of dairy farming. However, the Rhode Island Red and the techniques used to raise it continue to have a beneficial impact on New England farming. Today, most eggs with brown shells are produced by descendants of Little Compton’s Rhode Island Reds.
In 1925, the Rhode Island Red Club erected this monument, anchoring an internationally important chicken to the town where it was developed. However, some controversy over its placement exists. The monument is in Adamsville on land donated by Deborah Manchester, nowhere near the Tripp or Wilbour farms in Little Compton. The monument has more to do with a culture of poultry fancying in the area than with the farmers who bred the chickens.
In 1954, the same year that the Rhode Island legislature voted the Rhode Island Red the state bird, the Rhode Island Red Club and local residents installed a plaque at the location where William Tripp raised his famous chickens. You can still see the plaque, at the intersection of William Sisson Road and Long Highway.
Both monuments are fitting testimony to an international poultry sensation whose chicks and eggs were shipped all over the world from Little Compton.
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]]>The border between Adamsville and Westport was changed in 1747 from the west bank of the Westport River (which is just to the East of Brayton's Garage) to this location in the middle of the mill pond. The new border cut though established lots creating private properties that were half in RI and half in MA. Though more than two centuries old, the "new" border continues to cause difficulties for dual-state homeowners today.
More importantly, Little Compton lost its claim on the "Acoaxet" triangle, one of Massachusetts' loveliest seaside communities.
]]>The Plymouth Court established Adamsville as part of "Sakonnet" in the seventeenth century. The settlement adopted the name "Little Compton" in 1683 (check). Although Adamsville village had no official name at that time, many people referred to it as "Taber's Mills." What is now Westport, Massachusetts was also called "Dartmouth" during this period.
The original border between Little Compton and Dartmouth was the west bank of what is known today as the Westport River. That approximate location is marked by this pin. At that time, all of Little Compton, including Adamsville, was part of first Plymouth Colony and then later Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1747, by decree of King George II, and to the delight of Rhode Islanders, Little Compton, Tiverton and three other Massachusetts border towns officially became part of Rhode Island. The king had the RI/MA border redrawn as a series of straight lines connecting several points exactly three miles in from the eastern bank of the Sakonnet River. This new, straight border ignored the natural contours of the Westport River and split Adamsville in two. The grist mill that was the catalyst for the formation of the village was now in a different state.
Today, the Adamsville/Westport border, established in 1747 by those straight lines, can be found in the middle of the dam (road) between Gray's Grist Mill and the pond. It is marked by a granite post.
]]>Adamsville had its very own library in the early 1920s. It was housed in the north room of Hattie and Eugene Shurtleff's house at the corner of Colebrook and Stone Church Roads. The Shurtleff's daughter Venetta (Nettie) ran the library. According to Nettie's niece, Helen Shurtleff Collins, the books in the library were Nettie's own volumes and there was no charge to borrow them. When Nettie married and moved out of town, the library closed. Mrs. Collins believes that the books were sent to the town library in the Town Clerk's office on the Little Compton Commons. Mrs. Collins remembers that her father Malcolm, the Principal of Josephine F. Wilbur School, catalogued all the books in the town library in his spare time.
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