National Register of Historic Places - Rhode Island Historical ...

8. Significance -
- --
Period Areas of Significance--Check and juslify below -
prehistoric - archeology-prehistoric X community planning nandscape architecture religion
1400-1499 archeonogy-historic conservation law science
1500-i 599 agriculture economics literature sculpture
- - 1600-1699 architecture education military x social;
X 1700-1799 art engineering - music humanitarian
X - 1800-1899 - - commerce exploration-settlement philosophy - - theater
X 1900- communications industry politics government transportation
invention - - other specity
Specific dates -- - BuilderArchitect
Statement of Significance in one paragraph
Watch Hill is significant as a well preserved example of a late nine
teenth- and early - twentieth -century summer resort, reflecting the popula ri -
zation of vacations
dustrial life. The
during
village
that period as an-aspect of modern urban in
is a manifestation of modes of socialization
and concepts of leisure, recreation, and even health care that evolved in
the Victorian era - The buildings in the Watch Hill Historic District dt’cu
ment the area’s transformation from an agrarian community to a summer re
sort. They are notable for- their degree of visual unity and compatibility
and their skillful integration into the landscape. Certain sections of the
village, laid out in the picturesque, fluid manner first adopted for the
design of rural cemeteries and suburbs, stand as a good example of one type
- of nineteenth-century community planning. Watch Hill joins Newport and
Narragansett as the three chief exemplars in Rhode island of the summer -
resort movement. Narragansett, though larger than Watch liii I, is less in
tact, with much of its historical fabric destroyed hy fires, storms, and
urban renewal. Among Rhode Island summer resorts today, Watch Hill is
second only to Newport in its environmental character and the. ar chi tectinral
qual ity of its constituent buildings.
The strategic importance of the Watch Hill region was recognized I :om
an early date. The Niantic indians reputedly used the area as a lookout
in the early seventeenth century, to watch for attack parties of Montanip’
Indjans - In the 1740s a watch post was established on the highest knoll
here by the colony of Rhode Tsland during King George’s War. These activi
ties are memorialized today in the name of the community.
The first European settlement at Watch Hill came in the i660s, when
present-day Washington County, Rhode Island, was known as the King’s Province -
a territory claimed by Rhode ls-land, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. lii
1662 the Massachusetts Bay Colony granted 500 acres on the easterly side
of the Pequot Pawcatuck River to Captain Daniel Gooki.n , encompassing the
Watch Hill peninsula. Captain Gookin erected a dwelling on the property for
a tenant -farmer. Through the late seventeenth and eighteenth century, the
property changed hands and was eventually subdivided. For the nest part,
however, it remained in large tracts owned by only a few families - Among
the early landholders were the Hannah and the Pendleton families. By the
late eighteenth century, the area southwesterly of the Syndicate Line see
district map and definition below had been divided into twelve lots, con
sol idated in the possession of the Poster and Willcox families. Two eigh
teenth-century censuses list three heads of households residing at Watch
Hill: Jonathan Foster, Jonathan Foster, Jr., and Hezekiah Willcox in 1774;
See Continuation Sheet #55