Thomas Williams Bicknell

“ Think of the earth cooling down and wrinkling into folds in the process of cooling, and you will, by your mind's eye, see the ocean's bed, breaking its level and some parts of it rising into hills and mountains and some parts sinking into valleys and deep sea channels. The Rhode Island hills and valleys were then formed and all the rocky peaks or knolls were then lifted up, very much higher than we see them to-day. ”

“ Thus the humane acts of Winslow and Hampden, in saving, by providential aid, the life of Massassoit, were repaid by friendly counsels, which preserved the infant colony from complete extermination. While an Indian's revenge is proverbial, his gratitude should also be kindly remembered, and the dwellers in Plymouth and Bristol counties ought ever to cherish in grateful memories the name of Massassoit of Sowams, who saved their ancestors and their colony from a premature and inevitable destruction. ”

“ Allen very great respect as a true-hearted Christian, a sound theologian, and a judicious and an effective minister. He has remarkable habits of study, and leaves nothing undone that is fitted to advance his ministry. He is a consistent, faithful, and thorough man, and the good impression taken of him will not be easily diminished. Mr. Allen is thought to stand at the head of his profession in his own vicinity, if not in the state, and deservedly ranks among the first ministers in New England, and is a very excellent representative of its remaining old school divines. ”

“ It is good to remember that these first proprietors at Plymouth were also the first owners of the lands of Barrington and Swansea, and some of the adjoining towns, and that we can trace our land titles directly to their ownership, nearly two and one-half centuries ago. These men and women attempted to repeat on Swansea and Barrington soil the experiment of a free government and a liberal religious faith, which had been the motive of their lives in coming to this new land. ”

“ He maintained through life an exalted character for piety and probity, and was not inferior to any of the Pilgrims in any of the high qualities which rendered them so illustrious as the founders of a great people. ”

“ The boulders on our farms are the deposit of the ice, as are the sands and clay beneath the soil, and whether of slate, granite, quartz, iron, or whatever other formation, may be in many cases traced to the ledges in Massachusetts on the north. There is not a Barrington boy that has not seen the black, heavy ironstones of the field. There are some in town that will weigh fifty pounds. On Beacon Hill, Providence, where I now live, I have seen these stones that were two feet in diameter. On the island of Rhode Island, they are the size of cannon balls. ”

“ On hearing the annoying cries of the sailors, the king sent the queen, with her attendants, in a very light boat to wait near an island, a quarter of a league distant, while he remained a long time on board, talking with us by signs, and expressing his fanciful notions about everything in the ship and asking the use of all. ”

“ In 1783 the Quakers petitioned for the complete abolition of slavery in Rhode Island, and in 1784 the act was passed which forever abolished human bondage, and bade the slave go forth to freedom, guaranteed and secured in part by their own labors and sacrifices. ”

“ When we came thither we found the house so full of men as we could scarce get in, though they used their best diligence to make way for us. They were in the midst of their charms for him, making such a hellish noise as it distempered us who were well, and therefore unlike to ease him that was sick. ”

“ The fresh and salt meadows adjoining the creeks and rivers, were divided into lots of ten acres each, as far as could be. Sometimes the share of meadow lands was in two localities, in order that an equal quality as well as quantity might be assigned to each.
While carefully consulting for their business prosperity, the early settlers did not forget that the highest success of their undertakings depended not only on the planting of good settlers as the basis of a thriving town, but also in the encouragement of education, morality, and religion as agencies in sustaining its truest interests ”

“ The people brought with them to America the hereditary taint of feudalism, but our free air and unrestricted liberty of movement were an offset to all such inherited tendencies. Still further, the settlers of New England belonged to the middle classes, which had never been benefited at home from vassalage. Rhode Island slaves were of the social and servant class and were not chattels in the true intent. These slaves were part and parcel of the home life and bore the family names of their owners. ”

“ Whereas, It appears to many of the taxpayers that the children in this town who are advanced in their studies can be educated to much better advantage if placed in a graded school by themselves; and whereas, some of the schools are now filled to or beyond the capacity of the school-rooms, and many parents feel obliged to send their children to other towns for their common school education ”

“ It will be understood that the territorial troubles grew out of the indistinctness of metes and bounds in the Indian deeds, and it is greatly to the credit of the good sense and honorable dealing of the proprietors of the two settlements that matters were adjusted so peaceably and satisfactorily. Stephen Payne of Rehoboth and Thomas Willett of Sowams were the peacemakers of these ancient towns, and their example has been helpful to a spirit of concession and comity between their successors in town affairs to the present day. ”

“ With Arnold of Rugby, he said, "It is not enough for a boy to go through college, but the college must go through him, if he would be a scholar," and he made the discipline of study the purpose of his life. Mr. Allen was installed pastor of the Congregational Church, Barrington, Sept., 1838, and was dismissed at his own request in 1842, on account of inadequate salary. He writes: "I became very much attached to the beautiful town and the noble people, whose generous kindness I so richly enjoyed." ”

“ Of this movement, Barrington was one of the first to reap the advantage. Two new school buildings were soon erected, and a third was repaired and refitted. The new building in the South or Nayatt district, was one of the best of its grade in New England. Its furniture and fixtures were after the best models of the time. Through the efforts, chiefly, of two members of the district, the school was furnished with an excellent library of six hundred volumes, which, in connection with other influences, did much to elevate the standard of education in the town. ”

“ His honest integrity, and his quiet, unobtrusive, healthy tone of life rendered him the admiration and delight of the private circle where, without ostentatious parade or pretentiousness of any kind, he won the full confidence and esteem of those most intimate with him. ”

“ Game of all kinds abounded in the woods and fish were plenty in the streams, and waters of the bays. An attractive country, surely, for any people, and especially so to these lords of the soil, who so easily obtained from land and sea all they thought needful for their subsistence and happiness. ”

“ Their faces are sharp; their hair is long and black, on the adornment of which they bestow great care. Their eyes are black and keen; their demeanor is gentle and attractive, very much like that of the ancients. ”

“ Peck was a respected citizen of the town. The house in which he lived is still a landmark of the early architecture of the town.
Nathaniel Peck. Son of Nathaniel and Cynthia (Heath) Peck; b. April 24, 1809; unmarried; farmer; was a member of the Town Council of Barrington, and the tax collector for many years. Mr. Peck had a thorough knowledge of town affairs, was possessed of sound sense and an excellent judgment, which made him one of the most useful and respected citizens of the town. His counsel and action were always those of a safe and conservative man. ”

“ Fortunately for the theory that the Northmen wintered at Mount Hope, Mr. William J. Miller of Bristol has located the rock on the shore of Mount Hope Bay in the town of Bristol. The rock is of graywacke, ten and a half by six and a half feet in length, and twenty-one inches thick. The surface is much worn by the water which only leaves it bare at low tide. The inscription is a boat with a series of lines and angles, which, it is claimed by Mr. Miller, were carved by some Norse sailor, left in charge of a boat and awaiting his companions. ”

“ Wightman spent his early years on a farm in Barrington, but the most of his active life was devoted to the development of system and proper organization in benevolent, charitable, and correctional institutions, for which he had remarkable fitness and adaptability. His first experience as an executive officer over charitable work, was in the office of Overseer of the Poor of Providence, where he made a wise administration from 1857 to 1889. ”

“ The social, civil and business relations of the Pilgrims made their society a pure Commonwealth. With the exception of the ownership of house and garden by the individual settlers, all things were for common possession or protection. At first one acre was allowed to each for present use, then two, afterward sixteen, and at the end of ten years from the landing at Plymouth, many of the settlers possessed large tracts of land. ”

“ Among those of our adopted citizens of foreign birth, who have contributed to the growth of the town and by their industry, prudence, and other distinguishing individual qualities, have made a good record for themselves and families, may be named, John Burke, James Doran. Patrick Martin, James Kirby, Robert Tobin. Barrington has always been a hospitable home for honest men of whatever race, color, religion, and the fact that
⁠ Honor and shame from no conditions rise ”

“ As we are dealing with a nomadic people, our ideas of town and village life have little in common with those of the Wampanoags. Where the conditions of life were the most comfortable and supplies of food the easiest, there was the Indian's home. ”

“ The glacial smoothing plane not only cut down our hills and smoothed off their surfaces, but it brought and dumped large and small rocks that were picked up on the way, ground down and smoothed in the movement of the tremendous gravity machine, and the fields, in all parts of the town, bear witness to the work of this carrier plane. ”

“ When the Plymouth settlers first visited this territory, in 1621, they found it owned and occupied by the tribe of Indians known as the Wampanoags, under their Chief, Osamequin or Massassoit. The Indian name of the country, between Plymouth and Narragansett Bay, of which the territory of Barrington was a part, was called Pokanoket. Barrington was known as Sowams, and on its soil was the dwelling of the great Sachem, Massassoit. ”

“ The most interesting boulder in Barrington is that which landed on the south end of the grey-wacke ledge at Drownville near the water tank. As this great stone of near an hundred tons is a conglomerate or pudding stone, it may have been lifted from the north end of the ledge on which it stands and carried by the ice to the south end and there deposited, when the glacier melted and receded to its northern home. The gravel bank from Long Swamp to Rumstick and Nayatt Points is a medial moraine, called in common language a "hog-back," and forms an excellent foundation for road-building. ”

“ Though there is silence in the town records as to schools for the period of twenty years from 1800 to 1828, the date of the adoption of the free school act, there is sufficient testimony from persons whose school days were embraced in that period, to prove that schools were kept at least three months in winter and two months in summer. The winter schools were kept by male teachers, usually college students, and the summer schools by the most competent young women that could be found. ”

“ While obscure tradition invests with interest the stories of discoveries of America by Europeans prior to the year 1000 A. D., the evidence is convincing that the Norse sea kings pushed their discoveries to Iceland, Greenland, and the coast of North America, certainly as far south as New England, and made temporary settlements on our southern and eastern shores,nearly nine hundred years ago. The dwellers on the Norway peninsula were the sea kings of Western Europe and the pioneers of maritime adventure and discovery, as early as the middle of the ninth century of the Christian era. ”

“ The lands in that section were held by occupancy or by grant from the Plymouth Court, the title being sometimes confirmed by royal patent. With reference to Indian purchases, the Court ordered that no title to land should be valid unless confirmed by it. In order to secure larger areas of land, of which they soon became greedy, several persons united in the purchase of a large tract of the Indians and, on application to the Court, the purchase was confirmed and a charter issued to the purchasers under the title of a Proprietary, the owners of which were styled proprietors. ”

“ Within the narrow limits of Pokanoket, dwelt the Wampanoags, under Massassoit. This tribe had been reduced in numbers by the plague that had wiped out the Patuxets, an associate tribe at Plymouth. Winslow, on this first visit to Massassoit in 1621, referring to the Taunton River, says: "Upon it, (the river) , are and have been many towns, it being a good length. Thousands of men have lived there which died in a great plague, not long since." ”