Barrington

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE TOWN OF BARRINGTON
From the Comprehensive Community Plan (2002 Update)

Barrington today is the result of hundreds of years of human activity that made use of its lands, waters and natural resources. At the onset of European colonization in the mid-seventeenth century, the Town's two peninsulas were within Sowams, the homelands of Massasoit, Chief Sachem of the Wampanoag Tribe. The precise location of Massasoit's village has not been determined, although it most likely was in either Barrington or Warren. The Wampanoag Indians used the lands of Barrington for hunting, fishing and cultivating crops. The same physical resources that supported the Wampanoags had also attracted their ancestors. Archaeological discoveries within Barrington have demonstrated that Native Americans were active here four to ten thousand years before the present.

European colonization in the second half of the seventeenth century initiated a decline in Native American fortunes. By 1667, enough English settlers from the Plymouth and Massachusetts colonies were drawn to the fertile Sowams lands to incorporate the Town of Swansea. Tensions between the English colonists and Native Americans produced by this English encroachment broke into the open hostilities of King Philip's War here in 1675. By the following year the Wampanoags' hold on their native land was broken, and the colonists began to rebuild their largely destroyed settlement.

From these colonial origins, a farming society developed in the eighteenth century and prospered into the nineteenth century. In this agricultural period of development, the lands of Barrington were parceled into pasture, cropland and homesteads with a simple network of roads linking farmers to their holdings and to neighboring communities. Barrington's equivalent of a town center developed in the eighteenth century around the Congregational Church still in place along the north end of County Road. At the junction of the Barrington and Warren Rivers, a second water-oriented settlement developed around a number of shipyards and traders' wharves and warehouses. By the early nineteenth century these maritime activities had moved across the river to Warren, and Barrington's history as a seaport was over.
As industrialization transformed Rhode Island in the nineteenth century, Barrington was affected, although not in a typical way. Lacking suitable water-power sites or a working waterfront, the Town was largely bypassed in the extensive development of water and steam- powered factories. When industry did arrive, it was in 1840 in the form of brick manufacturing. In the process of working claybeds in the Nayatt area, the brick manufacturers transformed Mouscochuck Creek into a barge canal and created the claypits, now flooded and known as Brickyard Pond and Echo Lake. This industrywhich persisted until the 1930's, also transformed the Town's social landscape; large numbers of Italian immigrants joined the workforce in the late nineteenth century, and remained to develop their own neighborhoods along Maple Avenue and Middle Highway.

A second pivotal event occurred in the mid nineteenth century with the construction of the Providence, Warren and Bristol Railroad across town in 1855. At a time when Providence was becoming the region's commercial, financial and industrial center, the railroad brought Barrington within the City's sphere and initiated the trend of suburban residential development which was to dominate the Town's future. A new neighborhood began to develop along the rail line at Drownville in West Barrington, and a new town center emerged where the railroad crossed County Road. At the same time, the Town began to draw the attention of those eager for relief from the City. At Nayatt Point resort hotels appeared while both vacation and year-round homes spread along the extensive shore- front. These developments included both expensive building in prime locations, as well as more modest houses where conditions allowed.

The patterns established in the second half of the nineteenth century guided Barrington's growth into the twentieth century. The railroad also promoted the growth of a small industrial district in Bay Spring, where factories engaged in textile finishing and lace-making. The automobile, which first supplemented and then replaced the railroad as a means of transportation between Barrington and Providence, induced a broader pattern of development across the Town. The post-World War II era saw Barrington as a favored suburb absorbing still more residential development.

 

Today, this trend has reached a climax of sorts. While the once- predominant rural flavor is still apparent, Barrington's agricultural character has greatly diminished in the recent past and recreational boating now dominates over commercial fishing activities on the waterfront. The Town's industry, which was always limited, has gradually dwindled to its present minor status. Barrington is most readily identified as a commuter suburb typified by its extensive residential neighborhoods, yet more than three hundred years of history have indelibly stamped the Town's character and contribute powerfully to its distinctive and attractive appearance.

Richard Greenwood