A History of Barrington, Rhode Island/Chapter 1
THE HISTORY OF BARRINGTON
CHAPTER I
BARRINGTON is a bi-peninsular town, extending southward into Narragansett Bay. It has the towns of East Providence, Seekonk, and Swansea on the north. The waters of Palmer's and Warren Rivers wash its eastern shores and separate the territory from Swansea and Warren. Narragansett Bay lies to the south and the bay and the town of East Providence form its western boundary. The eastern peninsula occupies one-third of the acreage of the town and the western two-thirds. Its area is nine and three-tenths square miles. Its salt water tidal line is about twelve miles long.
Rivers, Creeks, Coves, and Ponds.—Barrington River; Mouscochuck Creek; Annawomscutt Creek; Smith's Cove; Drown's Cove; Bullock's Cove; Hundred Acre Cove; and Prince's Pond.
Points.—Bullock's, Allin's, Nayatt, Rumstick, Adams', Tyler's, Martin's, The Tongue.
Hills.—Nockum, Bicknell's, and Prince's. Prince's Hill is named for Governor Prince of Plymouth, one of the original proprietors.
Rocks.—Allin's and Rumstick.
Woods.—The Long Swamp, the Dead Swamp, the Pine Woods, and Nayatt.
Springs.—Scamscammuck near Rumstick, Tom's Spring at Nayatt.
Geologically, Barrington owes its existence to the last glacial period or ice age. Let us trace its formation. The rock stratum which underlies this section is a conglomerate of small pebbles or fine gravels, held together by a grey, blue or black paste or cement. An excellent specimen of this rock may be seen in the only elevated ledge in Barrington, at Drownville, on which the water tank of the Drownville Water Works stands. This ledge contains very coarse pebbles and was thrown up from the general sea or ocean level by the contraction of the earth's crust. Imagine then this aqueous, pudding-like rock lying near the shore of an ancient sea or ocean. 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. Mount Hope, which is now only about 200 feet in height, may have been twice or three times its present height, when this breaking up of the earth's crust of Rhode Island took place. Call this action, if you like, the fracture or ploughing up of the sea floor on which our town lies. There was nothing then to have been seen but a salt sea and rocky, craggy peaks rising like islands above its surface. The breaking-up ploughshare has done its work. Now we need a great harrow to cut down the rough hills and fill up the shallower water spaces. The great leveller of the earth is the glacier. The ice age came and buried our section under snow and ice to the depth of thousands of feet. In the White Mountain region of New Hampshire, the ice stood as high as the top of Mt. Washington. Europe, Asia and North America were covered under the northern ice sheet as low as Providence, say 40°, north latitude. The ice began to flow southward towards the warmer latitudes, breaking down in its movement the rough crags, the rocky hills, and mountains, grinding the softer rocks to fine clay, sands, gravel, pebbles and boulders, and carrying vast loads of this rocky material, dumping it into the sea and thus filling up the shallower sections. The marks of these great glacial carriers are seen on all the permanent rocks on the banks of our streams and are called striae, or wheel-tracks of the great machine we call a glacier. Fine specimens of these striae may be seen on the ledges by the side of Providence River at and south of Silver Spring and north of Riverside. As these lines and furrows run north and south, they tell us plainly that the ice-flow was southward towards the Atlantic.
The particular glacier, which used Barrington as its dumping ground, had its home probably in Worcester County; possibly at the summit of old Wachusett Mountain. The clay pits of Nayatt, the sands of New Meadow Neck, and the gravel banks extending from Long Swamp to Rumstick and thence to Nayatt are from Southern or Central Massachusetts. We owe our subsoil and substrata to the Old Bay State, but we found them here on our own solid, sea-formed, rocky base. 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. 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. These stones or boulders all came from Iron Mine Hill, in Cumberland, and though rough when broken from the original ledge, were smoothed down in the carriage of a few miles to Providence. The width of the deposit of the Cumberland iron stones is about eight miles, including both sides of the Bay, Kent and Bristol Counties. 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. Near Boston, this kind of gravel is mixed with a peculiar cement, which makes it an excellent surface dressing for common roads.
As the glacier receded, it left the solid land it had formed and channels for the water, which came in plentiful supplies from the melting ice rivers of the north. On the authority of geologists, our coast line extended into the Atlantic, some forty miles beyond its present bounds, and Block Island was a part of the main land. The site of our famous watering place, Newport, was, at the close of the ice age, as far from the ocean as it is from Boston, and the site of Boston was inland forty miles, so that the ocean was not visible from the summit of the Blue Hills, then supposed to be fifteen hundred feet in height. Since that period, the ocean has washed away all the diluvial deposit or dump, until the Atlantic has reached the rocky barriers of the old rocks which say, "Thus far shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."
Providence, Barrington, Warren, Palmer's and Taunton Rivers are the deeper channels cut out by the glaciers, into which the waters of the ocean ebb and flow. They are sunken rivers, pouring into salt water the small quantities of fresh water, which flow into them from their tributary streams. Prince's Pond, which in my boyhood used to be called "the bottomless pond," was probably formed by stranded ice, which finally melted away, leaving a deep hole where it lay, which has become partially filled by the wash from the hills around. The bog on the north and east of Prince's Pond which is a fine quality of peat from five to twelve feet thick, and was formerly used for fuel in Barrington, is a vegetable deposit, which has accumulated simultaneously with the deposit of other soils, on the upper surface of the glacial drifts. The clay under the swamps at Nayatt and along the Mouscochuck Creek, used so extensively for brick-making, was a deposit of the finer flour-like grinding of the glacier, and is usually found in the vicinity of morasses. In due time, after the melting away of the glacier and the approach of the warm period, vegetation began to appear such as lichens, mosses and ferns; then the firs, spruces, hemlocks, and pines; and most likely a large torrid growth, until the land about us had become fit, by the creation of soil, for man's use and habitation. Imagination cannot picture the beasts, birds, reptiles, and insects of the forests, the fishes that swam in our streams, and amphibians that sported on their banks. Man came at last and found it much as we see it to-day, only changed in this that the land was covered with forests, and the seasons quite unlike ours. Who was the first Barringtonian we leave for some follower of Darwin to tell us, whether he descended from the gods or ascended from the apes. Certain it is that he must have thanked his stars as we do that his lines were cast on so goodly shores and that he had such a lovely heritage.
Hundred Acre Cove, at the head of Barrington River, has been a puzzle to many, geologically, from the fact that the bottom of the cove shows indisputable evidence of having once been a pine forest. The stumps, roots, and trunks of pines can be seen now in various parts of the cove, and the stump fences on New Meadow Neck were drawn from the shores and waters of the cove. What is the explanation? At the close of the ice age this cove was probably like Prince's Pond the resting place of a vast ice fragment, which melted away; then came salt and fresh water vegetation, and a bog was formed on a very soft foundation. This bog, like the thatch beds and salt meadows of that part of the river, rested on a mud and vegetable growth below and finally became fit for tree growth, and a forest of pine was the next development, standing on a very shaky and uncertain base. The weight of the forest increased with the growth and gradually caused the mass below to become consolidated and the forest to sink below the level of the salt water. The action of the salt water destroyed the tree growth, and the whole mass finally compacted below the level of the low water line of the river. Such subsidences of land are common in many parts of the world.
An Analysis of Soil
From the Joshua Bicknell Farm, near the Congregational Church.
An analysis of soils, made by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, State Geologist, 1839, gave the following results:
| Mechanical Separation. | Chemical Analysis of 100 Grains of Fine Loam. | |||
| No. 1. | Pebbles of Sienite | 48. | Water | 1.9 |
| No. 2. | Sand | 125. | Vegetable matter | 5.6 |
| No. 3. | Fine Loam | 847. | Insoluble Silicates | 85.3 |
| Alumina and Iron | 4.9 | |||
| 1000. | Salts of lime | 1.9 | ||
| 99.6 | ||||
The area of Barrington at the date of its separation from the mother town, Swansea, in 1718, was much larger than at present. Rehoboth, on the north of Swansea, was a town about eight miles square and the south line of that town, which was the north line of Swansea, extended from the Pawtucket or Providence River, on a nearly east and west line to the Shawomet Purchase, or Somerset. This boundary line began at Providence River, near the present Silver Spring Station, on the P. W. & B. R. R., and extended eastward, crossing Barrington River not far from Runen's Bridge, and crossing Palmer's River, north of the present village of Barneysville. When the people living on the westward end of Swansea petitioned for a new town in the year 1711, they asked the Massachusetts Court "To grant us a township according to the limits of Capt. Samuel Low's Military Company in Swansea." This included all the territory of the old town, west of Palmer's River, and when the boundary line of Barrington was fixed in 1717, the eastern bounds of the town extended from Rumstick Point to Myles Bridge, with all the lands in the Swansea grant included in New Meadow Neck and Peebee's Neck to the west of that line, including territory now embraced in the towns of Swansea, Seekonk, and East Providence.
Barrington was once Ancient Sowams, occupied by the Wampanoags, and was the dwelling place of their Chief, Massassoit.
In 1653, Massassoit deeded the territory with other lands to the proprietors of Ancient Sowams, under the jurisdiction of Plymouth Colony. In 1667, Swansea, which included Barrington, was incorporated by Plymouth Colony, and continued under the government of Plymouth until 1691.
In 1685, Bristol County was incorporated and Swansea became a town of Bristol County, Plymouth Colony.
In 1691, Plymouth Colony was united with Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Swansea came under the government of Massachusetts Colony.
In October, 1717, Barrington was set off from Swansea and incorporated under its present name, as a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts Colony.
In 1747, Barrington, a part of Swansea, now Warren, and Bristol, were set from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, Barrington was united with the territory taken from Swansea, and called Warren, and the two towns formed Bristol County, R. I., with Bristol the shire town.
In 1770, Barrington was set off from Warren, with boundary lines substantially as at the present time.
Since its occupation by the whites, the people living on this territory have been under the government of three colonies, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Rhode Island, have lived in three counties, Plymouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, and Bristol, R. I., and have borne three township names, Swansea, Barrington, Warren, and Barrington for the second time.
James I. and Charles I. were Kings of England and the Colonies when Massassoit was Sachem of Sowams. Cromwell ruled England when Sowams was made a proprietary, Charles the Second was King when Swansea was incorporated. William and Mary were on the throne when Plymouth Colony was merged into Massachusetts Bay Colony. George I. was King when Barrington was first incorporated, in 1717; George II., when we were made Warren, and George III., when Barrington was restored in 1770.
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. Besides Pokanoket, the name of the Indian country, and Sowams, the residence of the Chief of the Wampanoags, the Indians have left us several names of places which are readily identified and are worthy of preservation, as memorials of this once great tribe.[1]
Wampanoag.—The name of the tribe that occupied the 
Ancient Stone House, Near Myles Bridge
Pokanoket.—The name of the whole territory occupied by the Wampanoags and associate tribes. Its original boundaries cannot be easily defined, although in its later limits it included Bristol County, Rhode Island, and the western part of Bristol County, Massachusetts, embracing the towns of Bristol, Warren, Barrington, East Providence, Seekonk, Rehoboth, Swansea, Pawtucket, Cumberland, Somerset, Dighton, Taunton, with other towns east of the Taunton River. Meaning, Cleared land, or country, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Puckanokick, Pacanaukett, Poccanocick, Pokenacutt, Puckenakick.
Sowams.—The whole of Barrington, with a portion of the adjoining towns of Swansea, Seekonk, and East Providence. Meaning, South country, or southward, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Sowames, Sowamsett, Sawaams, Sowhomes, Sawamsett, Sawomes, Sowhomes, Sewamset.
Sowamset Neck.—The same as Sowams.
Popanomscut.—The name by which the western neck of Barrington was known. It was also called Peebee's Neck. Meaning, At the shelter rock, or at the roasting rock, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Papanomscutt, Pappanomscut.
Seekonk.—The territory, eight miles square, deeded to the whites by Massassoit in 1641, and embracing the present towns of East Providence, Seekonk, Rehoboth, and a part of Pawtucket. Meaning, On, or at the mouth of a stream, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Secunk, Seacunck, Seacunk, Seakunk, Seaconk, Sinkhunck.
Consumpsit Neck.—The name applied to Bristol Neck, and probably the whole of Bristol except Poppasquash Neck. Meaning, At the sharp rock, or where whetstones were gathered, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Cawsumsett, Causumsett.
Poppasquash.—The name of the neck of land west of Bristol harbor, still bearing the Indian name.
Other Spellings:—Papasquash, Pappoosesquaw, Pappasqua, and Poppy-Squash, Popasquash.
Mount Hope.—The name applied to the hill on the eastern part of the town of Bristol. The word appears in the English records about 1668. Some regard it as a corruption of the Indian word Montaup, but there is little authority for such an opinion. Had the Indians used the word Mount Hope or Montaup, it would have been communicated to the whites and used by them in the earliest records. Kickemuit was the main village on Mount Hope Neck, and the Indians of that locality did not give the name Mount Hope to the whites. Other authorities trace Hope to the Norse word Hop, a land-locked bay, and claim that the word was a gift of the Norse to the Indians, and through the Indians to the English. It is more than probable that Mount Hope was named by the same persons who gave the Christian names Prudence, Patience, Hope, and Despair to the islands in Narragansett Bay.
Kickemuit.—(1) The name of a large Indian village on the west bank of the Kickemuit River at the north end of Mount Hope Neck. (2) The name of the river that rises in Swansea and flows south through the eastern part of Warren into Mount Hope Bay. The word Kickemuit means, At the great spring.
Other Spellings:—Kickamuet, Kickomuet, Kekamuett, Keekamuett, Keekamuit, Keekamuit, Kikemuit, Kekemuit, Kecamuet, Kickamuit.
Peebee's Neck.—The same territory as Popanomscutt. The names are used interchangeably in the Sowams records. Peebee was easily and naturally corrupted to Phebe, Pheby, and Thebee in the proprietors and Plymouth records. Peebee was one of Philip's counsellors, and his signature to a quit claim deed by Philip to the white settlers, under date of March 30, 1668, is authority for the spelling, Peebee.
Chachacust.—The name of New Meadow Neck.
Mosskituash.—The name of the creek that flows into Bullock's Cove at Riverside, west of the burial place of Thomas Willett. The word means, A place of reeds and rushes.
Wannamoisett.—The name of the section, about four square miles in area, in which Riverside is located. The chimney of the Willett House is in the southern part of old Wannamoisett. Meaning, At the good fishing place, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Wanamoyset, Wanomoycet.
Chachapacassett.—The name of the point of land between Warren River and Narragansett Bay, now known as Rumstick. It was also known to the whites by the name of Little Neck.
Other Spellings:—Chackapaucasset, At or near the great widening, (Tooker).
Nayatt.—The name of the southwest point of Barrington, and the land, south of Mouscochuck Creek as far east as Chachapacassett, including the beach, which was called Nayatt Beach. Meaning, At the point. Other Spellings:—Nayat, Nayot.
Annawomscutt.—The name of the section at and about Drownville. The name was also applied to the brook which flows from the north into the cove west of the Drownville Depot of the P. W. and B. R. R. This brook is now crossed by the railroad and a public highway, northwest of Drownville Station. Meaning, At the shell rock, Tooker.
Other Spellings:—Annawamscoate, Annawamscutt.
Waypoyset.—The name of the Narrows at the mouth of the Kickemuit River. Meaning, at the narrows.
Other Spellings:—Wapoyset, Waywapoiset.
Touisset.—The name of the neck of land, east of Kickemuit River. Meaning, At, or about the old fields, Tooker.
Pawtucket.—The Indian name of Providence River to and including Pawtucket Falls. The word means, The place of the great falls.
Other Spellings:—Pattukett, Patuckquit, Patuckett, Pawtuckgut.
Rumstick.—This name, as applied to Chachapacasset, or Little Neck, was first given in the Sowams Records under date of January 26, 1698.
Prof. Adrian Scott, of Brown University, contributes the following suggestions as to the derivation of the name Rumstick, as applied to the point extending into Narragansett Bay:
Rumstokkr in old Norse was a bed-post, but in Provincial English there was a word, Rumistich, adapted from the German language, or possibly the Dutch, and meaning the same as Mawe, i.e., an old-fashioned game of cards. The point might have had a famous game upon it by the first crew of sailors that bethought themselves to name it.
But I should think this far more likely than either of the above, that the long slender point suggested the stick with which ancient sea captains stirred their toddy (differing from the common sailor's grog, inasmuch as it was made of rum sweetened, and so needed stirring): hence English Rumstick.
Mr. Sidney S. Rider, of Providence, one of the most thorough historical scholars and critics of Rhode Island, is of the opinion that the word is of Norse origin.
Sowams River.—This name was given by the Indians to the rivers now known as Barrington, Palmer's and Warren. Both branches on the east and west of New Meadow Neck bore the same name, Sowams River. The proprietors often called it the Sowams River and the Great River, and spoke of both branches of this river. The westerly branch was also called the New Meadow River; the easterly Palmer's River.
Runen's River.—The upper part of the west branch of Sowams or Barrington River, and was often called Bowen's River or Bowen's Bridge River, for Mr. Richard Bowen, who owned a large tract of land along the stream. Runen's was probably not an Indian name.
Mouscochuck.—The name of the creek which flows into Providence River about one-fourth of a mile north of Nayatt Point. The branch which flows into the creek from the north, and to the west of the Nayatt Station, was known as Mouscochuck northerly creek, and that flowing from the east was called Mouscochuck easterly creek. Meaning, A meadow, Tooker.
Nockum.—The name of the hill on the east bank of Barrington River and west of the Tongue.
Scamscammuck.—The name of the spring at the upper end of Chachapacasset Neck. It now supplies water to the farm house on the east side of the road leading to Rumstick. Meaning, A red spring, or where there is a red spring, Tooker.
Other Spelling:—Skamskammuck.
Tom's Spring.—Is located on land recently owned by Lewis B. Smith and formerly owned by the Browns, on the south side of Mouscochuck.
Massasoit alias Osamequin.—The Chief Sachem of the Wampanoags, from the arrival of the whites in 1620, till his death, about 1663. Osamequin is his name, as affixed to the deed of Sowams, in 1653. "I find the ancient people, from their fathers in Plymouth Colony, pronounce his name Mas-sas-so-it." (Prince's Chronicles.) Meaning, The great king.
Other Spellings:—Massasoiet, (Morton's N. E. Memorial); Massasoyt and Massasoyet, Massassowat.
Pometacom or Metacom alias Philip.—The son and successor of Massassoit, as Chief Sachem of the Wampanoags.
Peebee.—One of Philip's Counselors, whose home was in Barrington, on the main neck, called by the Indians Peebee's Neck. Peebee was killed near Myles Bridge, in the attack on Swansea, June, 1675. Called by other names of Peebe, Phebe, and Thebe.
Historic Sites in Barrington.
The First Baptist meeting house, built by Rev. John Myles Church, was located on the farm now owned by George J. West, on Nockum Hill. The place of baptisms was at the point on the south of Nockum Hill.
The second meeting house of Rev. John Myles Church, was erected by the town of Swansea, at Tyler's Point, south of the road, connecting the Barrington and Warren Bridges.
The Colonial Training Field was near the meeting house at Tyler's Point. This training field was used as late as 1825, while the old militia system was in operation.
The Myles Garrison was located about one-fourth of a mile west of Myles Bridge.
Myles Bridge crosses Palmer's River at Barneysville, where the first attack was made on the Sowams settlement, June, 1675.
The Chaffee Garrison, a stone house with portholes for musket firing, located about two hundred feet east of the house owned by Leander R. Peck, Esq. This garrison house stood as late as 1850.
The Willett Stockade Fort, or as called by Capt. Church, "Major Brown's Garrison," stood on the east side of the highway, opposite the Willett Mansion.
The Thomas Willett Mansion stood on the west side of the highway, in Wannamoisett. The heavy brick chimney marks the site, which is owned by Governor Elisha Dyer.
The First Meeting House of the Congregational Church of Barrington stood on the south side of the road near the residence of Lewis T. Fisher, Esq. It was taken down and removed in 1733.
The Second Meeting House of the Congregational Church stood on the lot given by Joshua Bicknell, near the location of the present meeting house.
The dwelling house of William Allin, built before 1670 was located on the north side of the road, leading to the Drownville Depot. The original house was a leanto, two stories in front, and one on the back side. A huge stone chimney occupied a large part of the east end of the house.
The Hon. Paul Mumford House stood on the corner, at the great elms, at Barrington Centre.
The Green Bush Tavern stood on the west side of the highway, north of the residence of R. D. Horton, Esq.
The Josiah Kinnicutt Tavern stood near the Barrington River, on the north side of the road, at the first angle, north of the Congregational meeting house. The first post-office in Barrington was opened at this tavern.
The George R. Kinnicutt Tavern, stage office, and post-office, stands near the site of the first Kinnicutt tavern.
The Henry Bowen Tavern stood on the west side of the road, about twenty-five rods north of the Congregational meeting house. It was destroyed by fire about 1875.
The Kinnicutt-Townsend House, which stood in Happy Hollow, a few rods north of the Town Hall, was licensed as an inn during the Revolution.
The Col. Nathaniel Martin Ferry House stood on the north side of the Ferry Lane, fronting on the river.
Among the old houses now standing may be mentioned: The Matthew Watson House, at Nayatt; The General Thomas Allin House, at Drownville; The Allin House, near the Barrington River, north of the Congregational meeting house; The Old Parsonage House, now owned by Mrs. Charles Miller; The Andrews-Bean House, near the Allin House; The Brown House, west of the Kinnicutt Tavern; The Rev. Peleg Heath House, now occupied by Mr. William Carter; The Joel Peck House; The Joshua Bicknell House, now used by the St. Andrew's School; The stone house at Barneysville, probably built in part before Philip's war; on New Meadow Neck are the old houses of the Martins, the Drowns, the Bowens, the Bishops, and others. At Rumstick is the Guard House, owned by Nathaniel Smith, and at Nayatt, the Guard House, owned by the Browns.
The cemeteries at Burial Hill, Tyler's Point, Prince's Hill, and Little Neck, at Wannamoiset, and the Watson Yard at Nayatt, are of interest as the places where
"The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
The earliest burials were at Burial Hill, where field stones are the only markers of some of the graves. Rev. John Myles was probably buried at Tyler's Point. Captain Wilett's family and the Browns were the first interments at Little Neck. Matthew Watson and family sleep at Nayatt.
Other places of interest are the Town Hall, the old Government Lighthouse at Nayatt, the Cady School-house, the first High School in Barrington, the Congregational Meeting House, the Episcopal Church and Rectory, the Methodist Episcopal and Episcopal Chapels at Drownville, the St. Andrew's Home and School, the New England Brick Manufactory, etc., etc.
The villages of the town are Barrington, Barrington Centre, Hampden Meadows, Rumstick or Chachapacassett, Nayatt and Drownville.
THE WILLIAM ALLIN RESIDENCE (BUILT BEFORE 1670), DROWNVILLE
- ↑ As the Wampanoags had no written language, the spelling of Indian words rests solely on the authority of the clerks or writers, who translated into English the sounds of the Indian language as it was spoken by the natives. Hence arises the variety of spelling the same word as understood by different persons. Our ancestors were in the habit of emphasizing words by the use of double letters, as in the words Narragansett, Massassoit, Peebee. In the spelling of Indian names, I have endeavored to follow the best authority, eliminating the redundant t in words whose general use has not established the form.