From the town’s shores, the Continental Army launched several raids on the British, who had settled comfortably in Newport and elsewhere on Aquidneck Island. No provisions for a church or school were made until 1746, shortly before the area, along with its East Bay neighbors to the north, were transferred to the Rhode Island colony.ĭuring the Revolutionary War, however, the town’s high bluffs overlooking the Sakonnet River and Aquidneck Island had tremendous strategic importance. TivertonĪlthough Plymouth settlers bought the land that is now Tiverton in 1680, the town wasn’t incorporated until 1694. An antique shop in Historic Tiverton Four Corners. Tourism isn’t discouraged in these parts, but you won’t find many places to stay or things to do, and that’s just the way the locals and many visitors like it. There are no miniature golf courses or amusements, however, just a handful of informal eateries, a yacht club, and a smattering of beach houses, most of them down quiet dirt lanes out of the public eye. Little Compton has a large and close-knit summer community, many of the families having been regulars for generations. Suburbia has been slowly creeping into both towns, especially the northern reaches of Tiverton, but the two communities still remain pleasingly rural. After exploring them both, it’s interesting to consider that these two towns have a land area considerably larger than either Aquidneck Island (home to Newport, Portsmouth, and Middletown) or the East Bay towns of Barrington, Bristol, and Warren. Sakonnet is a quiet and picturesque corner of Rhode Island both Tiverton and Little Compton are small and pastoral, with acres of flat farmland surrounded by trim stone walls and gray-shingled farmhouses. It is not a true peninsula, since it shares a land border with Massachusetts to the east, but the area is nevertheless physically cut off from the rest of Rhode Island except by way of the Sakonnet Bridge (Route 24/138). Originally named Pocasset by the Seaconnet Native Americans who lived here before selling the land to the Plymouth Colony in 1680, Tiverton and Little Compton (to the south) make up the Sakonnet Peninsula.
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