Scituate Reservoir History (Providence, Cranston, Narragansett: hotels, houses, high school)

[JBtwinz]

A gentleman has been putting together the history of the Scituate Reservoir and while I knew there were some buildings lost in the process I never knew until now just how many building and villages were lost in the making of the reservoir. Pretty interesting history.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=UAo426fa2MY

Under a deluge of beautiful blue waves lie the forgotten and lost villages of Scituate, RI:

Ashland Village
Kent Village
Ponaganset Village
Richmond Village
Rockland Village
Wilbur Hollow
Saundersville
South Scituate
Elmdale
Fiskeville
Glenn Rock
Harrisdale

More than 100-years ago, back in 1913, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations set out an ambitious plan to build one of the largest fresh-water reservoirs in the country. This was done in order to feed the thriving industrial complex and citizens of the capital city of Providence . The plan became to seize by eminent domain most of the town of Scituate, Rhode Island, which existed in the forested northwest hills of the state. Its entire valley would be flooded and its three tributaries, the Pawtuxet River, the Moswansicut River, and the Ponaganset River harnessed by a huge earthen dam. This would create a huge Y-shaped reservoir that would have a surface area that spanned over 5.3 square miles. What was gained was a beautiful forested valley with a giant blue reservoir, a watershed forest of over 7 million newly planted hemlock, white pine, and spruce trees, and a water system second to none in the nation. What was lost was a myriad of farms, houses, old-style colonial mill villages, mills, taverns, hotels, a railroad system, a trolley system, sacred Native American areas such as Council Throne and Council Bowl, Indian Rock, which became inaccessible within the watershed, the town fairgrounds, Bathing Beach at Moswansicut Pond, and a large part of North Scituate Village along with almost a dozen other villages.

In 1638, Roger Williams, the founder of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, came to the area of Narragansett Bay after being banished from Salem, Massachusetts. In this new area south of the Massachusetts Bay Colony he was befriended by the local Native American inhabitants, namely Chief Sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoags tribe, whom Roger Williams would write one of the first books of the New World when in 1643 he published ALGONQUIAN, A KEY INTO THE NATIVE LANGUAGE, CUSTOMS, AND HABITS OF THE AMERICAN NATIVE TRIBES. Soon after, Roger Williams acquired a fertile tract of land from Chief Sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi of the Narragansett tribe that became Providence Plantations. He also purchased a second tract of land 7 miles west of Providence from Chief Sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi known then as “the Outlands,” or the “Providence Woods." It should be noted that Roger Williams was the very first settler in the so-called "New World" who insisted that land be purchased through negotiation and payment made to local native tribes, which became the law of the new colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Scituate made up a part of the so-called "Providence Woods." Scituate was called "Satuit," in Algonquian, meaning "cold brook" from the beautiful tributaries of the Pawtuxet , Moswansicut and Ponaganset Rivers traversing through the land. It soon became spelled "Scituate," instead of "Satuit," which the town is known by to this day.

After the valley of Scituate, Rhode Island was flooded over 1,195 buildings were razed and removed for the new reservoir. Council throne where native American tribes like the Nipmuc, Narragansetts, Wampanoag, Pequot, and Niantic met for centuries was lost.

Council Bowl along the shores of Moswansicut Pond was abandoned. 375 Scituate homes were destroyed. 233 barns. 7 schools. 6 churches. 11 icehouses. 5 dance halls and a tavern where Georgie Washington once slept. Many family cemeteries were left in the woods.

Another 1,500 graves around Scituate were also disinterred and moved, along with their original headstones, to the New Rockland Cemetery up on a hill in the Clayville section of town.

During drought years, fieldstone walls, home foundations, the foundation of old mills, and even the old Andrews "iron bridge" can be seen emerging from the waters. Old roads with fieldstone walls on each side can still be found within the woods surrounding the reservoir, along with house foundations here and there. Scituate is truly a magnificent, if not haunted, place.

--Jéanpaul Ferro, Class of '85, Scituate High School

[sandsonik]

I have to look at this again when I am not supposed to be, because this is questionable.

Fiskeville was not flooded for the reservoir; it still exists and isn't even particularly close to the edge of the reservoir.

[JBtwinz]

Originally Posted by sandsonik

I have to look at this again when I am not supposed to be, because this is questionable.

Fiskeville was not flooded for the reservoir; it still exists and isn't even particularly close to the edge of the reservoir.

I did a quick search on Wiki and found the following:

Fiskeville is usually associated with Cranston rather than with Scituate as most of the original buildings including Dr. Fiske's residence were in Cranston. Although the mill and about a dozen nearby mill houses were in Scituate. Poets Karen Haskell and Darcie Dennigan both grew up, a few doors down from each other, in the 1970s and 1980s on Main Street in Fiskeville.

Driving over the reservoir when I was little my dad had said there were villages that were lost but until I recently saw the history I had no idea it was such a huge project.

I am old enough to remember the many people who lost their homes in the 60’s to the “Big River Project” and it never came to be.

[JBtwinz]

Part two has been added to You Tube.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=urcXKCFkjDA&feature=shared