01:00 AM EST on Thursday, November 24, 2005

SOUTH KINGSTOWN

AFTER VISITNG 32 of Rhode Island's 39 towns, your correspondent met his match in South Kingstown. Three tours in two weeks only confirmed the difficulty of assessing its complex historical character. There's too much, and it's too widely spread.

Perhaps South Kingstown eludes elucidation as well because the physical remains of its seminal history have all but disappeared. The Great Swamp survives, true, but a swamp swallows its history. The plantations of the Narragansett Country have likewise disappeared, swept away by nature and time.

To my knowledge, no city or town in Rhode Island has been the subject of a book the likes of Lost South Kingstown (2004). Only a town where much remains would have the gumption to produce a book about how much has disappeared.

One of its authors, Ronald Onorato, a professor of art at the University of Rhode Island and president of the Pettaquamscutt Historical Society, wrote in its opening essay: "The fifteen villages listed by J.R. Cole in his late 19th Century history have become one more homogeneous locale."

On Nov. 7, the professor showed me some of what has not been lost. He joined me and my guide, historian Helen Farrell Allen, of Wakefield, on a hopeless attempt to see the town in the space of a mere several hours. I returned again on Nov. 12, and yet again last Saturday with another Wakefielder, a descendant of Roger Williams.

South Kingstown, Rhode Island's 12th town, is its third in size (56.8 square miles) after Coventry (62.2 square miles) and Exeter (57.6 square miles). Kingstown was split in February 1722 by the General Assembly, which stipulated that North Kingstown was the elder but that South Kingstown would be the larger -- 70.7 square miles to 43.5 square miles. In 1888, Narragansett decamped, with its 13.9 square miles (although it was not incorporated until 1901).

The Pettaquamscutt Purchase, signed in 1657 at Treaty Rock (which I climbed) by the Narragansett sachems Quassaquanch, Kachanaquant and Quequaquenuet, opened for settlement some of the richest farmland in New England (cleared by the Indians). For decades, the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth and Connecticut colonies tried to poach it from Rhode Island. And in King Philip's War (1675-76), its original inhabitants fought in vain to keep their land.

After the war, settlers moved in and eventually the Narragansett Country was cut into plantations, some thousands of acres. A landed aristocracy emerged, based in part on the enslavement of blacks and captured Indians. Narragansett Planter families such as the Hazards, the Robinsons and others grew crops to support their husbandry, and shipped cattle, sheep and Narragansett Pacer horses (popular for their smooth gait) to other English colonies on the East Coast and to the West Indies. Fat Mutton & Liberty of Conscience (1974), by Carl Bridenbaugh, topples the notion that the early Rhode Islanders were cranks better at argument than agriculture.

The plantations are, of course, history. In their wake arose a mill economy that spawned 15 villages, now a "homogenous locale" -- an exaggeration, I think. The villages of Kingston (originally known as Little Rest), Peace Dale and Wakefield do form a mini-conurbation, but one that rewards a trip down Route 108. Wakefield's downtown could profit from more historicism, but the village centers are distinct, and somewhat intact, as are several smaller villages, such as Usquepaug, where Kenyon Mill still makes jonnycake mix. Several blocks of Route 138 in Kingston form Rhode Island's first historic district, and, traffic notwithstanding, are postcard-perfect, arguably the town's most engaging set of buildings. A strong dissent might come from the buildings of locally quarried stone round about the library that the Hazards built in Peace Dale -- including the rambling Palisade Mills, proposed by the town for a mixed-use redevelopment.

The exception is the notorious intersection long known as Dale Carlia Corner. There Wakefield's oldest dwelling, Dalecarlia House, or Hazard House, or Twin Chimneys, was erected, possibly as early as 1697. Dalecarlia was a scenic spot near Stockholm. The old house was demolished in 1957, sparking an outbreak of suburban sprawl. But, curiously, in recent decades, second- and third-generation crudscape has increasingly nodded, however slightly, toward the past. Another several generations of this and the place might someday even contribute to South Kingstown's historic character.

Oddly appealing, and no less pertinent to its historic character than the town's more architecturally significant highlights, is the summer colony of trailers and tiny artful cottages at Matunuck.

The town's variety defies summary, let alone assessment. Exurbia, not suburbia. Ponds galore, disappearing beaches, nature conservatories, fishing fleets, the university (originally and appropriately an agricultural college), writers' colonies, even a nook of old modern architecture in Green Hill . . .

Whatever it has lost over the centuries, South Kingstown still has much to be thankful for.

David Brussat is a member of The Journal's editorial board. His e-mail is: dbrussat@projo.com.