Letter: Actually, Barrington has two birthdays

Posted 5/2/17

To the editor:

A letter in last week’s Times tells the history of Barrington accurately. 

Read the letter questioning Barrington's 300th anniversary.

We were …

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Letter: Actually, Barrington has two birthdays

Posted

To the editor:

A letter in last week’s Times tells the history of Barrington accurately. 

Read the letter questioning Barrington's 300th anniversary.

We were incorporated as Barrington, Mass., in 1717, breaking off from Swansea, partly due to religious differences. In 1746-47, a redrawn colony line transferred most of Barrington and part of Swansea, as well as all of the town of Bristol (Mass.), into Rhode Island. The parts of Barrington still left in Massachusetts were Barneyville, which rejoined Swansea to the east, and most of Riverside, which joined Rehoboth to the north.  The Rhode Island parts of Barrington and Swansea were given a new identity and name, Warren. But the differences between the Barrington and Swansea people persisted, so in 1770 Rhode Island allowed Barrington to be reincorporated as an independent town. 

So Barrington has two birthdays, 1717 and 1770, and we have been celebrating both for a long time: town historian Thomas W. Bicknell presided at a centennial celebration in 1870 and a bicentennial celebration in 1917. 

Modern signs and documents don’t always have the luxury of reflecting our nuanced history. The town government mostly uses the 1770 date these days, while the Rhode Island Secretary of State's website lists 1717 as our incorporation. Handsome metal plaques put up around town in 1936 stated: “Barrington: Incorporated 1717, Annexed to Rhode Island 1746, Reincorporated 1770.” Those plaques are now all gone, except for one which greets visitors in the doorway to our museum, in the lower level of the library building.

A detailed timeline exhibition on Barrington's complex history—explaining all this and more—is being installed on the main level of the library this week; it will be up through the summer. More information is also found in our new book of photographs, Barrington (Arcadia Press, Images of America Series), which goes on sale on May 23.

Nat Taylor

Barrington

Nat Taylor is president of the Barrington Preservation Society.

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