To the editor:

For over 350 years of living history Little Compton, Rhode Island has evolved from a tribal, hunter gatherer, Sakonnet People, into farms and pastures, dirt roads and the horse powered transportation of yesterday.  From that time until this, many things have changed.

I believe that to understand who we are as a people, a community, we need to have the perspective of who we were as a people. A key to that understanding lies with those that compile the records, the stories, maps, and boundaries. The dead’s, the law. “The History”.       

Fortunately, Little Compton has a place where many of the answers, to some of the questions, can be found. Strangely enough, it’s called “The Little Compton Historical Society.” There you can find thousands of unique facts interwoven within this unique coastal community.   

The dedicated group that operates this unique and diverse historical society, in my opinion, has created a wonderful portal to the past as it relates to today. The what and the how the residents of this community lived, died and everything in between for the past 400 years. It’s a repository of our knowledge, of the past, collated into stories and facts in a 16th century home on West Main Road.  Everything from Native Americans, British, British Colonial Americans, American Colonists, African Americans, Portuguese Americans, etc. and finally Americans.    

At The Little Compton Historical Society there are local artifacts, local artworks, hands-on programs, community involved projects, i.e. caring for our historic cemeteries, The role and impact of women on that society and their recent program, “Everyone was a farmer.” — a program explaining, and depicting, how everyone in LC was a farmer or provided skills that supported farming and how they lived. Mother, Father, Carpenter, Cooper, Blacksmith, Weaver, etc.           

To learn something about a community, its people, the landscape, the politics, and its place in the world, you need to learn it’s history.  History shows us “Who We Are, What We Were”, with a little perspective thrown in. To learn some of that history you should visit, in person or online, The Little Compton Historical Society, 548 West Main Road, Little Compton, R.I. 

Mark Page

Little Compton