Westport’s Shipbuilding Challenges

Westport’s Unique Shipbuilding Challenges In the early years, launching boats and conducting business on the Noquochoke (East Branch of the Westport River) was relatively straightforward. Boats were generally of the smaller variety, and the unique locations of launching points and river crossings did little to impact the boatbuilding business. With the advent of the whaling […]

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Contact and Pre Contact Period

Contact Period (1500–1620) The first documented accounts of Native and non-Native interactions along the shores and harbors of Old Dartmouth (the original territory from which Westport was subdivided) indicate that these areas were inhabited by Native American groups affiliated with the Wampanoag tribe (Denison 1879; Ellis 1892; Howland 1907). The MHC (1982) notes a large […]

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A Handy House Thanksgiving

  Not much is known about how the holidays were celebrated at the Handy House, however we’ve uncovered that Thanksgiving 1927 was a real hair-raising time! Abbott Smith, who purchased the Hix Bridge Road home in 1911, hosted 48 of his nearest and dearest at one large table out on the front porch, according to […]

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Westport News

The Historical Society has discovered an old weekly newspaper from 1896 called Westport News but can’t find any other information, such as who published the paper and for how long. http://www.wickedlocal.com/fall-river/news/x41629578/Westport-Historical-Society-finds-old-newspaper-seeks-information-on-its-origin

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