Katharine Preston

Katharine Hamlin Hall Preston (1930 – 2020) 

1787 B Main Road and 3 Windward Way 

Katharine “Kathy” Hamlin Hall was born in 1930, in Northampton, Ma. the daughter of Rev. Basil Hall and Anna Loraine Washburn. Her grandfather Hall built Synton in Westport and was Director of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was an extremely highly regarded minister. Her ancestors through her mother were missionaries in the Near East in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her great grandfather established a school that became BogaziciUniversity in Istanbul and still has halls named in their honor – Washburn and Hamlin. Kathy graduated from Wheaton College in 1951 as a music major.  She founded WHIMS at Wheaton, taught music for several years, attending music events, organizing sing-alongs, gathering friends and family to sing, and Christmas caroling.  She married John Preston in 1954 who shared her love of music and birds.  They both remained avid birders and environmentalists and were active in the early days of the WRWA.  They traveled extensively to see birds and nature. Kathy was politically active in Westport, serving on local committees and boards.  John died in 2010 and Kathy died in 2020.  

As remembered by Liz Preston 

Westport was always the most important place for her.  In her early years, her life revolved around Synton [name of their home that Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall had built in 1886 on Eldridge Heights] and Scotch Pine Lane.  Once she was married and had children, the two cottages on the bank of the West branch of the Westport River we called Catamaran and Tree House (at the terminus of Scotch Pine Lane) were where she spent each summer.  In 1978, my parents moved to Westport year-round, and they bought their house on Windward Way in 1979.  My mother lived there for the rest of her life; in 2011 she wrote “Sitting on my deck, shaded by the sun by a slightly moldy awning, watching the goldfinches vie for thistle seed, listening to the buzz and chirp over my head as a tiny young hummingbird tries to decide whether it is brave enough to partake of the sugar syrup with me sitting in the chair just below the feeder, I once again feel the beauty and peace of this wonderful place in southeast Massachusetts.  It is here that I find solace as I try to make some sort of life for myself without my husband of 55 years who died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease in February of 2010, after a long and difficult journey with that terrible disease.”  

Memories of Westport Point 

By Kathy Preston 

When we first went there, Baba [Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall] had made a little old boathouse of theirs into the first Catamaran house for our family.  It was down by the place below Tree House where now you can supposedly launch a boat.  At high tide, the water came up to just under the porch.  I think that the dock was off that way, too.  The house had no running water or electricity.  I remember that we had to draw the water up from the well in a pail.  The toilets were just a big metal barrel (I guess they were metal, and I think they had a handle that you could hold on to when you went to dump it) into which I guess they must have put some deodorant stuff (it didn’t help much!).  I hate to think where Papa [Rev. Basil Hall] emptied the barrel, but I think (don’t know) it was in the woods now owned by Carroll Williamson or Neil van Sloun [1787D and 1787E Main Road.]  I know he had to dig a pit each time he emptied the barrel.  We used kerosene lanterns and Mother had a kerosene stove.  If she boiled something over while cooking, the flames would leap up into the air – always scary.  We also had to have ice for the Ice Box; The ice man would drive to the top of the hill; Papa would have to push a wheelbarrow up the hill, and the chunks of ice were put into his wheelbarrow.  He then struggled down the hill with the ice.  I think his name was Casey Macomber; I can remember Unk [Theodore Hall] chanting: “Casey, Casey, Casey, Macomber, Macomber, Macomber”!! 

Mother, of course, had to do wash by taking water from the well, getting it hot on the kerosene stove, etc.  And she had a lot of cloth diapers to wash constantly —- and I never remember a complaint on her part, ever!!  We couldn’t drive up and down the hill at that time; it was just a small lane with grass in the middle.  Groceries:  I don’t know where Mother got them or when.  I know that there was a Sanford’s Meat Market in Adamsville, RI.  We seldom had meat or poultry or fish – usually it was eggs cooked in various ways – but when we did have it, I’m sure Mother got it from Sanford’s.  Mr. Sanford also always let us get two or three kittens when we arrived the first of August; he took them back when we left for Florence the end of August!  I think that there was a fish man who came to the top of the hill with fish to sell, and that Mother was able to get fish from him.  I feel quite sure that there must have been a grocery truck that came, too.  Whatever it was, it always meant the steep climb up the hill to get whatever it was!!!  Going anywhere always entailed a steep climb up!   

Sailing, rowing, quahoggiing (with our feet in the mud to feel the clams!), Sandy Beach picnics, Harbor Rocks picnics, lunches at Synton with Baba, Unk, and Aunt K [Katherine Stanley Hall](with Aunt K making the lunches, of course, for all of us!!), Sunday night hymn sings with Baba, Unk and Aunt K [Katharine Stanley Hall], and later on, Sunday night sings at the Ring’s house, with Aunt Polly and Uncle Lyle [Pauline and Lyle Ring] running it. —- the list could go on and on.  There were Gooseberry Neck picnics, picnics at the Nubble, trips to the beach, etc., but I don’t know whether or not that was when I was really young.   

In terms of boats, I’m sure I won’t remember all of them.  While I was growing up, the boat that I learned to sail in was Koi Hai, a flat-bottomed boat with a centerboard.  At the moment, I can’t remember whether the sail was gaff-rigged or Marconi-rigged.  Maybe old pictures will show me which it was.  I certainly remember The Sprit, which was again a flat-bottomed, centerboard boat, but it had a “sprit-sail”.  To raise the sail you had to stand up on the bow and push up with all your strength to get the sail loose.  (Heavens, I don’t know how it went!!)  That left you holding a madly flapping sail.  All I can say is that we had a lot of fun in the “Sprit”, but it was a difficult boat to rig and unrig, especially if the wind was strong.  The “Sprit” became leakier and leakier and eventually was put behind the house to become a sandbox.   

After we’d put the boat in a place where it could become a sandbox, Alden Ring [Pauline and Lyle Ring’s son] came down one day with all of his many small children, and, in typical fashion, stammered and stuttered, and finally managed to ask Papa if he (Alden) could “borrow” our boat and “fix it up for Papa”.  Papa instantly gave it to Alden, of course, and for years after that, we would see Alden with a boat full of children, and most of them were bailing the whole time, to keep the boat afloat.  Alden loved it! 

I forgot one “Sprit” story.  There had been a big storm and the waves at the Harbor were breaking across the harbor mouth.  A whole bunch of us, including the Wicks tribe, sailed over there, and left our boats tied to what must have been the dock/wharf there.  We all went for the fun of picnicking on the rock to enjoy the huge surf.  Happily enjoying ourselves, we all of sudden looked with horror as the “Sprit” went “sailing” (the sail was furled, but the tide was going out and out went the “Sprit” with it.)  Papa hadn’t left enough slack on the rope, and, as the tide went down, the rope had broken.  We all watched in total horror as the “Sprit” hit the first of the many waves breaking across the harbor mouth.  It made it through most of them, but one finally got to it, and over it went.  The mast went through the bottom of the boat. We watched it go east right along the beach, out beyond the waves.  Alden Ring and his friend (and mine), Bob Baker [son of Mary Howe and Robert Baker, Sr.], were at the beach and saw the boat going by, and they could see that it was going to be brought in on the beach by the waves – way up past Baker’s [beach]to about where the entrance to the state beach is now.  They ran up the beach and the boat washed ashore. It was in bad shape, of course, but somehow they got in touch with us that they had the boat, and somehow it must have been taken to Tripp’s Boatyard where it was patched and made “whole” again.  It was not a fun “saga”, but a saga, nonetheless.