Posted on July 7, 2016 by Jenny ONeill
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 […]
Continue ReadingPosted on July 16, 2010 by Jenny ONeill
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
Continue ReadingPosted on June 16, 2010 by Jenny ONeill
Temperance – the campaign to curtail the consumption of alcohol – was an important reform movement in the 19th century. Westport had a number of active temperance groups, and one of the most effective and controversial was the Washingtonians, who shot to prominence in 1840, only to be crowded out by competing abstinence groups by […]
Continue ReadingPosted on May 26, 2010 by Jenny ONeill
The following articles were found in copies of the New Bedford Evening Standard. Topics include the Civil War, fishing at Westport Point, fox hunting, summer activities at Westport Point and much much more. Enjoy the oddities! The Lobster trade July 7 1863 Thomas Mayhew letter on the British and Confederate “pirates” December 30 1863 A […]
Continue ReadingPosted on January 20, 2009 by Jenny ONeill
This storm was the first major hurricane to impact New England in 180 years. It initiated in the West Indies, growing to a Category 3 with winds of 135 mph. After crossing Long Island, New York, the storm came ashore at Saybrook, Connecticut, funneling an 11-foot storm surge up Narragansett Bay. There, it destroyed 500 […]
Continue ReadingPosted on January 13, 2009 by Jenny ONeill
A Category 3, this ‘September Gale’ was first observed in the Bahamas. It ultimately made landfall in Rhode Island just west of Buzzards Bay, dissipating in Northern Maine. This storm was very compact, but intense. It was reported to have been only 60 miles wide, but it caused extensive damage in Rhode Island, southern Massachusetts […]
Continue ReadingPosted on January 8, 2009 by Jenny ONeill
Even by Westport’s standards, Cadman’s Neck is off the beaten track. This small promontory of land edging into the east branch of Westport River is easily bypassed on Hix Bridge Road. However, what is now a secluded community was once a hub of activity, a place where thousands of people would gather to participate in […]
Continue ReadingPosted on June 14, 2005 by Bill Wyatt
Bruce White Most accounts of cotton manufacturing in New England describe a progression from the small rural water-powered cotton-spinning operations, through the larger company town enterprises that extended the spinning of yarn to the manufacture of cloth, to the fully industrialized steam-powered factories of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Despite this trend, however, […]
Continue ReadingPosted on February 1, 2005 by Bill Wyatt
There are references to sailing into and out of Westport in several whaling logs. We print here
Continue ReadingPosted on March 17, 2004 by Bill Wyatt
This poem was written by Charlotte White, half black, half Native American, and was born in 1775. Charlotte White Rd. is named after her. You can see a picture of her in our “Westport Enters its Fifth Century” p. 57.
Continue Reading