Watson Farm (1796)

In 1657 attempted encroachments by settlers from neighboring towns alarmed Newporters. To protect their grazing land, ninety-eight Newport proprietors secured title to the island from the Narragansett sachem Cajanaquant. In return for 100 pounds’ worth of wampum, Cajanaquant agreed to remove all of the island’s Narragansett inhabitants and to compensate those who had left corn fields. At this time, Joshua Fisher was commissioned by the proprietors to undertake a survey of the island so that roads could be planned and acreage divided into assignable lots. The original plan for the purchasers provided each with a town plot as well as a section for farming. The farms were at the north and south ends of the island and every twenty acres of farm land carried one acre of town plot.

Those who were actively interested in this island settlement were mostly farmers, and being more interested in farmland, they generally sold or traded the town plot to which they were entitled. Many of these lots were demarcated by stone walls rather than wood fencing due to the scarcity of trees on the island, and as the lots were developed into farmsteads, additional stone walls were erected to divide cultivated fields from pastures and orchards. These original stone wall boundaries are indicated on the Fisher map and many continue to stand as monuments to the continuum of the island’s agricultural legacy.

The twenty-fourth allotment on Joshua Fisher’s survey, a 256-acre tract, was assigned to William Brenton, a wealthy merchant from Boston who also served as colonial governor of Rhode Island. Over the course of his life he assembled extensive holdings from the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts to the Narragansett Bay, which he administered from Newport, where he constructed one of the town’s first wharves. To manage such large land holdings, Brenton and his fellow merchant/landowners relied extensively on tenant farmers, who brought the new land under cultivation and tended the herds and crops. Tenants were generally bound in their activities by requirements and prohibitions instituted by their landlord.

Although precise information on Brenton’s use of his Conanicut holdings is scarce, the contents of his will indicate that some, if not all, of his land had been improved by 1674.

The boundaries of present-day Watson Farm coincide closely with those of William Brenton’s original share of 256 acres, as shown on the Joshua Fisher survey of 1657. On these new farms, certain crops such as corn, barley, and hay were grown, but the major sources of income came from raising sheep and dairy cattle. Rhode Island wool, mutton, and cheese were major export items. The importance of sheep to the economy is underscored by the adaptation of a shield bearing a sheep as the town’s official seal in 1678.

A poll taken by the General Assembly of Jamestown in June of 1767 lists some of what tenant farmer John Martin had on Hutchinson’s land, including the mention of slaves amongst the rest of his property:

• 2 buildings
• 5 slaves
• 9 ounces plate, “wrought silver, by the laws of some states, subject to a tax by the ounce.”
• 5 horses
• 10 cattle
• 23 cows keeping
• 79 sheep
• 8 swine
• 171 acres pasture
• 8 acres tillage
• 21 and one half acres mowing
• 210 bushels grain
• 23 tons English hay

Between 1730 and 1775 Newport developed an ever-increasing foreign trade and, for many years prior to 1775, surpassed New York and Boston as a commercial center. Great quantities of produce, particularly sheep and cheese, were shipped from Narragansett. Jamestown shared in this prosperity. During the American Revolution, however, this changed. The British Army occupied Newport from 1775 to 1779 and troops were stationed at several fortifications on Conanicut Island. The British frequently raided nearby farms for livestock, grain, and firewood, and many homes on the Island were burned. When a British raiding party plunderedJamestown in December 1775, they wounded Martin as he stood in his doorway, and he died shortly thereafter. Among the houses burned during this raid were those of Martin and Gershom Remington.

Researchers examined a sample of twelve of these forty-seven properties (twenty-five percent) in the 1783 tax assessment, and found that within each farmstead, approximately ten percent of the land was cultivated, primarily for corn, twenty-one percent was utilized for hay meadow, and sixty-nine percent consisted of pasture for cows and sheep. Almost 100 percent of each farm at this time was being used for agricultural purposes. Itis uncertain as to what extent mutton, wool, and dairy products remained commercial items during this time. Very few sheep were reported. This may reflect the use of sheep as a primary food source during the British occupation or perhaps an adaptation to post-war conditions that affected the island’s agricultural economy.

According to W.L. Watson’s History of Jamestown on Conanicut Island in the State of Rhode Island, after the American Revolution, “…Jamestown was not only ruined, it was practically depopulated. Those who remained were farmers and their only hope for a living was to get it out of the ground. This they resolutely set out to do. Sheep provided meat and wool, spinning wheels were always humming making yarn, the hand looms wove blankets and lindsey­-woolsey which was cut up and made into clothes. They also grew flax and wove their own linens. Pigs provided hams (which were smoked with corn- cobs and cured by hand), sausage, lard and mince pies; apples were cut up and dried and also made into cider; geese provided meat and feathers for feather beds. The milk house of an average farm in early winter would reveal a side or two of beef and mutton, many bags of sausage, tubs of butter and lard, bags of dried apples and a hundred or more mince pies which, with the potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbages and the barrel of cider in the cellar, had to carry them through the winter. All the cooking was done in an open fireplace or the brick oven, and sweeping was done with turkey wings. The men spent their days cultivating the fields, raising and harvesting the crops, tending the cattle and chopping wood. The women prepared the meals, tended the house, wove cloth, knitted stockings, made clothes and found time to make samplers and do embroidery. The evenings were illuminated by candles dipped or molded of mutton fat. The farm seemed to provide everything except boots and shoes. Such was the life of the average Jamestown farmer for the next three generations. They had no illusions. They were sufficient unto themselves, raised their families and provided for them out of the land they cultivated.”

Watson Farm came into the hands of Thomas Carr Watson Jr. in the early twentieth century. After graduating from Brown University, he became a stockbroker on the New York Stock Exchange, where he remained for more than fifty years. Although he never lived on the farm itself, he remained closely involved with the livestock operation throughout his life. Interestingly, Watson Farm has had a long history of tenant farmers operating the farm. The last tenant farm family lived at the farm until 1938. Tom Carr Watson Jr. lived in his own home closer to the center of Jamestown. The farm operations, including a well-established herd of Black Angus cattle, were managed for many years by Theodore Roosevelt Carr, a distant relative who lived in Jamestown.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the development of the island as a favorite summer resort. Numerous mansions were set on large, well-landscaped lots, and several hotels were built along Narragansett Avenue, in the more densely populated part of town. The Jamestown Bridge, built in 1940, resulted in an increased movement of traffic, and the completion of the Newport Bridge in 1969 produced an even heavier influx of people. Rising land values threatened this rural community as developers began to purchase farms and break them up into house lots.

Historic New England’s mission at Watson Farm is to balance the sustainable working farm with public programs, events, and educational programs that seek to reconnect visitors to the land. An intensively managed system of rotational grazing and innovative methods of soil fertility was developed to improve the pastures and health of the livestock. Highest quality grass-fed and finished lamb and beef is produced for local markets, as well as fine wool blankets. Heritage Red Devon cattle were introduced to the farm in 2003. The Red Devon, a tri-purpose breed, has excellent meat and milk, and a docile temperament for use as oxen. This breed contributed to the taming of the Colonial wilderness and, as it did 300 years ago, excels on the grass pastures of New England.

Thomas Carr Watson’s gift of the Watson Farm to Historic New England was the beginning of a local farmland preservation effort. His vision to save his family farm and the lifestyle it afforded set in motion a preservation ethic on the Island that continues into the twenty-first century. Today, in Jamestown, through the initiative of local farmers and the Grange’s Farm Viability Committee, the Conanicut Island Land Trust, the Nature Conservancy, the Town of Jamestown, and Historic New England, there is now more than 1,200 acres of contiguous preserved agricultural land with over 200 additional protected acres elsewhere on the Island. These working historic farms on Conanicut Island are not just pictures of the past, but are models of farming for the future.