I recently visited the Little Compton Town Hall to research the minutes of Town Meetings during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While tracking the history of Town Meeting actions concerning bounties on crows, hawks, and foxes (a story I’ll relate in a later post), I was brought up short by a vote at…Continue readingA Long Ramble on Little Compton Roads
Month: April 2022
In the mid-1990s, during sometimes contentious Little Compton public meetings about the activities of local land conservation organizations, the drafting of the town’s Comprehensive Plan, and various other issues involving the town’s natural resources, one long-time resident would sometimes offer an anecdote about the source of the town’s groundwater. Her father, she would declare, had…Continue reading“Do We Have Enough Water in Little Compton?”
The house Nan and I are fortunate to be renting in Little Compton is situated on a patch of slightly higher, drier land in the midst of what, for all intents and purposes, is a kind of swamp, especially at this time of year. (I use the word “swamp” deliberately and in a positive and…Continue reading“Frog Opera”: A Seasonal Chorus in Deep Time
I first met Raianne Richards and Mark Mandeville, the founders and leading lights of the Massachusetts Walking Tour, when I joined them and fellow musicians Amy Alvey and Mark Kilianski on the final leg of their trek along the Bay Circuit Trail (BCT) in 2014. That year and the next, they walked different sections of…Continue readingThe Massachusetts Walking Tour: Connecting Communities on Foot–and with Music
In late 2012, Sakonnet Vineyard, which had operated in Little Compton, Rhode Island since 1975 under two previous owners, was sold to Dionysus Acquisition LLC. The principal and apparently the sole owner of that company was, and remains, Carolyn Rafaelian, who was the founder and, at that time, the majority owner of Alex & Ani,…Continue readingCarolyn’s Sakonnet Vineyard: A New Chapter in an Ongoing Saga