The Church and The Cemetery
Like most towns, Jamestown had several churches where neighbors could get together and worship. These churches changed locations over the years. I don’t want to bore you with dates and reconstructions of the many places of worship here on the island. I’d like to tell you about the movable chapel of Saint Matthew's Episcopal Church. Saint Matthew's is the church with the large white steeple.
Reverend Charles E Preston came up with the idea of the Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration, or the movable chapel, in 1898. Automobiles were rare, and parishioners found it difficult to get to Saint Matthews. The church on wheels could bring services to them. In the summer months, it was placed at Conanicut Park for the summer residents. The other ten months of the year, it sat about 3 miles north of the village for the farming community.
The chapel was 18 feet high and 18 feet wide and could seat 100 people. Construction was finished in April 1899, and it took 10 oxen and two days to move the chapel from the church to a spot on the east ferry road. It remained there, unmoved, until 1909. It was then moved to North Main Road; it never made it to Conanicut Park.
Preston wrote a book about the movable chapel. The cost of the book and the finances he put into building the chapel exceeded his financial assets. It is said that in 1899, he boarded the Fall River Line Steamer headed for New York, but he never arrived. His watch, clothing, and some letters were found in his cabin. Suicide was assumed. But like any good story, that’s not what happened. Preston was not dead. A short time later, he was spotted with a schoolteacher half his age.
Now, if you turn around, you will see the cemetery.
In 1657, this lot was set aside for an Artillery Park. It was a place "for burial of ye dead" and other uses. The lot was not actually used until the early 18th century. This was the burial ground for the townspeople. The military did practice here as well, but it was stopped over time, probably as the cemetery filled.
In December of 1775, in reaction to shots being fired on them from shore, British marines and soldiers marched along Narragansett Avenue and burned buildings in their path. A fight broke out in front of the Artillery Park. One marine officer was killed and several others were wounded. No colonial soldiers were hurt. A nearby resident who had been given authority to farm the Artillery Park, named John Martin, was shot and critically wounded. Today, this lot serves as a dedicated veteran’s cemetery.
Please continue West, through Jamestown's only traffic light. While you head towards stop 5, I would like to tell you about the time General George Washington was here in Jamestown.
On March 6, 1781, three months before the French army departed from Newport, General Washington visited Count de Rochambeau to consult with him concerning the operation of the troops under his command and to hasten the sailing of the expedition under M Destouches. This visit marked the final coordination with French forces before heading South to confront General Cornwallis in Virginia, ultimately defeating him at Yorktown. Washington journeyed to Newport on horseback as far as the Old South Ferry, about a mile to the south of what is now Saunderstown, and reached his destination by way of the Conanicut ferry. A resident of South Kingstown recorded in his diary that the general had passed through that section at about ten o'clock on the same date and that he was accompanied by about twenty soldiers acting as a guard. On his way across the harbor, he stopped to exchange greetings with the French generals who were assembled on board the Duc de Bourgogne, and in the early part of the afternoon, he was taken by barge to the landing at the head of Long Wharf, where he stepped ashore amid the plaudits of the admiring throng. The French fleet, lying at anchor in the harbor, fired a salute, and the army, numbering nearly seven thousand men, was lined up in a double rank on both sides of the street, extending all the way from the landing point to the old State House in Washington Square.