Houses on High Street

Houses along High Street include a classic gambrel-roofed bungalow ( HO12.1; c. 1915), 6 High Street, set within well-kept grounds; its round field-stone foundation, a feature popular in stone-quarrying southwestern Rhode Island, continues up the full-width front porch as parapet. Farther along, downhill toward the river, are three Greek Revival houses (c. 1840), two large and one small, in an arc sweeping down the hill on High Street ( HO12.2). The larger, two-story ones, numbers 14 and 18, flank the end-gable cottage at number 16. What compels here, however, are the Colonial Revival porches added to the larger houses: each culminates at one end with projecting pavilions (polygonal for number 14, circular for 18). The ensemble is made all the more striking by the symmetry of the porches when viewed together, with the pavilions at east and west ends of the group. Number 20, the Jacob Babcock House ( HO12.3; 1778), is a standard two-and-one-half-story, five-bay, late-eighteenth-century house, interesting as the house of the owner of the first mill in the village. Some of its adjuncts hard against the river may be altered remnants of ancient additions that once combined residence with work.