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Gilbert Stuart Birthplace

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1753, 1757. 1930, restoration, Norman M. Isham. 815 Gilbert Stuart Rd.

Gilbert Stuart, one of America's finest eighteenth-century portrait painters, was born in this gambrel-roofed mill in 1755. Although milling had taken place on this site since the seventeenth century, Stuart's father had emigrated from Scotland to establish New England's first snuff mill. No doubt Norman Isham was attracted to its restoration by the beauty of its decaying antiquity, made more picturesque by its siting in a deep hollow. Surely prettier than its reality, this conjunction of the water-powered mill and the miller's quarters nevertheless makes vivid the earliest stage of rural industry.

Writing Credits

Author: 
William H. Jordy et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Silas Casey Farm
Shady Lea Mill
Rowland Robinson House
Observation Tower, Hannah Robinson Park
Hamilton Harbour Condominiums (Hamilton Web Company)

Citation

William H. Jordy et al., "Gilbert Stuart Birthplace", [North Kingstown, Rhode Island], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/RI-01-NK43.

Print Source

Buildings of Rhode Island, William H. Jordy, with Ronald J. Onorato and William McKenzie Woodward. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 364-364.

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