The area that now includes Canonchet Farm was used by the Narragansett Indians for seasonal cultivation, hunting, and fishing beginning about 1000 A.D. The Pettaquamscutt Purchase of 1658 transferred vast acres to the English settlers and by the early 1700s, the present Canonchet Farm was a small part of the holdings of the Robinson family.

By the early 1700s, most of the land in the Pier was owned by William Robinson, a gentleman farmer who held extensive tracts in Wakefield, Boston Neck, and Point Judith Neck. At his death in 1751, his properties were divided among his seven sons. Sylvester Robinson was granted the Canonchet Farm on the site of the old Indian campground, where present-day Canonchet Farm is located, while John Robinson was given the Mumford Farm, which included much of today’s central Pier area.

It was John Robinson who in the early 1780s, built the pier that eventually gave the area the name Narragansett Pier.

SCM photos-jrt 2010                                                                Above, a Narragansett landmark, Squaw Rock                                                             

By about 1750, the Sylvester Robinson house was built on the farm area. Governor (and future Senator) William Sprague purchased the Robinson land in the 1850s. Soon after he married Kate Chase in 1863, the couple began building their summer mansion, which they named Canonchet, enclosing the Sylvester Robinson house in a large (estimates range from 62 to 68 rooms), four-story mansion. The mansion's location was adjacent to what is now Museum property, near the Visitors Center.

Sprague’s fortune and first marriage both came to an end in the mid-1870s. Sprague’s second marriage to a wealthy West Virginian, Inez Calvert, resulted in the restoration of the mansion. In 1909 the mansion and property were sold to Sprague’s sister-in-law (and widow of his son William), Avis Calvert Sprague Wheaton Borda. Before she could move in, the mansion burned to the ground. Avis maintained the property as a working farm for years thereafter. The stables, now on Museum property, burned in 1950, with only the stone walls of the first story surviving.

In 1973, the town of Narragansett acquired the 174-acre Canonchet Farm, much of it consisting of fresh- and salt-water wetlands. South County Museum, which had been forced off its North Kingstown location because of the expansion of Route 4, moved to the Farm in 1985.

In recent years, a trail system has been created, half circling the museum. There are five access points to the trails. One is from the southwest corner of the museum property, near the Living History Farm. That is near the midpoint of the trails. Two access points are on Anne Hoxie Lane, and the others are at the nearby elementary school and the senior center (See map).

Parking

At the Museum or at the beach overflow parking lot at the beginning of Anne Hoxsie Lane, across Boston Neck Road from the South Beach Pavilion.

Anne Hoxie Lane (only on foot) & Strathmore Street

Canonchet Farm & Its Nature Trails