What are those granite markers on Exeter Hill?

When you drive northbound on  Rte 102 (Ten Rod Rd) in eastern Exeter, did you ever wonder about the three oblong granite slabs on the right, in front of Delmyra Kennels, near the intersection with South Rd?

Why are they there? 

Find out! Read the latest installment about the history of our town from EHA Vice President Gary Boden.

The Granite Monuments at Aspanansuck

A racetrack in Exeter (almost)

The argument about gambling establishments in Rhode Island is not new, is not confined to Aquidneck Island, and is not always about table games.  EHA Vice President Gary Boden has done it again, gone and dug up another long-lost story that would have had a major impact on Exeter residents: a proposed horse racing track to be built on land straddling the border of Exeter and North Kingstown, at the Route 2 / Route 102 intersection known as "Robber's Corners"

The story  from 1952 about Exeter Raceways is rife with everything we know and love:  overflowing Town Council meetings, panic about declining property values, Town-wide referendums, ProJo editorials, empty promises of increased tax revenue, and a proposal "shrouded in mystery and uncertainty". Sound familiar?

Read the whole story by clicking the link below:

A Racetrack in Exeter

...could this have been Exeter?

Five years out from the Floods of 2010

Parris Brook overruns Old Voluntown Rd - March 2010.
Photo: Sheila Reynolds Boothroyd

Remember scenes like this? How could we forget!

It's been 5 years since the historic Floods of 2010 inundated Exeter and all of Rhode Island. As we slowly break Winter's chill and watch 2015's record snowfall melt away, we find ourselves looking back on that record rainfall, and reminding ourselves that perhaps this year's weather phenomenon wasn't really so bad after all!

EHA Vice-President Gary Boden offers some perspective:

Remembering the Floods of 2010

Civilian Conservation Corps in Exeter, Part II: Overlook Shelter

In April 2014, we posted an article about work buildings and encampments from the 1930's in the western half of Exeter. They were built by  the Civilian Conservation Corps, a national program aimed at bringing jobs to an economy  devastated by the Great Depression.

  

Here's another article written by Exeter Historical Association Vice President Gary Boden about one particular CCC building at Escoheag Hill: the Overlook Shelter. We're posting this piece on another snowy day of a colossally snowy winter as we anticipate a Spring day just around the bend when we can visit this structure.

 

 

 

Click on the link below to read the article

Buildings of the CCC: Overlook Shelter

 

Overlook Shelter, circa 1935

 

 

Of Old Stone Walls and LiDAR

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall..."

A LiDAR image showing a network of stone walls
 in the Glen Rock Road area.

So begins Robert Frost's poem about the stone walls that are all around us in Rhode Island. 

But what would Frost have thought about LiDAR? In this article by Exeter historian Gary Boden, we go back to prehistoric times to learn why the stones are here, as well as explore new technology that allows us to see lost stone walls that have been swallowed by the forest.

click the link below to read the article:

 Stone Walls of Exeter