Barrington Civic Center

The cemetery, town hall and library, and Peck School represent a historical concentration of public and governmental functions in the Prince's Hill area of Barrington. The hill itself, a prominent land mass, was named for Governor Prince or Prence of Plymouth Plantation. It was crossed by the Wampanoag Trail, an Indian highway that became the main road from Providence to Newport. The hill's location in roughly the geographical center of the community made it the logical location for public lands. The cemetery was laid out during the initial period of community development after Barrington's separation from Swansea, Massachusetts, in 1717. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Barrington remained a farming community without any definite civic center. The tripling of the population between 1840 and 1900, stimulated by the introduction of rail transportation in the 1850s, caused the community's change from a rural to a suburban environment with easy commuting distance to Providence. The location of one of the town's train stations just south of the historic district certainly influenced the placement of civic buildings on Prince's Hill. As a unit, the cemetery, town hall and school, and Wood's Pond epitomize the late nineteenth-century interest in a planned natural environment.

Although there were many family plots, a public burial ground to serve the residents on the west side of the Barrington River became necessary after the erection of a meeting house near Jenny's Lane in 1710 and the subsequent separation of Barrington from Swansea. At a town meeting on January 18, 1728-29, a committee of Timothy Wadsworth, Lieutenant Peck, Zachariah Bicknell, and James Smith was empowered to purchase land on Prince's Hill from Ebenezer Allen to lay out a burying ground for the recently erected Congregational Church, built after 1710 near Jenny's Lane. On December 31, 1729, Mr. Allen was paid five pounds for half an acre which extended from the Wampanoag Trail, now County Highway, eastward to the Barrington River.

Between 1806 and 1898, four additions were made to the cemetery bringing the present size to more than four acres. The cemetery was fenced in 1849 and presently exemplifies the "rural cemetery" tradition of the nineteenth century with meandering drives and natural landscape planting Originally part of Massachusetts, Barrington was incorporated as a Rhode Island town in 1770 but had no municipal offices until the end of the nineteenth century. During the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, the Congregational meetinghouse functioned as both the religious and governmental community center. After Nayatt Hall, a drill hall was constructed in 1855, that building was used for meetings of the Town Council, but the clerk, treasurer, and other officials were forced to conduct business at their residences. Proposals to construct a Town Hall were defeated in 1863, 1880, and 1882, but finally, the purchase of a tract of land on Prince's Hill was approved in 1887. $15,000 was voted for the construction of a town building, and a committee, consisting of Lewis B. Smith, Charles H. Merriman, and George B. Allen, was named to oversee the work. The cornerstone was laid on September 24, 1887, and the building was completed the following autumn. Designed by the Providence architectural firm of Stone, Carpenter and Willson, the building was intended to be medieval in style and to fit easily into a natural landscape setting.

The Barrington Town Hall was planned to serve the public needs in a variety of ways. Its initial impetus was the need for offices for the town clerk and council, a function that it continues to serve today. Auxiliary functions for the building included its use as a high school, public library, and space for the Antiquarian Society. The Libary continues to occupy space in the building. The Antiquarian Society has been disbanded. The high school was housed here until 1917 when the adjacent Leander R. Peck School was opened.

The Barrington Library Society was chartered by the Rhode Island Legislature in February 1806, but the original collection of books eventually fell into disuse and was lost or dispersed. The present library, formed through the efforts of David A. Waldron, was chartered on January 1, 1880, and liberal donations of books were secured. On March 2nd of the same year, the trustees of the new library voted to transfer ownership of the books and other library property to the town. With the completion of the new town hall in 1888, the collection was removed to its present quarters. With additions erected for the expanding library in 1938 and 1963, the library today is one of the finest in the East Bay area, serving local and regional patrons.

Paralleling the resolutions for the erection of a town hall were proposals for erecting a public high school in Barrington. The nearby town of Warren opened a high school in 1848, and from 1870 a private secondary school was operated in Barrington by Isaac F. Cady in a building he had constructed on Prince's Hill. Finally, in 1884, George 1. Smith secured community backing for a high school which was held in Mr. Cady's building. With the completion of the town hall in 1888, rooms were set aside for the high school, which remained in this building until moving to the adjacent Peck School in 1917.

The construction of the Peck School followed changes in the educational program and the growing popularity of Barrington as a residential environment. Despite the tripling of the town's population during the previous half-century, enrollment in Barrington High School remained constant through the turn of the century. School committee members blamed the lack of a commercial or manual arts program for the stagnant enrollment. The new Peck school inaugurated four-year commercial and manual arts curricula. A second major educational change was the creation of a junior high school department for grades 7, 8, and 9, and its merger with the high school in one building. Both these changes were successful, and the Peck School was soon filled to capacity. *

The uniform character of the Barrington Civic Center Historic District is the product of no evolutionary accident. The Barrington Rural Improvement Society, founded in 1881, carefully regulated the development of the town, as evidenced by the natural landscape character of the eastern side of Prince's Hill. The Society was concerned with road improvements, public health, the construction of a town hall and public schools, the maintenance of cemeteries and parks, and the planting of shade trees along the highways. The park-like environment of the cemetery and the landscaping around the town hall and Peck School, including a duck pond south of the school, still show the imprint of early civic pride and planning.

* The School today houses grades five and six. How much longer the building will be so used is in some doubt due to currently declining school enrollments.