Scituate Historical Trivia
- Early Westconnaug Township or Scituate was a farming community
with farms raising corn, oats, rye, hemp, and potatoes.
- It comprised 103 square miles or 66,000 acres of which 60,000
acres was forest. It had a population about 600.
- Hope is one of the State's oldest villages, most famous for
Hope Furnace where Revolutionary cannons were forged. One can be
seen in front of the Hope Library on Rt. 116 in Hope.
- The town of Hope was named for a woman - Hope Brown.
- The abandoned Hog Island Mill was the home of a brothel.
- The first religion in Scituate was Baptist with a church
established in 1763 and Elder John Williams as pastor.
- The second religion was Quaker. Meetings took place in private
homes due to the lack of a formal meeting place.
- Advent Christians, Trinity members, and Catholics followed
over the years.
- The first Tavern was named the Angell Tavern after owner
Captain Thomas Angell and was located in South Scituate.
- The first lodges sprang up in the 1860 with The Masonic Order,
Order of Odd Fellows and Order of Good Templars.
- The Scituate Police Department originated in the 1920s with
police chief John Riley and three part-time policemen.
- The first fire department in Scituate, the Hope-Jackson Fire
Department held its first meeting at the police station and
subsequently built the fire station adjacent to the police
station.
- The Ku Klux Klan (described as a traveling RI Klan) frequently
met at the Odd Fellows' Hall in Clayville. A field on Plainfield
Pike was the site of a notable meeting of over four hundred
Klansmen from RI, MA, and CT . Several days after this meetings,
Klansman disrupted a Democratic Party rally in Hope. Scituate
Police Chief, John H. Riley refused to intervene.