Earlier this month, staff members Elizabeth Totten, Jeff Emidy, and Charlotte Taylor visited Dutch Island, a small island west of Conanicut Island and part of the town of Jamestown. Known as Quotenis or Quetenesse by Indigenous Peoples, the island was the site of a Dutch trading post around 1636.
RI Department of Environmental Management conducted a controlled burn on the island to help reduce invasive vegetation. As part of the plan, they included burn buffers around historic structures and sites. We realized that RIHPHC staff had visited the Dutch Island lighthouse, but no one from our office had surveyed the rest of the island since the 1980s/1990s. Members of the Project Review/Archaeology team walked the island with RIDEM staff to photograph and survey the buildings, structures, and ruins.
Key historic resources include multiple batteries from the Civil War and WWI. Many of the buildings are now ruins which the exception of one extant barracks building. Of particular note, the 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery trained here. The regiment, comprised of African American troops from all parts of the Union, went into active training for the front. In addition to several earthworks, the regiment constructed the Lower Battery later called the Wash Tub Battery (see photo of granite structure).
