The first bridge they tried to build was made out of wood. It lasted three months.”

Jim Garman, Portsmouth's town historian

PORTSMOUTH — Town Historian Jim Garman said sometimes Portsmouth residents forget they live on an island.

Yet almost since the town was first founded in 1638, there have always been either ferries, bridges or both to get locals back and forth to the “mainland.” That was the topic of an illustrated lecture presented by Mr. Garman recently at the Common Fence Point Community Hall.

Mr. Garman’s lectures are normally held in a tight meeting room inside the Portsmouth Free Public Library, but the Common Fence Point Improvement Association (CFPIA) has started offering the community hall to the Portsmouth Historical Society, of which Mr. Garman is also president.

Mr. Garman, projecting vintage photos and illustrations from his personal collection, first traced the history of the early ferries, which carried people and farm produce to Bristol and Tiverton starting in the 1630s.

“The early ferries were rowboats and sailboats and they even had a horse boat,” Mr. Garman said. This “two-horsepower” boat used a treadmill before before steam and oil were used to power the vessels, he said.

On the east side of Portsmouth, ferries ran to and from Tiverton before the Stone Bridge was built in 1907. One of the first was Durfee’s Ferry, which went from Common Fence Point to Humphrey’s Wharf in Tiverton, from around 1640 to 1650. 

In the 18th century, Cook’s Ferry crossed over the river from the Glen to Fogland Point in Tiverton, and Taggart’s Ferry from near the end of Green End Avenue in Middletown to Taylor Lane in Little Compton, he said.

Cursed bridge

Stone Bridge had a rocky start, to say the least. The General Assembly was first petitioned in 1793 to have a bridge linking Tiverton and Portsmouth built by the Rhode Island Bridge Company, Mr. Garman said.

“The first bridge they tried to build was made out of wood. It lasted three months,” he said. 

Another, built around 1796, was infested by worms and lasted less than a year. Finally, a bridge with a stone base was built in 1810.

“After 20 years they finally figured it out,” he said.

But the Great September Gale of 1815 tore a 200-foot gap in that span. Another bridge, built in 1817, was destroyed by the Great Gale of 1869, said Mr. Garman, adding, “It must have been a contractor’s dream to keep building these bridges.”

In 1898, the Newport and Fall River Street Railway came into play and an Island Park trolley was started up. Stone Bridge had to be strengthened to carry trolleys, so a more robust bridge was opened in 1908 … and it was undermined by tides and closed in 1911.

The final Stone Bridge opened in 1912 and featured a draw bridge. “There was a man on that bridge who had to open that bridge for every boat that went through it,” said Mr. Garman, who said the bridge was vulnerable because it was unprotected from the elements. “No wonder they had about seven bridges there.”

That bridge lasted until Hurricane Carol in 1954, after which it was pieced together and finally replaced by the first Sakonnet River Bridge in 1956.

Transportation hub

On the west side, several different ferries would cross Mt. Hope Bay from Bristol Ferry, which had been the center of commerce in Portsmouth going back to 1640, Mr. Garman said. Ferries left from that sport until about 1903, when a new wharf was built to the south.

“Bristol Ferry became a more important part of what was going on in Portsmouth,” said Mr. Garman. “It was the commercial center, where every mode of transportation came together — steamboats, railroads, ferries and trolleys.”

The Old Colony and Newport Railroad was established between 1862 and 1864, and the Newport and Providence Street Railway Company began to run a ferry service to Bristol with steam-powered boats, he said. One could take a trolley from Newport to Bristol Ferry, then the ferry to Bristol before taking the train to Providence along what is now the East Bay Bike Path, he said.

“You could take the trolley right to the end of the wharf, and walk 30 feet to get on the boat,” Mr. Garman said of Bristol Ferry.

By 1925, all trolleys ceased operations on the island and they were replaced by the Colonial Bus Line, he said.

The ferry terminal building was later “used as a restaurant, run by the Pierce family, where you could get a lobster dinner for $2,” said Mr. Garman, noting that later came the Mt. Hope Marina House Restaurant, which closed in 1983.

More bridges

The first Sakonnet River Bridge, which replaced Stone Bridge, was under construction from 1954 to 1956. Construction on the Mt. Hope Bridge began in 1927 and opened to great fanfare on Oct. 25, 1929, “four days before the Stock Market Crash,” Mr. Garman pointed out.

Although Portsmouth residents often forget they live on an island, the still act like it, Mr. Garman said.

“We do have an island mentality that’s persisted for 379 years — ‘Oh, we have to go all the way to Providence?’” Mr. Garman said. “Maybe we are too closely tied to the mainland, as some say.”