Quick History Stops: Bristol, RI, Part 2

On the same day I visited Coggeshall Farm at Colt State Park and Linden Place in Bristol, RI, I made many quick history stops around the historic downtown. Throughout this sidewalk hike, I followed the Historic Bristol Walking Tours provided by Bristol Historical and Preservation Society. During the first part, I saw beautifully preserved historic buildings and monuments. In the second part, I continued down Hope Street walked through an area known as Bristol Waterfront Historic District, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975.

The congregation at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church was founded in 1718, but the building is much younger. This is the fourth church on the site, as the first three were made of wood and two were destroyed by fire. This building was completed around 1860. Across the street and built in the same brownstone Gothic Revival style are the chapel and the parish house designed by Stephen Carpenter Earle. The Worcester, MA native last appeared on the blog as the designer of Trinitarian Congregational Church of Norton, MA and the original part of the Worcester Art Museum, along with acting as the mentor for the designer of McElwain School in Bridgewater, MA. For other buildings in Bristol, Earle also designed Burnside Memorial Hall (to be described in two paragraphs) and Rogers Free Library (to be described in Part 3).

Not far from Hope Street, where these historic buildings stand, is Independence Park, four acres of grass and monuments at the end of the East Bay Bike Path. This recreational area is more modern in terms of Rhode Island history, as the 14.5 mile bike path was built between 1987 and 1992. Monuments include the Columbus Quincentennial Memorial erected on Columbus Day in 1992 by the Bristol, Rhode Island Heritage and Discovery Committee, coinciding with the completion of the bike path. Nearby is the War of Independence Honor Roll featuring the relief of a warship and summary of patriotic events in Bristol. This monument was erected by the Chief Marshall to remind visitors that the town boasts the oldest continuous Fourth of July celebration in the country. Elsewhere in the park, a sign noted that the Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project would soon install a statue at the site. The dedication took play on August 24, 2025, so I must return to visit! This project is related to the Rhode Island Slave History Medallions, which recognizes the previously overlooked histories of free and enslaved African Americans and Indigenous Communities in the state. I applaud the park designers' abilities to balance historical perspectives, paying tribute both to colonizers who created the foundations for American society and laborers who made the society possible.

Back on Hope Street, Burnside Memorial Hall no longer serves its original purpose as a town hall but is still maintained by the town as a beautiful historic building. Designed by Earle in the style of Henry Hobson Richardson, another frequent flyer on the blog, the Victorian Gothic Revival building was completed in 1883 and currently has an American Civil War memorial statue in front. The statue was erected in 1913 by a branch of the Grand Army of the Republic known as Babbitt Post No 15, which was a club for Union veterans who lived in Bristol. Not much information is available on its sculpture, Henri Schonhardt, who taught at RISD; lived in Fruit Hills, North Providence, RI; and created monuments for organizations throughout Rhode Island.

While walking through Bristol, be sure to look down at the sidewalk to find metal markers labeled “Built by Work Projects Administration RI 1939”. Later known as the Works Progress Administration (WPA), this Great Depression era government employment agency was part of the New Deal created during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The biggest project in Bristol under the WPA was the renovation of Bristol County Courthouse. Other WPA appearances on the blog include training for young artists like Jackson Pollock; drawing blueprints for historic buildings like Historic New England’s Rocky Hill Meeting House, the replica barn at Rehoboth Antiquarian Society, and Justin Smith House on the Old Lyme Historical Society Walking Tour; and constructing new buildings like the United States Customs House in Philadelphia, PA.

Easily overlooked, a two-story red brick build on the corner of Hope Street and State Street is called “Loafers’ Corner” or the Easterbrooks-Paull Block, which was named for two local merchant families. In 1823, one Daniel Easterbrooks of Bristol was pardoned by President James Monroe for smuggling coffee the year before. Constructed in 1899, this building held the newsstand Duffy’s until 2002, when the business closed after the owners could not find a buyer. The exterior of the property and surrounding area was renovated in 2018 with a Green Space Grant from the Department of Environmental Management in Rhode Island.