Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/690



ARRINGTON has good reason to celebrate five memorial days, commemorative of special epochs in her history. The first and most important event without which the others could not have occurred, was the discovery of Sowams and Massassoit by Edward Winslow, in March, 1621. The next significant date was March 20, 1653, when Thomas Prince, Thomas Willett, Myles Standish, and Josiah Winslow purchased "Sowams and Parts Adjacent" of the great and good Chief Massassoit and his son Wamsetto, who confirmed the sale by a solemn deed. The next great event was the establishment of a town government over Barrington in 1667, under the corporate name of Swansea. Then our charter rights from Plymouth Colony began, and from thence we develop our municipal character as a New England township. November 18, 1717 was the date when Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the bill which incorporated "Good old Barrington" as a separate township in the Bay Commonwealth, "and the inhabitants thereof are vested with all powers, rights, and privileges that other towns within this Colony have or by law ought to have and enjoy." Thirty years later, in February, 1747, the old town lost its name, and a valuable part of its original territory, in an alliance for twenty-three years with the people on the east banks of the Sowams River, under the name of the patriotic Warren of Louisburg fame. This date also marks our transfer as a town from Massachusetts Bay to Rhode Island Colony, by which our loss to and of our mother colony became Rhode Island's gain. From this civil eclipse, only in name, our town emerged in 1770, in its re-incorporation under the name its people loved in Old England and will continue to the latest day to love in New England,—Barrington. These are our historic days, one of which was celebrated in New Barrington on the Centennial of our new birth, June, 1870. During the autumn and winter of 1869-70, the minds of the people were refreshed with historic facts, and an interest was awakened in the plan of celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the last incorporation of the town, by suitable public ceremonies and festivities. As the annual Town Meeting approached it was proposed by various prominent citizens of the town that the matter should be presented for the consideration of the people