Rhode Island's Great Road

I'll write more about this road in my RoadLog blog, but for right now, I'll give a short history of it here since I mentioned that the Hearthside House is located on the Great Road.

The Great Road was a major transportation route through the Blackstone River Valley until the early 1800s with the completion of the Louisquisett Pike and Blackstone Canal took away much of its traffic.

It connected Rhode Island with Massachusetts, to the north.

Several small mills operated along it, but the limited power of the Moshassuek River prevented the development of larger mills like those along the Blackstone River. The Great Road remained an agricultural area until well into the 1900s.

The Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor has a driving tour guide of it "Great Road-- Lincoln, Rhode Island-- Travel Through Three Hundred Years In Three Miles.". The road dates to 1683 and would definitely have been used during the War of 1812.

Oh, That Great Road. --Brock-Perry