The Barracks House, (c.1775), 325 High Street.
In 1780, when actual clashes between American and British troops and their Hessian mercenaries had moved from Newport and Narragansett Bay, some of General Washington’s French allies, part of Rochambeau’s army were still stationed in Bristol. French solders were quartered in barracks erected on Loyalist William Vassal’s abandoned Point Pleasant Farm, where they were granted land for a burial ground; the bones of many French soldiers are presumed to still lie there.
During the winter of 1784, one barracks house was hauled across Bristol Harbor on a sled by six oxen on ice reported to be “several feet in depth.” Its owner Robert F. Munro deposited the house on a foundation at 325 High Street; after Munro’s death, the property was sold to Joseph Vital, Jr., it was still owned by the Vital family in 1955. In the mid-1960s, the historic old house was beyond repair and it was torn down. In its place stands a modern bungalow with attached garage.
