Travel Back In Time: Little Compton's Wilbor House

To truly experience a New England town, one needs to look no further than Little Compton, because, as land evidence suggests, it is steeped in a well-chronicled history.

It originally belonged to the Sakonnet tribe. Then, approximately 32 European proprietors came down from the Plymouth colony in the 1670s and won a petition from the native leading tribe, the Awashonks, to begin dividing the land. Little Compton was incorporated in 1686 by the Plymouth Colony, and it wasn’t until 1747 where it received a royal decree to be annexed to Newport County as part of Rhode Island, along with Tiverton and Bristol.

Little Compton contains Rhode Island’s only town common, where most town offices, its church parishes, library, school district and some businesses are centrally located. The town’s geneology is well-preserved, containing approximately 57 cemeteries with one of its largest on the town common.

There are several 17^th, 18^th and 19^th century structures still standing in town, amongst its coastal farmlands, including the Wilbor House. It was built in 1692 by Samuel Wilbor, and it is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, it houses the Little Compton Historical Society at 548 West Main Road. It was purchased in 1955. It passed down through six generations of the Wilbor family until the 1920s, when it was sold to a man named Manuel DeAlmo, who turned it into a dairy farm before the historical society purchased it.

It was told he never really lived there, but rented the house out as apartments with some only for the summer.

Marjory O’Toole, managing director of the historical society, said at one point in Little Compton’s history, one-fifth of the town’s population was a Wilbor. She said one can trace the history of the Little Compton farmer just by the evidence on the Wilbor House property.

The oldest parts of the Wilbor house span four centuries and contains rooms representative of each century. The original house of Samuel Wilbor and his wife Mary Potter was typical of 17th century New England, consisting of two large rooms, one above the other. It also has a cramped stairway, an attic and a summer kitchen, which does not exist today.

All other rooms were added after 1740 by later generations. The last addition was made around 1860.

The original part of the house, the lower great room, was occupied by Samuel and Mary. It served as the kitchen, living room and bedroom for the parents. They had 11 children, and it was custom in early New England farm houses for parents to sleep in the main room on the lower floor. It was believed their seven girls used the upstairs bedroom and the four boys likely used he attic.

All household tasks, including food preparation, bathing and laundry took place in this room. It’s fireplace burned every day of the year, blackening the ceiling as a result. Some of the Wilbor House’s most historic items are in this room, including an oak and pine Marshfield chest from 1702 from Tiverton, a Bible box, several books, a maple press bed, a red-pained pine chest, an hour glass and blue and gray German stoneware.

There were no textiles on the floors or windows, and the only fabrics might have been cushions on chairs, bedding and bed hangings. Linens for clothing and the table were home spun and woven.

The windows on the Wilbor House today are reconstructions, based on evidence in walls of houses of similar age. Sash window styles soon replaced casement windows from England, possibly due to New England’s harsher climate. When the house was restored in 1955, an open on the second story was found for a sash window. Generally, the lower floor had larger windows than the upper windows.

The other rooms of the Wilbor House include the Victorian bedchamber, the southwest bedchamber, the upper great room, the southwest living room, the long kitchen, the kitchen bedroom (which was often used for an elderly person, a new mother or invalid to be close to the kitchen), the pantry and a Victorian kitchen.

Outside, the Wilbor House property has a colonial herb garden and the Dorothy Paine Brayton Memorial Garden.

Other buildings onsite include the corn crib, the outhouse, the carriage house, the peggotty (which is an 1850s catboat previously used as an arts studio) and the old barn (which contains over 13,000 historical items of Little Compton’s history today by the society).

O'Toole said the society is in the process of archiving all their important documents into its online database.

"It took a decade to get this far," she said in a recent interview.

For more information, visit the historical society's website here or give them a call at 401-635-4035.

(Historical data supplied courtesy of the Little Compton Historical Society.)