Modern Facebook offers link to past

Kentucky man starts page as homage to the community he left 33 years ago


Scott Cunningham, left, and William Smith repair the North Road windmill in 1974 following a violent windstorm. The workers were getting the assembly ready for the wooden lattice that supports the sails.

Scott Cunningham, left, and William Smith repair the North Road windmill in 1974 following a violent windstorm. The workers were getting the assembly ready for the wooden lattice that supports the sails.

Former townspeople from across the country are uniting on a Facebook page that showcases Conanicut Island through a trove of historic photographs dating to the 19th century.

The page, titled Native Jamestowners, features landmarks and people, ranging from Fort Dumpling during the American Revolution to George Arnold bartending at Manny’s Tavern. The page, which was launched by Bill Dutton in February, has accumulated 600 likes and 627 followers.

Dutton, a Rhode Island native who grew up in Jamestown and moved to Kentucky nearly 33 years ago, was inspired by nostalgic conversations with friends.

“I just missed Jamestown,” he said.

A member of the Jamestown Historical Society, Dutton also was motivated by his passion for the island’s rich heritage. The images on his page were found through Google searches and the society’s online archives. To show his appreciation, he uses his page to plug the organization and try and increase membership. According to Dutton, it wasn’t until he moved south that he realized the dedication of the men and women who preserve the island history through the Town Hall archives, the Conanicut Battery, the Quaker meetinghouse, the 1787 windmill and the Narragansett Avenue museum.

ABOVE: Oliver Sprague in 1915 with oxen Buck and Duke removing a boulder from Cajacet on East Shore Road using a four-wheeled device similar to a Galamander.

ABOVE: Oliver Sprague in 1915 with oxen Buck and Duke removing a boulder from Cajacet on East Shore Road using a four-wheeled device similar to a Galamander.

“When you live there, you kind of take advantage that it’s there,” he said. “You’ll pass by the museum or go in there for a field trip, but you don’t know what you got until you’re away from it.”

Soon after launching the page, Dutton began receiving feedback from people outside his inner circle. These comments were made by longtime islanders and former residents who moved away but retained a fondness for their hometown. For example, Dutton highlighted a post left by John Wright, who grew up in Jamestown but lives in Ohio.

“Leave as much info for next generations as possible,” Wright wrote. “Give them something to reflect on in their later life to pass onto other generations.”

BELOW: Tom Wyatt, who lived on Clarke Street at the time, splices film as part of his 1973 filmmaking project at the Jamestown School.

BELOW: Tom Wyatt, who lived on Clarke Street at the time, splices film as part of his 1973 filmmaking project at the Jamestown School.

Another message came from Howland Avenue’s Jane Conlon, who has been sharing pictures on the page with her 92-year-old mother.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this site,” Conlon wrote.

As those positive messages began to increase, Dutton realized his page had a larger audience than he intended. The eclectic mix of photographs was appealing to a larger contingency of Jamestowners. Not only were these visitors reliving memories through his site, they yearned to learn more about the island’s history.

The photographs featured on Native Jamestowners are sorted into themed albums, including the original Jamestown Bridge, summer cottages, ferryboats, the Bay Voyage Hotel and the 1938 hurricane.

“It started with things I know,” he said. “I love war history and Fort Wetherill. I got an album on that and Fort Getty. Dutch Island? I was interested in the war history there.”

Some of the albums, such as the folder for the East Ferry landing, feature photographs from the turn of the 20th century to the 1970s. The newest photographs include an album for the Portuguese American Citizens Club, which documents the 2016 demolition of the Narragansett Avenue landmark.

Dutton said East Ferry is among the most popular landmarks on the page, along with the ferryboats that departed that area to cross the East Passage of Narragansett Bay. The two subjects used to be part of the same album, but because of their individual popularity, Dutton has split them into separate folders.

“It seems that the most interest is centered around the ferryboats and the East Ferry Landing because of the big hotels that were there,” he said. “It’s just unbelievable what it looked like back then.”

Kenny Caswell, a childhood friend of Dutton’s, also operates the page. One of Caswell’s contributions is an album documenting the 1958 collision of two oil tankers off the coast of Fort Wetherill. Seventeen sailors were killed in the accident. Additionally, Caswell has posted photographs from the fire department’s museum on Narragansett Avenue, which he curates. The museum is named after his father, Valmont Caswell, better known as “Bucky.” There also is a picture from 1982 of the two men in their firefighting uniforms.

“I made Kenny an administrator and contributor to this page because I know he’s got tons of photos,” Dutton said. “He’s always adding stuff.”

While searching for content to share on the page, Dutton occasionally finds vintage photographs of people he knew, including his family.

“I found my mom and dad, and me when I was five years old at the Clarke School,” he said. “I’d never seen that, ever, and my mom had never seen it.”

Born in 1958, Dutton grew up in Jamestown during the 1960s and ’70s. His parents, Henry and Marilyn Dutton, are native islanders who still live in town. Dutton served in the U.S. Army National Guard for 25 years, left Rhode Island in 1980 and has lived in Kentucky since 1986.

“It’s a big difference,” Dutton said. “Living around the ocean is what I miss a lot. Most of my childhood friends I grew up with, I miss them. It’s about 14 hours, so I can’t see my parents as much as I want.”

Dutton said he has been touched by the positive feedback his page has received since its launch four months ago.

“It just makes me want to work more and add some more pictures,” he said.

The reason for the success is simple, Dutton said.

“Just like me, they miss Jamestown.”