Bigger Pictures for Innovation

1 Introduction and Overview

DOI: 10.4324/9781003365549-1

Portsmouth

I was born on January 20, 1947, at Saint Anne’s Hospital, in Fall River, MA. Saint Anne’s was about 9 miles northeast of our home at 15 Usher Court on Bristol Ferry Road in Portsmouth, RI. This was the road to the ferry to Bristol, RI, across Narragansett Bay. The ferry ceased service when the Mt Hope bridge was opened in 1929.

Portsmouth was founded on the northern end of Aquidneck Island in 1638 by Anne Hutchinson with compatriots John Clarke and William Coddington, all of whom had been banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for not conforming to Puritan doctrines. They took boats across the Sakonnet River to land on Aquidneck Island. Rhode Island became a haven for ...