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Beach Pond Day

Beach Pond Day was always the last Saturday in June. Haying did not start then until the Fourth of July. Winters were longer as well as colder than now; nature apparently has changed as much as human customs.

On the eastern or Rhode Island shore of the pond is a beach of fine sand from which this lovely body of water takes its name. A few families started along there each year to get this particularly fit sand for making scythe rifles.

This was before the days of cheap scythestones and ten cent stores.

A rifle was the equivalent of a scythestone. It was a grooved stick, the groove filled with tallow into which the whetting sand was rubbed. The word itself has almost passed out of use in its original sense, so that when you hear it nowadays you think only of a firearm.

In case you are less familiar with Rhode Island geography than you ought to be, Beach Pond lies on the boundary line between this state and Connecticut, being shared about equally. The Rhode Island half is in the town of Exeter; the storied Ten Rod Road which snaketracks across the state from salt water in North Kingstown to Voluntown, Conn., skirts its southern edge.

To the beach on the Rhode Island side, therefore, a few families, perhaps only one originally, began resorting each year on the last Saturday in June for a supply of rifle sand and a picnic. From them the word of this inexhaustible supply of a farm necessity spread. Other families joined them in the excursion.

Everybody rode on horseback because the roads were rough – as indeed they still are in those parts – but most especially because wheeled vehicles, except heavy farm wagons, were almost non-existent.

Each year found a larger gathering on this last June Saturday, before the hard work in the haying field started. Corn and potatoes were well under way and had a good going over during the week before Beach Pond Day, which thus became a sort of breathing spell between seasons of extra exertion.

After the sand had been gathered and luncheon prepared, spread and eaten, with generous draughts of rum, there would be talk about horses, their merits and their speed, with presently a race on the hard beach. Then the winner would be challenged.

The supremacy of one horse having been established, a couple of lusty young farmers would engage in a wrestling match, which was followed by others until it was decided who was the best wrestler in that countryside. While this was going on the women sat in the shade and exchanged news and cooking recipes. The preserving season was just coming in, so this worked out for the good of everybody.

After a while not only Exeter folk, but farmers from West Greenwich, Richmond, North Kingstown, nearby Connecticut and even farther away began participating in Beach Pond Day, and it became a crowd. Then the racketeers broke in.

The gambler of that era saw his opportunity and promoted the racing and wrestling, the weight throwing and sprints, to his own profit. Sellers of rum flocked to the beach, dealing out liquor in tin cups at three cents a drink. Intoxication became the rule.

The popular card game was 100. This is a very old game well suited to gambling. Any number under seventeen can play. The gamblers sat on the grass or squatted on their haunches around a blanket which served as the gambling table.

Loo played honestly is strictly a game of chance, but slickers from the city, attracted to Beach Pond Day by holiday crowds, introduced skill where it would do them the most good-that is, in shuffling.

Stacking a deck of cards is no new art, although few of the farmers who played 100 knew anything about it.

The result was losses for the natives and frequently fights. As the day wore on and the fascinations of the various sports dimmed the picnickers grew irritable. Little children became tired and fretful, their mothers tired and anxious, and some of the fathers tired, a bit drunk and quarrelsome.

So the day wound up usually with a few exhibitions of fighting as it was done before the Marquis of Queensbury thought up his rules. Gouging and biting were part of it. The contestants mostly rolled on the ground, endeavoring with all they had to combine the best features of wrestling, boxing and manslaughter.

There is no record, however, that anybody ever was killed at Beach Pond Day, or even permanently maimed. The only name that has come down to us of these pugnacious yokels is that of one "Stunt" Green of Richmond, who always went to the festivities full of peace and goodwill toward men, always drank too much rum and always wound up in a fight. From the little that is remembered of him he appears to have been cast in the old heroic mould.

Beach Pond Day continued to be observed until into the '60s of the past century and perhaps even later. It might have been kept up until now, but that it got too rough for the better class, and presently, because of dwindling attendance, unprofitable for the racketeers.

After scythes tones became abundant and cheap there was no longer the excuse of getting rifle sand for the men to offer. So Beach Pond Day passed, and all that is known of it now is what has been handed down from one generation to another on snow-swept evenings in Exeter.

These facts which we have related were given us by Edward P. Dutemple, the sage of Exeter Hill.

There were two other great annual holidays peculiar to the southwestern part of the State. One fell on the first Sunday in August, when those who boasted Narragansett Indian blood gathered at the church in Charlestown, swam in the ocean and passed a day out of doors.

Whites with no Indian blood at all joined them, finding the assemblage a sufficient excuse for an outing. They were not the best class palefaces. Rum, the popular and universally sold drink of that period, played its part along with gambling, and the picnics went rough house.

The "Indian wash days" still are observed, but the objectionable features provided by an influx of people who didn't belong have been eliminated. Descendants of Canonicus are allowed now to run their own parties.

The other big occasion was the general meeting of the Six Principle Baptists. There is so much to-be told about that, what with a little moralizing and a touch of maudlin sentiment, that it will have to await another occasion.

Original story by J. Earl Clauson, originally published in the Providence Evening Bulletin under the heading "These Plantations". Later collected into a book of the same name that was printed in 1937 by The Roger Williams Press (E. A. Johnson Company).