Lydia Brayton
1910 – 2002
Lydia Brayton lived in Adamsville in the house just to the west of the bridge, formerly owned by the Lemunyons, and ran a shop at Sakonnet Point. This history was recorded in 1991 by John and Vivian Belko.
1938 Hurricane
Oh ’38 ruined everything, all around the cove was, all the fishing people, you know all the little shacks. On the corner a Greek had a restaurant. When you turned the corner George Thayer had a restaurant, and all the houses all through there, all the little shacks, and the fishing people lived there. Then there was a Hannah Elizabeth tearoom, down near the dock, and there’s some ice houses, and there was the old clam house, that’s where they started the Fo’c’s’le and they had a fish market. And the ’38 hurricane, we were in that.
In ’38, I wasn’t here [in Adamsville.] I was down Sakonnet Point. We didn’t get down off the Point before eleven o’clock at night. The Mcauley House—that was all Dr. Lloyd’s. We were all there. We see the fishing company, the Grinnells, and his wife was upstairs. We see them go up the river.
The water was splashing over the electric light poles. We were on a hill. I can see it now. If you ever see the hurricane, the moving picture, go see it. Because I did. That’s whats in my mind. The fire department, they figured nobody was left at the Point.
We brought people here [to Adamsville] that had no home. I know that there were five trees on our house. My brother-in-law couldn’t get anybody to take them off, so my brother-in-law took ’em down and they were so tall that they leaned over the back of the house. The top of the tree was over there. He took ’em down, sawed ’em up, and today in the kitchen was our tree, holding the dishes. The dish cupboard up over the counter, that was our trees.
You couldn’t get through here, on account of the people was coming from Westport around here in the yard, coming out here. I still got, I got a book, of the, a lot of photos of Westport Harbor, and here, the Herald News.
War Bride
That Blanchard house is an old house, I knew Mrs. Blanchard, she was a war bride. No she came from overseas, from France. She was French. [She was married to Professor Blanchard at Brown.] He was something big.
Bathroom Fixtures
The bathroom fixtures downstairs are from [the Lyman Hotel.] That was Dr. Lloyds. I had Freddy Boddington put them in.
Lydia Brayton at the Bluff Head Gift Shop. Courtesy of Barrett Jennings.
An oral history interview with Lydia Brayton.
First published in “Remembering Adamsville” by the Little Compton Historical Society, 2013.
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