The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

It appears by the following extract from a Journal of Governour Winthrop (who was the first Governour of Massachusetts.) that "a very great tempest or hurricane" was experienced in this section of the country in the year 1638, when the tide rose to the same height witnessed in the late gale, although the wind was from a different quarter.

August 3. 1638. In the night was a very great tempest, or hurricane, at South-West which drave a ship on ground at Charlestown, and brake down the wind-mill there, and did much other harm; it flooded twice in six hours; and about Narragansett, it raised the tide 14 or 15 feet above the ordinary Spring tides, upright."

It must also be noted, that the term about Narragansett, must at that time have been understood to include our whole river and bay, from the head waters of this river to Pawcatuck, as the dominions of the Narragansett Sachem included what is now the county of Providence, and extended south on the west-side of the bay to Point Judith, and bounded west on Pawcatuck river; the original grant of the land to Roger Williams and his associates, as well as of the Island of Rhode-Island to Coddington and others, being from Miantinomo, the Narraganset Sachem; and the whole territory was denominated the Narragansett Country.