Adamsville had its heyday about the time the Revolutionary War militiamen unloaded their muskets. The village docks welcomed coastal packet ships then. The saltworks employed dozens, and four stores traded with farmers from Tiverton, Little Compton and Westport.
5th generation owner Leonard Waite 1982
Shopkeeper Grayton Waite died in 2012. His son, Jonah Waite reopened the store July 1. “I was born and grew up in the village. This is very much home to me. When I walk into the store, I remember seeing things that were here when I was a teenager. So Jonah and I reopened. I feel we are honoring Grayton. He really loved this place.”
4th generation John Hart selling seedlings in 1982
History is everywhere you look in Adamsville.
There is a monument to the Rhode Island Red, a chicken that originated nearby and is the state bird of Rhode Island. Most of the houses in the village are referred to by name — the Captain’s House, the Spite House, Abraham Manchesters (which burned down in 2002) or The Barn.
Just across the state line, 30 yards down the street from Gray’s Stores, is Gray’s Grist Mill, a business that opened when George Washington was alive.
The grist mill remains open. The cornmeal it produces is for sale next door at Gray’s Daily Grind, a coffee shop at 638 Adamsville Road, Westport.
Ralph Guild, a member of the national Radio Hall of Fame, opened the business one year ago with a partner, Mary Miska, who manages the store.
“I’ve been coming to Adamsville for more than 50 years,” Guild said. “I would come down to the mill and have John Hart, who ran the mill, show me how he would grind the corn. He would tell me stories about Adamsville. I formed an attachment to the place.”
He bought a house in Adamsville the day after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Guild said. Over the years, all five of the Guild children apprenticed in the mill, so there was a lot of family support when Guild announced he intended to buy the property from John Hart, his old friend.
“I didn’t want someone buying this and turning it into something modern,” Guild said. “This is one of the most unspoiled villages in Rhode Island or Massachusetts.
“A lot of people come here who are interested in history,” she said. “It is in all the historical registers and it has been in Yankee Magazine a number of times. For those of us from the village, it is quiet and peaceful most of the year and it is a little busier in the summer. We have a few new businesses now, and it helps all of us.
“But all of us, we are here because we love it.”
