A Bit of Local History The Old Rye Fort

By Paul Hicks

From its founding in 1660, the village of Rye gradually expanded from its original settlement on Manursing Island onto the mainland. By 1675, there were homes dotted along both sides of Blind Brook. To the north, west, and south, however, the small community was surrounded by wilderness, where wolves still roamed.

As recounted by Charles Baird in his history of Rye: “The Indians dwelling along the shores of the Sound proved from the first to be pacific and friendly toward the settler, and our inhabitants probably felt little apprehension from them until the outbreak of war, in the year 1675. But in that year, King Philip, of Mount Hope, a chief of the Pokanokets, succeeded in uniting the tribes of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in a desperate effort to exterminate the English. The conflict lasted about two years, and it did not actually spread into the territory of Connecticut, yet every town in that colony shared in the anxieties and sorrows produced by the fearful struggle.”