Babcock-Smith House

History

The Babcock–Smith House is a historic house in Westerly, Rhode Island.

The house was built around 1734. Dr. Joshua Babcock, a correspondent with Benjamin Franklin, lived in the house and hosted Franklin and likely General George Washington at the home. Babcock served also as a general in the state militia, as a justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, and as Westerly's first postmaster in the 1770s. He operated the post office and a general store out of this house. Babcock died in 1783 and "his family occupied the house until 1817. When his second wife, Anna Maxson Babcock, died in 1812, the property was passed to Joshua’s grandchildren, Dudley Babcock, Paul Babcock, and Hannah Phelps, who sold the house and 200 acres to Joseph Noyes 2nd. The property then had several owners, became a tenant farm and gradually fell into disrepair.

Orlando Smith bought the property in 1848; he repaired the house and started a successful granite business based on a granite outcrop he had discovered there.

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places and became a museum in 1972.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The official nomination form is linked under Sources.