Walk with a painter

This past summer I was commissioned by a close friend of ours to paint a watercolor of her large family’s favorite vacation retreat in Weekapaug, Rhode Island, a small fire district in southern Washington County. The painting shown here is of a favorite beach where the family has gathered for summer reunions for a number of generations now. I had never heard of this place and upon researching found this small beach front community is part of the town of Westerly with many private roads and summer cottages since 1877. Weekapaug was known as Noyes Beach from 1701 to 1899 and is a Native American word meaning “end of pond”. Niantics, Pequots, and Narrangansetts lived in this area before early settlers arrived. In 1899, Frederick and Phebe Buffum opened the Weekapaug Inn for their first summer season of guests. On September 21, 1938, The hurricane of 1938 swept the barrier beach clean of houses and irreparably damaged the Weekapaug Inn which was rebuilt and reopened for guests in June 1939.