Chepiwanoxet Point

Settled as a colonial farm in early 18th century, it became a beach resort with hotel and shore dinner hall after the Chepiwanoxet railroad station opened in around 1837.

Small lots were sold for summer cottages to upstate residents and for homes to workers in nearby Cowesett Hill Estates in late 19th century.

Chepiwanoxet sits atop the western edge of the Rhode Island Formation of the stratified Narragansett Bay Group of the Pennsylvanian period (between 323 and 290 million years ago).

Uphill from the Post Road (US Route 1) is the boundary between the Rhode Island Formation and the older Scituate Igneous Suite (granite and diorite/gabbro rock) of the Devonian period (408 to 362 million years ago), which extends westward to the Connecticut border.

Along the way, each glacier gouged up billions of cubic meters of underlying bedrock, and then ground local and imported rocks together, creating much of the glacial deposits existing today.

For extended periods, the ice advance equaled the rate of melt, and piles of sediment were deposited in terminal or end moraines, such as on Block Island and in Charlestown (hills in the southern part of the state).

[7] The original island was created as an outwash deposit during a brief pause in the last glacial retreat from melt water runoff carrying eroded sand down a stream from the high hills (Love Lane and Cowesett Hills area) forming a small navigable river mouth called Arnold's Cove suitable only by skiffs and small sailboats (cc.

The shore along Chepiwanoxet once was one long winding sandy beach continually fed by erosion of the many high hills along the bays West coast.

But with development by railroad and home shore erosion protection with rock rip-rap, stone and cement walls that virtually stopped beach nourishment.

The two currents, along with Arnold Cove's river deposits, helped add sand to create the island along with its two long shallow sandbars heading Northeast and Southeast.

The triangular shaped island became a peninsula in the early 20th century when the Gallaudet Aircraft Company constructed America's first seaplane-only factory at Chepiwanoxet in 1916.

To allow truck access to the factory, the south channel to Greenwich Cove filled in with sandy gravel dumped into the marsh, making a causeway from Alger Avenue that still remains.

With many factory workers living north of the old cove, a narrow wood plank bridge was built across the marsh to allow quicker access to/from work.