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| Foundation remains of Hanton City. Credit: Smith Appleby House |
It's actually about a Ghost Town called Hanton City in Smithfield, Rhode Island;
THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL INVESTIGATES THE GHOST TOWN- In a Oct 31, 2019 article by Paul Edward Parker, Providence Journal Staff Writer, the reporter was assigned to investigate a town that disappeared in Rhode Island. He was able to dig up an interview of a resident from 1889, when the town of Smithfield still existed.
THE 1889 INTERVIEW -In 1889, a writer who did not receive a byline also journeyed from Providence to Smithfield, which required taking a train and a horse-drawn carriage. After finding a local guide to lead the way through the woods, the Journal writer interviewed Tom Hanton, who still lived, with his unidentified sister, on the edge of Hanton City in a one-room shanty. He was described in an Oct. 6, 1889, story as “the last of the Hantons.” Born around 1809 and about 80 years old at the time of the interview, Hanton told the reporter that his town “was a lively and enterprising place, when he was young.”
The inhabitants worked in stone quarries and made shoes by hand, taking them to Providence to sell at the market. But, the quarry closed and factories full of machines took over the making of shoes, driving the residents of Hanton out of their occupations. Thinking About Downsizing? Ad By Charles Schwab See More “They had all got poor, and sold out to anybody, and died off,” Tom Hanton told The Journal.
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| Foundation remains of Hanton City. Credit: Smith Appleby House |
Based in part on research by other historians, Ignasher concluded that Hanton City was first settled by three English families — the Paines, Hantons and Shippees — who possibly were given the land as payment for service in King Philip’s War, which lasted from 1675 to 1676. And that pretty much puts an end to the theories that Hanton City was founded by runaway slaves or exiled Tories or plague victims.
