In the early 1960s Mary Howe DeWolf Fulton and her husband Marshall N. Fulton, owners of Ferrycliffe Farm in Bristol, learned that Roger Williams College, then housed in the basement of the YMCA in Providence, was looking to build a new campus. The College acquired 63 acres of farmland from the Fultons, and in 1967 construction began. The remaining 50 acres of land were sold to the University in the early 1990s.
Ferrycliffe Farm dates back to 1875, when the 130 acre property was purchased by Dr. Herbert Marshall Howe for $20,000. The son of Mark Anthony DeWolf Howe, Herbert came from a prominent Philadelphia and Bristol family whose father was the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania, and who fathered 18 children with 3 wives. The family lived at "Weetamoe," a farm to the north of where Bristol Landing condominiums stand today.
At the time, Ferrycliffe lands extended across Metacom Avenue to the west shore of Bristol Point. Herbert grew up knowing Bristol Point well, and when he purchased Ferrycliffe, he also bought the200-acre Hog Island from his friend Samuel Pomeroy Colt. Both Howe and Colt raised Jersey dairy cows, and must have spent many hours comparing notes about the herds at Ferrycliffe and Colt Farms, now Colt State Park. Dr. Howe took great pride in his Ferrycliffe Jerseys. The prize of the herd was a magnificent bull named Gilderoy.
After Herbert's death in 1916, the farm was taken over by his daughter Edith and her husband Dr. Halsey DeWolf. Ferrycliffe’s cows continued to win acclaim. Under the management of Dr. Howe's granddaughter Mary Howe and her husband Marshall Fulton, farming continued on a smaller scale into the 1950s.
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This collection has been minimally processed. The following preliminary inventory is available. Please contact the archivist for additional information.
Researchers are advised that express written permission to reproduce, quote, or otherwise publish any portion or extract from this collection must be obtained from the University Library. Although Roger Williams University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Fulton/Howe Family Papers, UA 2012.02, Roger Williams University.
The collection documents the personal and professional lives of three generations of the Howe, DeWolf, and Fulton families, from the late 1800s to the 1970s. It includes correspondence, writings, genealogical notes, scrapbooks, diaries, commonplace books, artwork, photographs, and other memorabilia. Also included are materials related to Ferrycliffe Farm, first operated by Herbert Marshall Howe in the late nineteenth century.
The collection is divided in 5 series:
Harriet Fulton Dwyer and her brother DeWolf Fulton, on behalf of all their siblings, donated the collection to the University in June of 2011.
Series 1 consists of personal letters, notes, and cards written by/to members of the Howe, DeWolf, and Fulton families, dating from 1870 to 1970. Letters are arranged in alphabetical order according to the recipients's last name. The series also includes business/professional letters.
Box 2 contains letters primarily from Andrew Lynch about the running of Ferrycliffe Farm.
Includes 3 boxes of letters from Richard High Carlton.
Includes albums, scrapbooks, and loose photos, negatives and slides, cabinet cards, cased photos, and postcards.
Three photo albums with pictures of Herbert's family and Ferrycliffe Farm
Photo album with famliy portraits of Mary's parents and siblings and other relations.
Photo album with pictures of Edith's trip to Europe (Sparin, Italy, and France) and Elkhorn Ranch and Yellowstone in the United States.
Edith's "memory book" from Miss Porter's School, Farmington, Connecticut.
Photo albums with pictures of various trips Hal took between 1901 and 1913, including a trip to the southwestern United States (1911).
Two photo albums:: "Sail Fishing, Florida" (1927) and "After the Hurricane, 1938" Providence and The Ledge, Bristol"
Mary Howe DeWolf spent her junior year (Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania) in Germany.The album contains postcards she collected of sites in Italy.
Photo album and other loose photos, likely of Marshall Fultons's family in Iowa.
Three photo albums with pictures of Marshall's travels to Europe and one album of postcards sent to Marshall and his brother, ca. 1900-1910.
Two scrapbooks from Marshall's years as an undergraduate at Brown University, Rhode Island.
Two photograph albums with pictures from Marshall's two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
Two scrapbooks with concert programs.
Two scrapbooks of newsclippings and letters from family friends about Marshall and Mary Howe's upcoming wedding. Some letters are addressed to Halsey DeWolf. Also includes snapshots of the wedding and their honeymoon.
"His Book" with letters, photographs, school work, writings,etc.
"His Book" with letters, photographs, school work, writings,etc.
"Her Book" with letters, photographs, school work, writings,etc.
Photo album labeled "Cruise of the Yacht".
Photo almbum of the family trip on the Yachy "May," taken by Edith.
Loose photos of Hal's birthday parties.
Photo album of their wedding in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Series 3 includes schoolwork, diaries and journals, stories, essays and verses.
Series 4 includes indentures, wills, inventories, as well as invoices and receipts.