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Diamond Hill (Cumberland, Rhode Island)

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Diamond Hill in Cumberland Rhode Island in 2014
Diamond Hill in Cumberland Rhode Island in 2014

Diamond Hill is a large hill on Diamond Hill Road in Cumberland, Rhode Island, which contains a town park and former ski area. The summit is 481 feet above sea level. On a clear day, the Boston skyline and Mount Wachusett are visible. Diamond Hill is a massive outcropping of white quartz with a vertical drop of 350 feet. The hill was named in colonial times and takes its name "from its sparkling and shining appearance." In the colonial era, the Whipple family (the children of John Whipple, Sr.) first settled near Diamond Hill, and during King Philip's War in the 1670s, several skirmishes occurred nearby, including Nine Men's Misery, the memorial of which is now on the grounds of the nearby Cumberland Monastery. In 1877 the Diamond Hill Granite Company founded a granite quarry northwest of Diamond Hill and copper was also mined near the hill. In 1935 "Philip Allen, C. Faulkner Kendall, and Henry Munroe Rogers offered 235 acres of land on the hill to the State of Rhode Island" and ski trails were cut shortly thereafter.In the twentieth century, the hill contained two small ski areas, Ski Valley (operating from 1939 to 1981) and Diamond Hill Reservation (operating from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s). In 1939 when the first ski area opened, it was a hike-up and ski-down facility, but operators of the ski areas eventually constructed rope tows, a T-bar, and multiple two person chair lifts. In the 1980s, some of the lifts and equipment were gradually sold, and the ski areas were closed. In 1997 the town of Cumberland acquired Diamond Hill from the State. The hill is now a 373-acre town park and is the starting point of the thirty-three mile Warner Trail. The park features athletic fields, picnic areas, 3.8 miles of hiking trails and a band stand near the pond. A popular event, Cumberlandfest, is held each year on the second weekend of August at Diamond Hill Park. This event features a carnival, with rides and various venues, as well as live entertainment by Matty KayKay and a small fireworks show. Proceeds go to the town's athletic programs. This event attracts thousands of people every year. Late in the year since 2002, the Cumberland Town and Recreational Department has organized a "Spook Trail" in the woods of Diamond Hill Park on Diamond Hill Road once called "Haunted Hill” now referred to as “13th World.” No longer run by the town.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Diamond Hill (Cumberland, Rhode Island) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Diamond Hill (Cumberland, Rhode Island)
Warner Trail,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 41.999777777778 ° E -71.413666666667 °
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Warner Trail

Warner Trail
02864
Rhode Island, United States
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Diamond Hill in Cumberland Rhode Island in 2014
Diamond Hill in Cumberland Rhode Island in 2014
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Whipple–Jenckes House
Whipple–Jenckes House

The Whipple–Jenckes House (Liberty Jenckes House) is a historic American Colonial house at the corner of Diamond Hill Road and Fairhaven Road in Cumberland, Rhode Island. The house was built around the year 1750, enlarged slightly in 1780, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The house is a very simple one-and-one-half-story, center-chimney cottage set behind stone walls on a large lot at the corner of Diamond Hill Road and Fairhaven Road. The asymmetrical, four-bay facade and slightly offset chimney testify that it was originally built as a half house and then later extended around 1780. The house served as the center of a small farm and cottage industries throughout most of its history. An earlier house on the site is said to have been a blockhouse during King Philip's War 1675–1677.The Whipple–Jenckes House was constructed by Samuel Whipple beginning about 1750 when he inherited this property from his father, William Whipple, a direct descendant of John Whipple, one of the area's earliest settlers in the 1600s. At that time, the property also contained an earlier house, which is sometimes referred to in deeds as "Samuel Whipple’s old house" and in secondary sources as a "blockhouse". Its construction date is not known, but it stood immediately northeast of the present house well into the nineteenth century. Diamond Hill Road was one of the area's first primary north–south roads and is described in early deeds as the road between Providence, Rhode Island and Franklin, Massachusetts.

Mount Saint Mary's Abbey
Mount Saint Mary's Abbey

Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey is a monastic community of some fifty Trappistine nuns in Wrentham, Massachusetts. The more complete, formal name of the Order is the Cistercians of the Strict Observance, whose founding at Cîteaux, France dates back to 1098. This community follows the reforms of the Cistercian Order as established by the 17th-century Abbot Armand de Rancé at the Abbey of La Grande Trappe. This community was founded in 1949 by nuns of an Irish monastery, St. Mary’s Abbey, located in Glencairn, County Waterford. It was the first community of Cistercians nuns in the United States. The foundation was so successful that, by the mid-1950s, all of the Irish nuns had been recalled to their original community. Following the standard need of self-support, this community developed as their main means of income a line of candy for which they are noted. Recently the abbey had some wind turbines built, as part of their effort to help in their fuel needs and at being better stewards of the environment. The abbey partnered with Kearsarge Energy of Watertown to develop and lease 2 solar panel farms since 2013. The first produces 3.6 megawatts of direct current, the second produces 4.8 megawatts of direct current, covering 40 acres, of which the electricity is sold to neighboring Franklin, MA to provide 80% of the town's power. Combined with the wind turbines and the geothermal system, it is the first property in the state to have 3 renewable energy sources.With the steady growth of the community, new communities of the Order were founded by this abbey in Iowa (Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, 1964), Arizona (Santa Rita Abbey, 1972) and Virginia (Our Lady of the Angels Monastery, 1987).