East Greenwich: Rhode Island's County Seat

East Greenwich was founded in sixteen seventy-seven, chartered by the General Assembly as a planned settlement to help secure Rhode Island's territory, and it became the seat of Kent County when that county was formed in seventeen fifty. Its hilltop Main Street was laid out along a ridge above Greenwich Cove, and the town served as county seat and a modest port through the colonial period. Ships carried tobacco and dry goods along the coast.

The Kentish Guards, a militia company formed here in seventeen seventy-four, counted Nathanael Greene among their early members. Greene, born nearby in Potowomut, became one of Washington's most trusted generals. East Greenwich today is one of Rhode Island's more affluent suburbs, its colonial-era streetscape still largely intact on Main Street.