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Samuel Colt, chairman of the board of the United States Rubber Company, created an extraordinary farm in the early 1900s by combining three smaller farms, linking them with a system of roads, erecting a large home, barns, guesthouses and bronze statues and lavishing attention on his Jersey cows, Berkshire sows and Percheron draft horses.
Rhode Island society partied here in the summer, but Colt felt that the public also should be able to share in his enjoyment of the farm.
At the main entrance, he engraved an open invitation in marble: "Colt Farm, Private Property, Public Welcome." On pleasant days, families walked from the town of Bristol to picnic, dig clams and quahogs, fish from the shore or enjoy a glass of fresh milk in the huge, spotless stone barn which housed Colt's prize-winning Jersey cows.
The cows are gone, but the barn still stands and families continue to enjoy the pleasures of a visit to this former farm, now a state park. Its 460 acres slope gently down to the Mill Gut Salt Marsh and to Narragansett Bay. Within the park are freshwater streams, oak and maple woods, many acres of fields and a picnic grove shaded by Colt's plantings of large ornamental trees.
Features include a boat launch, fishing dock, two-mile bridle trail, three-mile bicycle trail, ornamental gardens and an outdoor chapel which may be reserved for services.
The southern end of the East Bay Bicycle Path, a 14.5-mile path from Bristol to Providence, passes through Colt State Park.
Outdoor Activities |
The elegant statues in Colt State Park.
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