5th Edition - Town of West Greenwich

Town Hall: 280 Victory Highway
Phone: 392-3800, 397-5016 Fax: 392-3805
Hours: Monday thru Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Wednesday 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
West Greenwich
www.wgtownri.org
The West Greenwich
Historical Preservation Society
Roberta Baker, Charlotte Jolls and Anne Harrington
want you to know that there’s more to West Greenwich
than what meets the eye. They want you to know that
every acre of forest has a rich history. If your family has
been in West Greenwich for generations you probably
have a good grasp of the culture of our town, but if you
are relatively new to town you may be surprised,
fascinated and delighted by the stories of the people of
West Greenwich since it’s incorporation in 1741.
Roberta, Charlotte & Anne are charter members and
the officers of the West Greenwich Historical Preservation
Society. The Society began in 1985 with a meeting
organized by local historian, Mathias Harpin, and George
Finch, the Pastor of the West Greenwich Community
Baptist Church. Over the years the Society’s membership
list has included over 60 members all of whom contributed
to the success of the organization in different ways. Today,
Roberta, Charlotte and Anne are continuing the work of
the Society, but they feel themselves at a crossroads.
Many of the original members are deceased or elderly and
the three women have decided it is time to begin the
process of passing the torch to the next generation.
If you are curious about the history of our town, the
place to start is the Louttit Library where the Society
houses its collection of photographs, books, maps and
documents. Among the materials are copies of two books,
which serve as a good introduction to the history of West
Greenwich. One is In the Shadow of the Trees begun by
Mathais Harpin and completed by Waite Albro after Mr.
Harpin’s death. The other is Bits and Pieces of West
Greenwich written and illustrated by Roberta Baker. Also,
Blanche Albro’s narratives and notations throughout parts
of the collection offer an amazing portrait of life in West
Greenwich during her lifetime. Mrs. Albro was the town
historian. She did extensive research and recording of
cemeteries in West Greenwich and the research and
documentation of the 25 current historic plaque houses.
The Society has been funded since 1989 by yearly
grants from the State of RI Historical, Preservation and
Heritage Commission and since 1991 by the Town of
West Greenwich. The grants have been used to create
and maintain the collection in the library and also to
professionally preserve historic records in Town Hall.
Roberta has compiled albums of photographs and their
accompanying narratives organized by location. The
photographs are originals and reproductions donated to
the society. Roberta has also converted many of the
photos into a slide show, which she and Charlotte have
Town Council
Thaylen Waltonen, President, 397-9016
Mark Tourgee, Vice President, 397-2022
Robert Andrews, 397-6649
Robert Butler, 397-6517
Susan Woloohojian, 397-7060
continued on back page
Assessing Taxes
Questions? Comments?
WGTR Editor: Cynthia A. Walsh
Email: cindyalisonw2@verizon.net
Phone: 397-3914
≈Town Report≈
5th Edition ≈ March 2008
If you have an image of what a tax assessor should
look like, Charlene Randall will certainly disabuse you
of any stereotype that may be stuck in your head. She
might be a State Certified Tax Assessor who spends a lot
of time crunching numbers, but she is also cheerful and
eager to be of assistance.
The work of the Tax Assessor’s Office includes
valuation and assessment of real and personal property
for taxation. With the help of Clerk, Kay Blackwell,
whom she shares with the Tax Collector’s Office,
Charlene prepares the town tax rolls, annually evaluates
all taxable property and personally inspects and documents
all properties with building permits. Her office
handles tax appeals, motor vehicle valuations and
maintains all exemptions including, disability, veteran,
homestead, blind and the elderly tax freeze. The Tax
Assessor’s Office oversees the revaluation process and
updates all land transfers that are recorded by the Town
Clerk’s Office along with any recorded maps that create
lot line changes and or new lots. Additionally, Charlene
oversees applications and annual continuation forms for
the Farm, Forest and Open Space Program. The 911
listing is also kept current through the assessor’s office.
If that’s not enough to keep her busy, Charlene
works with Treasurer, Colleen Derjue and Town
Administrator, Kevin Breene, on the town budget,
assisting them with tax estimates, tax law updates and
budget forecasting. She is the town’s Census contact.
She maintains the computers in Town Hall and the
Annex and she is the Webmaster for the town website.
When it was time to update the old website the town
choose to take advantage of the RI.gov System which is
offered to the towns free of charge.
If you go to www.wgtownri.org and click on
Assessor in the Town Hall Departments Menu, you will
find frequently asked questions about tax assessment
and revaluation. There are links to assessment data, sales
and exemptions, including the Homestead Exemption
Ordinance and the Ordinance Stabilizing the Taxes of
the Elderly. If you don’t have access to the Internet you
can still get all of this information from the Assessor’s
Office. Field cards are stored on the computer in the vault
in Town Hall as well as copies of plat maps. All related
meetings are posted on the bulletin board in Town Hall.
The town is currently undergoing revaluation,
which is mandated every three years. The last valuation
was based on figures as of 12/31/04. Charlene anticipates
some increase in valuation, but not as much as it would
have been if the revaluation were done in 2005 or 2006
when housing prices were at a high point. All property
owners will receive notification of their revaluation and
the procedure for scheduling informal hearings in early
spring 2008.
Charlene went to Lyndon State College in Vermont
and then continued her education at CCRI. She has
worked for several real estate appraisers and for the
Towns of Smithfield and Scituate. Currently, Charlene
serves on the State Farm, Forest and Open Space Value
Sub Committee and she is the Secretary of the RI
Association of Assessing Officers. Charlene is in her
sixth year as Assessor and has lived in West Greenwich
for 2 years. She is originally from Scituate and she is the
mother of 3 teenagers who keep her busy with sports
and 4-H activities.

5
PRSSRT STD
US POSTAGE
PAID
COVENTRY RI
PERMIT NO 156
The Town of West Greenwich
280 Victory Highway
West Greenwich, RI 02817
Resident
Rural Route
West Greenwich, RI 02817
The West Greenwich Historical
Preservation Society
continued from front page
presented at town events and gatherings.
In the course of conversation, Charlotte mentioned that
recently she has had a number of inquiries about how King’s
Daughters Court (off of Victory Highway) got its name. She
explained that it was named for the first charitable organization
established in West Greenwich in 1915. They called themselves
the “Lend-A-Hand Circle of the King’s Daughters and Sons”.
The King’s Daughters and Sons was, and is, a national Christian
charitable organization. The last names of the women at the first
meeting of the Circle in 1915 were, Andrews, Capwell, Fish,
Harrington, Matteson, Vaughan and Whitman. In 1935 Cora
Harrington Lamoureux with help from Susie J. Harrington wrote
the history of the Circle and this is part of the Society’s collection.
Which brings us back to Anne Harrington who was originally
from East Greenwich. She married into the Harrington
family and says it was her mother-in-law who got her interested
in the history of West Greenwich. Charlotte Jolls moved here
from Warwick in 1984. She and her husband, Joseph, purchased
the Jacob Weaver Farm. Curiosity about the legacy of their property
led Charlotte to the Society. Roberta Baker owes her dedication
to historic preservation to happy memories of childhood
summers spent on the Searles Capwell Farm with her family.
When she married her husband, Mel, they knew they wanted to
live their lives together in West Greenwich. While working at
Wawaloam Elementary School, Roberta came up with the idea of
a slide show about the history of West Greenwich for the students.
She created one and presented it in the schools for many years.
So I ask you, what will be your inspiration? What questions
about your hometown will spark the imagination and be your
personal call to action? Roberta, Charlotte and Anne and the
members of the West Greenwich Historical Preservation Society
want to know and they want you to join them in their pursuit of
history. They want the help of the next generation to keep historic
preservation alive in West Greenwich and to take the
Society into the future.
Anyone who is interested can email me, Cynthia Walsh, at
cindyalisonw2@verizon.net or call 397-3914 and I will pass your
name on to Roberta, Charlotte and Anne.
Town Administrator: Kevin Breene ................392-3800 ext. 123
Town Clerk: Janet Olsson, CMC .....................392-3800 ext. 100
Treasurer: Colleen Derjue................................392-3800 ext. 107
Tax Assessor: Charlene Randall.......................392-3800 ext. 104
Town Planner: Jennifer Paquet.........................392-3800 ext. 111
Tax Collector’s Clerk: Karen Sweet ................392-3800 ext. 105
Building & Zoning Official: David Tacey .......392-3800 ext. 114
Adopt-A-Cemetery
Charlene and Bob Butler are on a mission…
a mission that was begun years ago by
West Greenwich Town Historian, Blanche
Albro and her husband, Buster. Charlene and
Bob have followed in the Albro’s footsteps up
and down roads, through the woods and over
stonewalls to find and GPS the approximately
150 historic cemeteries in West Greenwich.
Mrs. Albro first became concerned when the
state took the land that is now the Big River
Management Area. She realized that if the proposed
reservoir was completed many of the
cemeteries would be lost forever. She recalled
how two cemeteries were carelessly bulldozed
near Kitt’s Corner when Route 95 was constructed.
And so Blanche and Buster and a
handful of volunteers started the campaign to
find, record and save the cemeteries.
Fast forward to 2008. Charlene and Bob
want your help. Many of the cemeteries need
TLC. They are overgrown, some have been
vandalized and the inscriptions on the stones
need to be checked against the original recordings
by Mrs. Albro.
The Adopt-A-Cemetery Program is sponsored
by the West Greenwich Land Trust. One
hundred and twenty-five new Historic
Cemetery signs have been ordered from the
Veteran’s Administration, which provides them
free of charge. With the help of the Town these
new signs will soon be going up.
Since the program was announced in
September of 2007, twenty-five volunteers
have come forward to help the Butlers and the
WGLT to preserve our historic cemeteries. If
you’d like to volunteer or get more information,
please call Charlene at 397-6517 or email
ckb39@cox.net.
Paid for by the Town of West Greenwich