Rhode Island’s Perilous Coast – Bonnet Point (Part 2)

Reprinted from “The Lighthouse Log”  Spring 2015.

This article was contributed by Jim Jenney, BLMA Maritime Historian

This is a continuation of a discussion of ships wrecked on Narragansett’s Bonnet Point, situated just a few miles from Beavertail Lighthouse. Previously detailed were four of the sev- en known total losses. We will look at the other three including what could arguably be called one of the top ten shipwrecks in the state’s maritime history.
Without question, the most memorable and costly maritime disaster to take place at “The Bonnet” occurred on a cold November day in 1880. The side wheel steamer RHODE ISLAND left New York bound for Providence on her final trip of the season with Captain Jesse Mott in command. Due to the vagaries of tide and current, and in a dense fog, the steamer “missed her marks” and ran ashore about 300 feet from a bluff called “Jacob’s Ladder”, some 300 feet north of the southern extremity of Bonnet Point.