The Star-Crossed Woman by Maribelle Cormack

Also built by Amos Allen, in 1772, that house was acquired by the Providence Redevelopment Agency in 1968 and moved to 1 Benefit St. (Allen's city house was at 208 North Main St., near the fork at Benefit Street. This house, in North Providence when it was built in 1790 by his brother, Amos Allen, was part of a 200-acre farm run by a tenant farmer it was a weekend retreat in the country for the Allen family. Its registration form for the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 writes of Allen (1739-1801), 'In partnership with his brother Philip, he had ships engaging in trade in the Caribbean and across the Atlantic, as well as a wharfside distillery and cooperage in Providence.'

in Providence, at the corner of Modena Avenue, just past LaSalle Academy. This is, as some commenters knew, the Zachariah Allen House at 1083 Smith St. Hazard a guess in comments below, then come back Sunday for a long-ago Rhode Islander magazine story about the house and the book it inspired. Who were all these people - the East Sider, the sea captain, the novelist? Where's the house?Īs always, you may enlarge the photo, shot in 1961, by clicking on it.

Built in 1790 as a country house and farm for a retired East Sider, the house later belonged to a whaling captain who inspired a 20th-century historical novel by a Rhode Islander who's almost a household name, if only for the building that bears her name. Our red house is a landmark, elegant and classical, on a busy Providence thoroughfare.

The Star-Crossed Woman by Maribelle Cormack