The office of Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee '75 is working to provide the public with access to the state's highest piece of land at Jerimoth Hill, located about 25 miles outside of Providence in Foster, R.I. The high point - which was the subject of a July 1996 Wall Street Journal article that focused on its inaccessibility - has for many years been available only to a small number of property owners as well as Brown students.
Brown has owned a few acres at Jerimoth Hill since 1953 that are used for stargazing and astronomy classes, said Dean for Science Programs David Targan. Chafee's office has been working with the national organization Trust for Public Land, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and Brown to seek public access to land in this area, said Timothy Mooney, assistant state office director at Chafee's Providence office. "Senator Chafee wrote to the president of Brown last spring explaining, 'Here's this initiative I'm working on that I want to bring Brown into,' and she responded favorably," Mooney said. Brown representatives have been meeting with the working group set up by Chafee to work toward public access.
In the most recent proposal from Chafee's office, 138 acres of undeveloped property - which does not include Brown's land - would be purchased from a private owner through funding from the 2005 federal transportation bill and the environmental management department, Mooney said.
Private owners gave Brown land at Jerimoth Hill to be used as a site for an observatory, according to Targan, who is also an associate dean of the College. Brown was given funds to establish this observatory but, since the money wasn't sufficient for a full-scale observatory, it was used instead to build a small one in Barus and Holley.
Though the Jerimoth Hill land was not used for an observatory, the University cleared trees from the site and brings students there for astronomy classes. It's a valuable resource for these classes - because of zoning ordinances, there is little light pollution in the town of Foster, Targan said. At Jerimoth Hill, "the farthest objects you can see are more than 2 million light years away," and students can "see other galaxies with the naked eye," he said.
Brown has maintained a positive relationship with neighbors in Foster, as classes visiting from the University must cross neighboring plots to get to University property.
But not everyone has been successful in trying to reach the hilltop. In the last 10 or 15 years, there has been an increase in "High Pointers" - people who try to get to the high point of every state, Targan said.
However, "the disposition of our neighbors and their desire for privacy" caused an association of High Pointers to label the land at Jerimoth Hill - which is a "mere 812 feet" - the most inaccessible high point in the country, Targan said.
Rhode Island received attention in the national press because of the "curious fact that (it) has one of the lowest high points" but the most difficult one to get to, Mooney said.
Targan referenced an incident in which "two Alaskan climbers who had climbed (Mt. McKinley) ... were approached by a neighbor with a shotgun and were told to get down on the ground."
"They're not ever coming back to Rhode Island," he said.
According to Mooney, Chafee found such incidents to be "frankly, an embarrassment for Rhode Island" and began working to change it.
Craig MacDonnell, regional director for the Trust for Public Land, said he believes the University will continue being a part of the effort to make the land more accessible. He said he "would like to see the hilltop conserved in a way that enables the University to continue using it for astronomy purposes and also to make sure that the public has access to the state's highest point."
