In 1675, Capt. Benjamin Church and his men were in pursuit of a band of Native Americans. It is recorded that one of Church’s men was struck at by a rattlesnake in the vicinity of Wild Cat Rocks, in the area of Tiverton some still call “Rattlesnake Hill.”
We think of rattlesnakes as belonging to the West, shot by cowboys, menacing good guys and bad guys alike, coiled among the sage brush and the tumbleweeds. But in Tiverton, in the area bounded by Bulgarmarsh, Brayton, Lafayette and Main Roads, there has long been a habitat for rattlesnakes, particularly in and around the big hump in the ground some still call “Rattlesnake Hill” – known also as Pocasset Ridge.
This is an article from the Fall River Daily News, dated Wednesday, August 17, 1859, with the headline “Rattlesnake Killed in Tiverton”:
On Monday last, as Mr. Daniel A. Sherman, who lives on the Judge Durfee farm at “Quaket,” was going towards Tiverton Four Corners, and when nearly opposite the residence of Dr. West, he discovered a snake lying across the road, a few feet ahead of his horse. The snake’s head was raised some distance from the ground, and was rapidly vibrating from side to side. Mr. Sherman got out of his carriage, and procuring a pole from the wall, struck his snakeship a smart blow across the back. The reptile immediately sounded his rattles, and for the first time Mr. Sherman began to realize what kind of a customer he had to deal with. So effectually, however, had he dealt the first blow, that the snake was unable either to fight or run, and as Mr. S expressed it, was “willing to beg” about that time. He was speedily dispatched, and Mr. Sherman cutting off the head of the reptile, and burying it, carried the body home as a trophy of his victory. It measured four feet and five inches in length, and had eleven rattles. As the rattles are said not to be formed until the snake is three years old, it is judged that this specimen must have been about 14 years of age.
It is the opinion of people in that vicinity, that rattlesnakes exist in considerable numbers in a ledge of rock which extends for a mile or two on the North side of the road leading from the Stone Bridge to the Four Corners. They have been found occasionally in that vicinity before.
Timber rattlesnakes may be gone from Tiverton, but their lore lives on. Tiverton was the last known refuge of these impressive reptiles in Rhode Island. Eastern timber rattlesnakes are relatively timid and do not rattle or strike unless disturbed. They bask on sunny, rock-strewn slopes and hunt from May to October.
Being cold-blooded, they return to the same frost-free dens each year for six months of huddled hibernation. A 1929 account by S.N.F. Sanford described this ideal Tiverton snake habitat: “a long ridge of granitic rocks much broken and containing numerous crevices and dens. This ridge is heavily wooded …and the countryside is sparsely populated.”
Frank Manchester was perhaps the most famous rattlesnake hunter ever to work this area.
Speaking in 1952, the then-72-year-old Manchester said he thought he’d killed between 1,200 and 1,500 of the big snakes in his life and well remembered 1915, the year during which he and a friend killed or captured 371 rattlers. (The photo here of Frank Manchester is courtesy of The Nature Conservancy RI archives.)
Several long-time residents of the area remember visiting Frank Manchester’s display of caged rattlers in the 1950’s. A bounty system throughout New England, and the demand from zoos and collectors, greatly diminished the population. Naturalist John Breen, who observed the Tiverton colony over eight years in the 1960’s, noted that upwards of 50 were killed in a season early in the decade. In 1963 he published an article in the Narragansett Naturalist marveling at “the presence of rattlesnakes in fair numbers” given their persecution. However, in a later article for Massachusetts Audubon, “Rhode Island’s Declining Rattlers,” he pointed out the scarcity of baby rattlesnakes from the very beginning, and only two juveniles and no pregnant females reported by any collector during his eight years of study. He concluded that “this could be the eleventh hour of survival for the timber rattlesnake in Rhode Island,” citing their isolation and inbreeding as a possible reason.
The last documented sighting of a Tiverton rattlesnake was in 1966, when a state trooper shot a large one on Lafayette Road.
What’s up there now?
Good question.
By most accounts, the rattlesnake is either extinct or much reduced in Rhode Island. The last snake sighting The Herald News has record of occurred in Adamsville in 1986.
Still, up on Rattlesnake Hill, it’s hard to really know what slips silently among the leaves, sleeps in the rock ledges, waits to coil and strike and bite.
It’s a scary thought and it always has been, ever since colonists with crude firearms walked the forest trails looking for game, and sometimes finding death by the serpent’s tooth.
[from “195 Things: You never know what’s lurking in Tiverton’s Rattlesnake Hill” by Marc Munroe Dion, published January 27, 2016 by WickedLocal.com and from the Tiverton Land Trust article, “Tiverton’s Timber Rattlesnakes, Fact and Fiction” by Nancy Weinstein and from the Fall River Daily News of 1859]