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Newport was founded in 1639 by a small band of Boston colonists who had left Massachusetts for the wilds of Narragansett Bay, briefly settled on the north end of Aquidneck Island at Portsmoth, then departed Portsmouth in order to settle permanently at the south end of the island where an excellent natural harbor afforded greater opportunity for commercial development. Neport's climeate and setting still attracted southerners after the Revolution. Growing numbers of families from New YOrk, Boston and Baltimore. Many visitors boarded at farms until the first hotel went uo in the mid-1820's. The earliest summer houses date to the 1830's and were build on a hill above the port. The best known early cottage is Kingscote, a Gothic dwelling erected by Georgian planter George Noble Jones. The most imposing "cottage" erected int he '50's, Chateau-sur-Mer, is an Italiante stone villa constructed by a New Yorker, China-trade merchant William S. Wetmore. This book highlights the "cottages" of Newport in all the gild and glory.