Robert A. Geake

I am a local historian who has been writing about Rhode Island history for over thirty years. I began by writing human interest stories on local historical events in local newspapers including the Coventry Townsman, Kent County Times, and the Providence Journal.

I later had articles published in New England Magazine and Yankee Magazine, among others.

My first published book was a small paperback written for the Pawtucket Preservation Society called "A Toll, A Tavern, and a Farm". This concerned the history of my neighborhood, and Pidge Avenue.At the time of the writing of this book, I had lived in the farmhouse built by James Pidge in 1860. His tavern, "Old Pidge House" had been on the corner of Pidge Avenue and North Main Street for over 300 years before being torn down in 1954.

My second book "A History of the Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island: Keepers of the Bay" was dedicated to Francis "Icky" Brown, a native Narragansett and my brother-in-law.

These were followed by "Historic Taverns of Rhode Island", "A History of the Providence River", and "Historic Farms of Rhode Island". The History Press has also published two books of mine on New England history, "The New England Mariner Tradition" and "Colonial New England Curiosities".

Recently, I have delved into self publishing due to the increasing difficulty in finding publishers interested in local history. The History Press was bought out by Arcadia Press in 2014, and their future offerings will be very limited locally, and will be less about history than travel guides, and cookbooks. A sad change, but they are doing it to survive.

My first self-published book is a collection of essays from my blog rifootprints.com

The collection is called "Native and New Americans". A second book will be coming out in December 2014, and is called "Hidden and Forgotten Places of Rhode Island History".