NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. -- In the 1960s visitors would be lucky to find more than a few harbor seals cavorting in Narragansett Bay off Rome Point. But these days the odds are much improved in both the visitors' and the seals' favor. As many as 169 harbor seals were spotted there in 1995 by Save the Bay, a Rhode Island-based environmental organization.
In winter, the seals are a good reason to come to this 230-acre preserve. But they are not the only reason.
Rome Point is one of the few large, undeveloped and unspoiled parcels of land left on Narragansett Bay, the jewel of Rhode Island. ''No Trespassing" signs had been posted since the property was bought in 1953 by a local utility, Narragansett Electric. While locals ignored the signs and trekked the half mile to the beach, they were among the very few visitors over the last half-century.
In April 2001 the signs came down when the utility donated the land to the state in memory of US Senator John H. Chafee, who had been governor of the state in the 1960s before going to Washington for four terms. Now called the John H. Chafee Nature Preserve, deed restrictions will continue to keep it in its current condition, which should make the harbor seals happy.
There are other ways to view the seals who make the bay their annual winter home, but visiting Rome Point is one of the easiest for anyone willing to take about a 2-mile round-trip hike on a winter day. And even if the seals are not around, visitors will still be rewarded with a walk along a largely untouched beach.
Rome Point is on Boston Neck Road about a mile north of its intersection with Route 138 and the bridges that lead to Newport. There are no signs, nor even a parking lot (the state hopes to install both in the near future), but there usually are at least a couple of cars parked by a large gate.
While there are several paths, the main one leads about a half-mile down to a crescent-shaped beach. The Jamestown Bridge is to the right. Directly across the water is Conanicut Island, better known locally as Jamestown, while to the left Rome Point
stretches out in a long peninsula. Just beyond is the small, private Fox Island. The harbor seals are usually on the other side of the peninsula.
The beach is covered more with shells than stones or sand, and the wind usually picks up out here. Narragansett Indians called the point Namcook, and English colonials first referred to it as Boston Neck and later Rome Point after George Rome, who pronounced his name ''Room." Rome had owned the land for eight years before it was confiscated and sold in 1776 because he was too much an admirer of King George III.
Apparently Rome led an extravagant lifestyle during his short tenure in Rhode Island. He is reputed to have erected a lavish mansion on the property, presided over huge parties, and installed gardens that featured a fish pond, buttonwood trees, and boxwood plants imported from England. The mansion is long gone, but there are signs of evergreens and shrubs that may have been part of Rome's original garden.
Among the descendants may be the large stand of evergreens that anchors the sandy soil of the narrow peninsula, which at times is only about 50 feet wide. It must have been only these trees that prevented Rome Point from being wiped out by hurricanes such as those that swept up Narragansett Bay in 1938 and 1954.
It's well that the peninsula is still there because it offers protection from the breeze sweeping up from the Atlantic. And on the northern side of the peninsula in Bissle Cove is where the seals usually congregate.
The fat, furry seals, a mixture of gray, white, and black, like to sun themselves on the rocks. They are a good size, with the males as big as 5 feet and 200 pounds and the females 4 feet and 150 pounds. Their numbers have grown significantly since 1972 when the federal government passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Before that, harbor seals often had a bounty on them.
Most visitors are advised to view the seals from the trees on the peninsula and to bring binoculars, rather than trying to approach on the beach below. A trail takes visitors to the end of the point, where you can look north to Quonset Point, a former naval air station that today is a port and industrial park.
Rome Point is lucky it escaped a similar fate. After George Rome's departure the property here apparently remained farmland until 1953, when it was purchased by Narragansett Electric. The utility razed the few remaining properties on the land and planned to build a generating plant fired by coal or oil. Later it wanted to build a nuclear power plant. When neither plant materialized, the land sat idle for decades. The area's natural forest grew back, protecting the shore from increasingly busy Boston Neck Road.
Most residents forgot about Rome Point. But in recent years the area returned to the news as property values soared and residents and environmentalists worried that the utility would sell it to a developer who would build high-priced condos on the land. Narragansett Electric officials said they did get offers for the land as well as local pressure to keep the property wild. Ultimately the latter won out. Even rest rooms cannot be built on the land.
Who knows--some winter the harbor seals may very well outnumber the people coming to see them at Rome Point.
Bob Wyss is a writer in Cranston, R.I.
