Connect with us

World

This Cranston mega collector built a huge RI historical archive. Here’s how you can see it.

Published

9 hours ago

on

This Cranston mega collector built a huge RI historical archive. Here’s how you can see it.

play

  • Larry DePetrillo spent decades building what he believes to be the largest private library of Rhode Island books.
  • Eager to share his finds with the world, he spends his days scanning books, newspapers, magazines, maps and more to share on his personal Facebook group.

CRANSTON – If you’re trying to track down the Commissioners of Shell Fisheries’ annual report for 1904, or Classical High School’s 1943 yearbook, you could try the State Archives or the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Or you could call up Larry DePetrillo, who probably has a copy in his Cranston home. 

DePetrillo, a retired state employee who will turn 83 in December, has spent decades amassing what he believes is the largest private collection of Rhode Island-related books in existence.

A spare bedroom in the unassuming ranch near the Division of Motor Vehicles where he lives with his wife, Nancy, has been dubbed “the Rhode Island room,” and is lined from floor to ceiling with display cases. Boxes of historic photographs and postcards are piled high in the closet, while antique maps occupy the basement.

Armed with an Epson scanner, DePetrillo spends his days sharing this museum-worthy collection with the world – photo by photo, page by page. His 2,700-member Facebook group, “Photos that larry likes,” serves as a repository for hundreds of years of Rhode Island history.

A visitor can flip through old family photo albums, peruse out-of-print books, zoom in on 150-year-old maps, or read all 45 issues of the Block Island Wireless – touted as “one of two daily newspapers in the world where dispatches come from wireless telegraph” during its short-lived run in 1903.

By now, DePetrillo has probably digitized thousands, if not tens of thousands, of items from his personal library.

But that represents only a fraction of his ever-expanding archive. He often encourages the Facebook group’s members to let him know if they have specific requests, knowing that he may be holding the keys to a lost world.

“You can bring back the neighborhood that their parents grew up in, that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “They can at least see where their relatives used to live.”

Recreating Providence’s history, and his own

DePetrillo himself grew up in a world that no longer exists, spending part of his childhood in the section of Smith Hill that was razed to make room for Interstate 95.

“One of the many places that we lived was 22 Jewett Street,” he said. “The State House was our playground. Well, our house was taken away. And then we moved to Holden Street, and that house was taken away, too.”

DePetrillo was one of 11 children. His father worked in the jewelry industry and invented a machine that could twist metal into scrolls, but saw little of the profits.

The family bounced between the Chad Brown housing projects, where he spent his early years; Federal Hill, where his grandfather had a barbershop; mill housing in the North End; and Smith Hill.

Today, DePetrillo can barely recall a time when he wasn’t interested in history, maps, and understanding how places change over time.

His Rhode Island room contains seemingly every book ever written about the state, from slim pamphlets tracing the histories of various ethnic groups to a leather-bound copy of “A History of Washington and Kent Counties,” first published in 1889 and about as thick as a tire.

Certain shelves are devoted to specific subtopics, like Roger Williams or local architecture. An entire bookshelf is dedicated to books by Rhode Island authors. Another houses a full set of Providence city directories from 1862 to the 1920s, and a stack of school directories from the 1960s.

There are reams of magazines, newspaper clippings, promotional brochures, and reports published by state agencies. Autocrat tea canisters, Awful Awful cups, and a set of bookends celebrating Rhode Island’s tercentenary sit on top of bookshelves, while glass display cases hold ephemera like a blue ribbon from the 1923 Pawtuxet Valley Fair and a steamboat ticket for Rocky Point.

And then there are thousands and thousands of photographs. Cross-referencing old maps, DePetrillo uses black-and-white images to reconstruct the way parts of downtown Providence looked before the advent of highways.

“I recreated what 95 took away,” he said.

Building extensive collection required ‘wheeling and dealing’

DePetrillo spent decades building up his collection by making the rounds at yard sales, estate sales, flea markets, and antiques auctions, and pouncing on anything that looks interesting.

Unlike other treasure-hunters who he came to know over the years, he never tried to make a business out of his hobby.

But he became canny about “wheeling and dealing” – that is, trading with fellow collectors when he knew he had something that they wanted.

“I’m not a book dealer,” he said. “I’m just a bookworm.”

His favorite piece in his collection is a pair of colorful scrolls from 1878 that are housed in a wooden viewing machine, and depict the entirety of Narragansett Bay.

Turning the knobs, a viewer can travel from Watchemoket Cove in East Providence to Fort Adams in Newport, circumnavigate Block Island, then steam from Jamestown to Pawtuxet Village.

An identical machine sold at auction for $4,000 in 2018, and another one is currently available at an asking price of $8,500.

DePetrillo got his from Cellar Stories in downtown Providence, where it sat in the display case for a long time while he built up enough credit to buy it. One of the items that he traded in was a life-sized anatomical model, he recalls.

With help from his son, a software engineer, DePetrillo scanned each of the 30-foot-long scrolls and uploaded them online.

Now, they’re accessible for everyone – not just a rarified few.

Sharing rare finds with the world

At the tail end of the 1960s, DePetrillo was part of a one-year experiment where students at Roger Williams University – then Roger Williams College – moved into the Hartford Park housing project.

After graduation, he returned as a volunteer and created the housing project’s first-ever library.

Unlike his wife, Nancy, he didn’t pursue a career as a librarian. Instead, he went to work at the state Department of Human Services, where he served on the staff of the Developmental Disabilities Council.

But he clearly retained a librarian’s enthusiasm for making information – in this case, Rhode Islanders’ shared history – freely and publicly available. 

Photos from his collection illustrate books on everything from clam shacks to the Civilian Conservation Corps. A history of the Dorr War features a special thank you to “Larry DePetrillo, who has a picture of everything.” 

His son, who shares his interest in history, will get first dibs on his collection when he dies, he said. But he also routinely donates rare, historically significant finds – handwritten Census records from 1811, for instance – to institutions like the Rhode Island Historical Society and the State Archives.

Sometimes, he’ll post about a find on Facebook – a Pawtucket couple’s 1893 wedding album, for instance – and offer to return it to any living descendants.

He hasn’t read all the books that he’s spent decades collecting, he admits, and couldn’t possibly do so in his lifetime. But that was never the point. 

Related Topics:
Continue Reading