Twelve Mile Circle received a handful of mysterious search queries focusing on the word “sawtooth” recently. One specifically referenced a location called Sawtooth Point, Rhode Island. I assumed they all derived from a common origin. Coincidentally or not, they landed on the same day from the same metropolitan area.
One shouldn’t get too alarmed. Usage statistics can’t identify individual readers by name even if a lot of information does get recorded whenever someone lands on a website. I do enjoy reviewing aggregated data especially searches dropped directly onto 12MC. Sometimes they pique my curiosity, as with the aforementioned Sawtooth Point. Often I learn a thing or two in the process.
Hopefully my curiosity will also satisfy the needs of our anonymous reader who placed the notion in my head. Of course that assumes he or she ever returns, which I doubt.
About That Sawtooth Point
Spoiler alert, I quickly discovered that Sawtooth Point was a fictional location. It simply doesn’t exist. Rather it was the setting for a novel written by John Casey in 2010 titled “Compass Rose.” I haven’t read it although it sounded interesting. It seemed more character focused than action driven, and of course I liked the title. The New York Times Sunday Review gave it favorable marks.
“… the story of a handful of people who live in a small coastal community in Rhode Island’s South County. Yet this bit of a world is complete unto itself, with its own force fields, its own variations of true north, its own ways of tilting into alignment.”
Rhode Island Monthly offered some additional background in John Casey Comes Back to South County
“John Casey finished writing Spartina in 1986, but his characters weren’t done with him. The novel went on to win the National Book Award, Casey went on to other books — but he never stopped writing about his fictional South County world. Twenty years later, the highly anticipated sequel, Compass Rose, brings it all back. ‘I was thinking the next time I’m in Rhode Island, I’ll go look at that big old white house on Sawtooth Point,’ Casey says. ‘Then I remember that I made it up’.”
That certainly addressed the question with certainty.
But Did It Really Exist?
The author himself stated unambiguously that Sawtooth Point didn’t exist except in his fertile imagination. Or did it? Did the “made it up” refer to the old white house or to Sawtooth Point itself? Could there still be an actual Sawtooth Point? The designation didn’t appear in the Geographic Names Information System. In fact no place anywhere in Rhode Island had any variant of sawtooth in its name. That only meant that no formally designated Sawtooth Point existed in Rhode Island. It could still exist off-the-books, I figured. Maybe.
Wait a minute, though. I celebrated capturing the final two counties on my trip through the area last May to complete my Rhode Island county counting map. I didn’t remember any South County. Rhode Island had only five counties: Bristol; Kent; Newport; Providence and Washington. There wasn’t a Sawtooth Point and there wasn’t a South County.
South County
By an odd twist of fate, I’d received an email message from reader “Dave” just a few days before I noticed the Sawtooth Point queries. He recounted a dinnertime conversation where his family discussed county names. That made me jealous because I couldn’t imagine a geography-based conversation happening anywhere around my dinner table. However, that was really besides the point. Their discussion turned to the counties of Rhode Island, and the notion that Washington County (map) was rarely referenced in that manner.
Locals called it South County. I suppose it related to its geographic placement within the State. Nevertheless I couldn’t find any concrete reason why Washington County wasn’t a good enough name. Maybe it was because Rhode Island disestablished its county structure except for various statistical and judicial purposes in 1846. Maybe it simply didn’t matter anymore. Washington County, South County, whatever.
Dave had wondered whether this was a unique situation, a county with a largely ignored official name and a frequently referenced nickname. I didn’t know of any other situation like that, however, before declaring it unique I thought it might be best to consult the all-knowing 12MC audience.
I suppose I also needed to add two more titles, Spartina and Compass Rose, to the long list of books I should probably read someday. And I still didn’t know if there was an actual Sawtooth Point.
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