*** NOVEMBER 2022 UPDATE ***
Tree blowdowns and other tree damage have obscured the unmarked trail as you get closer to the cache, as others have reported. It is now a 275-foot bushwhack from where the trail disappears, if you are approaching from the south, as most will. A reference point has been added where the trail reappears closest to the cache. The damaged container has been replaced and moved about 15-20 feet. See hint for more details. Please make sure you have the experience to return to the unmarked trail.
* * * END UPDATE, ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION BELOW * * *
Another old school cache at an interesting relic from the past. If you don't like to hike, skip this one.
While continuing to explore this recently acquired state property, I hiked up the entire west side trail and spied an unusual formation about 150 feet east of the path. Behind the unusual formation was a surprise: a pretty intact old stone foundation. Beyond it one can envision the farm with all its stone fences. The interior of the foundation is filled with vegetation and at the risk that poison ivy might be present, I did not put the cache there. It is very closeby. And if you can't find it, Oh Well.
This property is part of the DeCoppet Estate. Theakston De Coppet was a successful stockbroker from New York whose family had a summer home in Narragansett in the late 1800s.
And, as it turns out, a man of vision and one of Rhode Island's earliest conservationists.
De Coppet in 1911 bought the remains of an abandoned Civil War-era mill village known as Hillsdale in the town of Richmond. He built a lodge and began acquiring surrounding property until he had amassed more than 2,000 contiguous acres. The Beaver River meanders three-quarters of a mile through the property. De Coppet immersed himself in rural Richmond life and became a member of the Town Council, serving as its president. Upon his death in 1937, his estate was placed in trust and his will provided that several heirs would have life estate privileges there, but that after the last of them had passed away, the property would go to the state as a forest preserve with no hunting allowed. He also left a modest endowment to care for the property.
The last of those lifetime occupants was a widow who passed away in 2010, and she is buried on the property alongside her husband, who died in 1987. The state formally took possession of the property in 2014 and is now considering how to manage it. But passive uses such as hiking – and geocaching – are allowed.