The Proposal

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about 30 miles south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States... Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and a major United States Navy training center. A major 18th century port city, Newport now contains among the highest number of surviving colonial buildings of any city in the United States. The city is the county seat of Newport County . Newport was known for being the city of some of the "Summer White Houses" during the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. The population was 24,672 at the 2010 census. Newport was founded in 1639. Its eight founders and first officers were Nicholas Easton, William Coddington, John Clarke, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull.
more

Rockport is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,952 at the 2010 census. Rockport is located approximately 25 miles northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula. It is directly east of Gloucester, Massachusetts and surrounded on three sides by the... Atlantic Ocean. Only part of the town composes the census-designated place of Rockport. Before the coming of the English explorers and colonists, Cape Ann was home to a number of Native American villages, inhabited by members of the Agawam tribe. Samuel de Champlain named the peninsula "Cap Aux Isles" in 1605, and his expedition may have landed there briefly. By the time the first Europeans founded a permanent settlement at Gloucester in 1623, most of the Agawams had been killed by diseases caught from early contacts with Europeans. The area that is now Rockport was simply an uninhabited part of Gloucester for more than 100 years, and was primarily used as a source of timber—especially pine-for shipbuilding. The area around Cape Ann was also one of the best fishing grounds in New England. In 1743 a dock was built at Rockport harbor on Sandy Bay and was used for both timber and fishing.
more

Gloucester /ˈɡlɑːstɑː/ is a city on Cape Ann in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It is part of Massachusetts' North Shore. The population was 28,789 at the 2010 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a popular summer destination,... Gloucester consists of an urban core on the north side of the harbor and the outlying neighborhoods of Annisquam, Bay View, Lanesville, Folly Cove, Magnolia, Riverdale, East Gloucester and West Gloucester. The boundaries of Gloucester originally included the town of Rockport, in an area dubbed "Sandy Bay." That village separated formally on February 27, 1840. In 1873, Gloucester was reincorporated as a city. Gloucester was founded at Cape Ann by an expedition called the "Dorchester Company" of men from Dorchester chartered by James I in 1623. It was one of the first English settlements in what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and predates both Salem in 1626 and Boston in 1630. The first company of pioneers made landing at Half Moon Beach, and settled nearby, setting up fishing stages in a field in what is now Stage Fort Park.
more