A Closer Look at Spite Tower in Little Compton

Photography by Wolf Matthewson

For 120 years, the three-story structure on Old Harbor Road in Little Compton has inspired gossip and speculation, as only small-town mysteries can. The “Spite Tower,” as it’s known, was supposedly built by John Hathaway to spite his former friend, Abraham Manchester. The Manchesters owned a nearby store, and Manchester’s sister would signal the start of lunch each day by hanging a dish towel where Abraham could see it in the window of their home so he knew when it was time to eat. According to rumor, the tower stood directly in Abraham’s line of sight. Some versions cite a botched inheritance or an unrequited love as the cause of the falling out. “The real story is far less exciting,” says Marjory O’Toole, executive director of the Little Compton Historical Society. “It is simply a water tower. It’s [from] when houses used gravity-fed plumbing systems, so you have to get the water up high to get it to flow through the house.” Indoor plumbing might not have the same dazzle as a secret affair, but O’Toole says the modern upgrade would have been noted in its day. In 1905, Claudia Church Hathaway, John’s wife, became the latest Church woman to inherit the family home, and it was she who undertook the renovations and ordered the tower’s construction. “It would’ve caused a stir for sure,” O’Toole says. Today, Little Compton residents Kristin and Adam Silveira own the tower as part of the adjacent Samuel Church Estate. The couple leases the tower to a local business and rents the house on Airbnb. “It’s a really neat building, and we’re glad to be able to have a use for it,” Kristin says. Factual history or no, everyone agrees the name “Spite Tower” is here to stay. “Everybody loves a good story,” O’Toole says.