Portsmouth

Largely a bedroom community for Newport, Portsmouth attracts visitors for Newport Polo matches, its fanciful topiary garden, and the Greenvale winery. The town has an interesting history. A religious dissident named Anne Hutchinson led a group of settlers to the area in 1638 after being banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The town was also the site of the Battle of Rhode Island on August 29, 1778, when American troops, including a locally recruited African American regiment, withdrew, leaving Aquidneck Island under British control.