#12 Bristol: RI's Best Communities 2013

#12 Bristol: RI's Best Communities 2013

Surrounded 15 miles by Narragansett Bay coastline, Bristol has ample areas for sailing, fishing, and swimming with shipbuilding and sailing being an integral part of the local community. Home to the nation's oldest Fourth of July parade, Bristol is not only an emblematic New England town but also a mixed and vibrant community with historic homes, bustling waterfront, and a red-and-white-stripe Yankee Doddle Dandy of a Main Street.

Bristol by the numbers

Established: 1680
Population: 22,954
Median household income: $64,405
Median housing price: $260,000

2013 Best Communities rankings

Overall ranking: 12
Affordability ranking: 27
Education ranking: 22
Economic Condition ranking: 13
Safety ranking: 20
Arts & Culture ranking: 7

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Famous residents

Benjamin Bourne, lawyer, jurist, and politician
Pat McGee, singer, songwriter, musician
John Saffin, best known for his A Brief and Candid Answer to Samuel Sewall's The Selling of Joseph (1700), over the issue of slavery
William Bradford, physician, lawyer, and United States Senator
Jonathan Russell Bullock, jurist and legislator
Ambrose Burnside, railroad executive, industrialist, politician, and Union general
Jonathan DeFelice, President of Saint Anselm College
James De Wolf, slave trader and United States senator
Nathanael Herreshoff, yacht designer & builder
Ira Magaziner, former senior adviser for policy development to the Clinton Administration and chairman of the William J Clinton Foundation Initiatives
Ethel Barrymore Colt, actor and lyricist
Samuel P. Colt, entrepreneur, politician, lawyer, gentleman farmer & philanthropist
Anthony Quinn, actor
William Thomas "Billy" Andrade, PGA Tour Professional Golfer
Edward L. Leahy, United States Senator and federal judge
Norman Rene, theater and film director
John Saffin, merchant and author (A Brief and Candid Answer to Samuel Sewall's The Selling of Joseph, 1700)
Todd Santos, meteorologist for The Weather Channel