Like the privately owned Elizabeth Islands in Buzzards Bay, or any of the hundreds of rocky islets off the Maine coast, Hog is home to only a small number of people. To most of the rest of us, it's just a dot on a map. Unless you live on Hog, or know someone who does, you're likely never to set foot on the low, scrub-covered island, even though it's so close to the Mount Hope Bridge that you can almost count the houses on it while you're driving by. There are about a hundred houses on Hog, mostly simple summer cottages tucked along the bayside marshes or clustered among the tall groves of locust trees that grow in the center of the island. Both of these distinctly exotic-looking buildings, along with a couple of smaller ones, date to the turn of the century when they were built as the nucleus of a family compound by colorful engineer and inventor Walter Harris Knight, who was then associated with Providence's Corliss Steam Engine company.
Deed restrictions specify that there be no commercial enterprises on Hog.
Without electric, gas, or telephone service, islanders depend on one another for practicalities such as maintaining the island's artesian well-water systems and pumps, for repairing generators, for carting around propane gas tanks, for brush clearing and for borrowing the odd item that might have been forgotten on the weekly trip to the supermarket in Bristol. Whereas several years ago it was possible to live on Hog in the summer and commute to a job in Providence by taking an early ferry, now it is not. We've had more than one case where someone built a house, and then his wife came over thinking it was Cape Cod or something, that that was it. They were gone, and the house put up for sale. At the moment, there are about a half-dozen properties for sale on Hog.