Kingston, village in South Kingstown town (township), Washington county, southern Rhode Island, U.S. It developed after 1700 at the crossroads of the Pequot Indian Trail and the road to Tower Hill settlement and served as the county seat from 1752 to 1900. Until 1885 it was known as Little Rest (soldiers were said to have rested there in 1675 on their way to fight Indians). Kingston was untouched by the Industrial Revolution and remains a virtually unspoiled 18th-century village, with many of its buildings predating 1840. In 1892 the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (since 1951 the University of Rhode Island) was founded on the outskirts of the village. Pop. (2000) 5,446; (2010) 6,974.