2019

Meetup group visits Mt. Hope and the Massasoit’s Seat

Participants in the August 25th Meetup group at Mt. Hope had a chance to meet with and listen to Pokanoket Sagamore William Guy (Winds of Thunder) as he related the history of his tribe during the 17th century, as well as to ask him questions. Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator David Weed led off the […]

Sturgeon Full Moon walk at Mount Hope Farm

About thirty people had a chance to get a brief glimpse of the Sturgeon Full Moon as it rose in a cloudy sky above North Tiverton, RI, on August 16, 2019. Organizer Ray Payson, President of the Bristol Land Conservation Trust, welcomed the crowd at the Mount Hope Farm in Bristol, RI, before they walked from the […]

Sowams article published in Prime Times free magazine

An article written by Project Coordinator David Weed about the development of the Sowams Heritage Area was published on-line today in Prime Times, a give-away magazine available in local stores.. In the article, Weed describes how he became interested in the 17th century history in and around Warren, RI, where he lives and went on […]

Keith Morton leads a group to Margaret’s Rock

Providence College Professor Keith Morton, who lives near Margaret’s Rock, led a group of ten people to the location where it has been said that Roger Williams was sheltered by a Pokanoket woman in the winter of 1636. Before the walk to the Rock, Keith described the surrounding property to Julie Blount of Warren, Po […]

Burr’s Hill talk at the Massasoit Memorial

Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator David Weed spoke to two groups of children at the Warren Recreation Summer Camp program about the Massasoit Ousamequin who was reburied in the Park two years earlier. Dr. Weed told them about the people who lived successfully in the area for over 10,000 years by adapting to the land […]

Walk of Pnieses Ceremony at Mount Hope in Bristol

The Pokanoket Tribe/Pokanoket Nation tribal members celebrated the Walk of the Pnieses with two young men who completed this tradition at their ancestral home of Potumtuk at Mount Hope in Bristol, RI, on August 4, 2019. Winter Hawk and Winding River were left alone at Potumtuck (Mt. Hope) for several days and where they performed […]

Sowams Heritage Area group explores Neutaconakanut Hill

The Neutaconkanut Hill Conservancy Group sponsored a guided walk with to the hill known as the last wild place in Providence on the theme of “Discovering Sowams” on August 3, 2019 for about a dozen people. Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator Dave Weed and Conservancy member Joe Jamroz began the walk by orienting people to the […]

17th Century MeetUp group visits Hipses Rock and the Ochee Spring Soapstone Quarry

Hipses Rock, marking the Providence-Johnson border, was described in 1904 by Sidney Rider in The Lands of Rhode Island as “the ‘most western’ bound fixed ‘in his own person’ by Miantinomi to the lands Deeded to Roger Williams. According to Rider, “the name Hipses came probably from the Latin word Hesperius, meaning towards the west, or the […]

Christine DeLucia talks about place, heritage & caretaking in Native & colonial New England

Williams College History Professor Christine DeLucia, speaking to a capacity crowd at the Little Compton Community Center on July 25, 2019, described “the confluence of longstanding Native places with colonial ones and its influence on shaping how we remember and honor it, inviting us into a better/greater understanding and acknowledgement of its complex and challenging history.” […]