Leisure Sales and Visitor Center Manager Elise Swearingen at GoProvidence met with Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator David Weed to talk about the development of group tours throughout the Sowams Heritage Area. Numerous tour operators in the Greater Providence Area are looking for unique cultural tour opportunities, and Dr. Weed is offering to provide up to […]
Gravestone Girl Brenda Sullivan presented “Welcome to the Graveyard,” a virtual tour of Bristol’s cemeteries at the Bristol Statehouse. “Cemeteries are living history museums. You can walk through that gate at any moment in time and be transported back to two, three, in some cases four hundred years.” Brenda focused on the evolution of cemeteries over […]
Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator Dr. David Weed presented a proposal for establishing interpretive signage at eight locations throughout the Area, including one in the Rehoboth Village, to members of the Rehoboth Historical Commission. The signs provide information about events and locations from the 17th century that can still be found today. The Commission has […]
DiscoverNewport Sales Manager Chris Siravo, Senior Communications Manager Andrea McHugh, and CEO & President Evan Smith met with Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator Dave Weed met to discuss possible collaborations. DiscoverNewport leads travel and tourism development and marketing in nine coastal communities, including Bristol, Warren and Barrington, part of the Sowams Heritage Area. The four […]
VisitRhodeIsland Director of Tourism, Mark Brodeur, met with Sowams Heritage Area Project Director Dave Weed to talk about ways they could partner to connect tourists with the 17th century in the East Bay and nearby Massachusetts. Mark invited Dave to develop half-day guided tours of both Providence and of the East Bay that would reveal […]
Members of the Steering Committee, including (left to right) Carl Becker, Keith Morton, Dave Norton, Dave Weed, Rock Singewald and Doug Blum (not pictured) met at the Barrington Library to review recent progress on the Sowams Heritage Area Project. After an update on a set of eight proposed interpretive signs (shown in the photo), they […]
Over forty people came to hear an hour-long presentation entitled “The History of Sowams, the 17th century home of Massasoit” held at the George Hail Library in Warren. Dr. David Weed, Coordinator of the Sowams Heritage Area Project talked about how he got involved in the project and then shared much of what he has […]
Bonnie Warren, who initiated the Historic Preservation Program at Roger Williams University and who worked for many years for the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, agreed to review and edits portions of the draft Sowams Heritage Area Interpretive Plan that Project Coordinator David Weed is preparing. “As always, Bonnie provided some critical corrections […]
Over thirty people at Hamilton House Adult Learning Exchange on the East Side of Providence attended a one-hour presentation on “Rediscovering 17th Century Rhode Island in the Sowams Heritage Area” to learn how that history shaped life in Rhode Island. “If you don’t know what happened here 400 years ago, you’ll never understand what’s going […]
Newly elected and re-elected members of the Warren Town Council heard a brief presentation on the creation of a Sowams Heritage Area that would include the Town of Warren and seven other communities in East Bay Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts once fully developed. Coordinator David Weed and Team Member Rock Singewald described the project, […]