Sowams Heritage Area Team Member Helen Hersh Tjader presented a one-hour talk on “Sowams – The Untold Story” at the East Providence Public Library on May 1, 2018.

Click here for a one-hour video of Helen’s talk and the question and answer session that followed.

Emphasizing the wonderful natural resources of the land and water in the area, Helen told the story of how the land has been transformed into the communities we see today.

She went on to make the case for establishing a Sowams Heritage Area as a way of preserving what we still have from the time when the Pokanoket Tribe occupied the land under Chief Massasoit.

Some of her photos included the Turner Reservoir at sunrise in East Providence and a depiction of Edward Winslow curing Massasoit of his illness in a 1623 visit to Sowams from Plymouth.

19th century paintings depict Mount Hope in Bristol and how the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims was depicted in this romantic view of the time.