Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator Dr. David Weed spoke with participants about 17th century maps at the Celebrating Rehoboth Through Genealogy event at the Carpenter Museum on May 12, 2018. Presentations by both Rhode Island Historical Society Librarian Phoebe Bean and Dr. J. Stanley Lemons referred to important historical events in 17th century Rehoboth. At […]
Members of the Pokanoket Tribal Council, including Po Wauipi Neimpaug, Sagamore,of the Pokanoket Nation, William Guy, met for three hours with Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator David Weed. Dr. Weed reviewed the purpose of the project to help the public better understand the events of the 17th century and the transition from Indigenous control to colonial […]
Bristol First Congregational Church Historian Dyan Vaughn met with Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator Dave Weed to describe the early history of the Church which was organized in 1680. Its first meeting house was constructed in 1684 on the Town Commons, and its present building is on High Street where items from the original Church […]
Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator Dave Weed met with Massasoit Historical Society Trustee John Chaney at the George Hail Library in Warren, RI. The Society began in 1950s,when it made arrangements for sheep to graze in the North Burial Grounds. Later, it ran the Museum of the George Hail Free Library. The Association charges itself with the […]
Sowams Heritage Area Team Member Helen Hersh Tjader presented a one-hour talk on “Sowams – The Untold Story” at the East Providence Public Library. 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 […]
History professor Burton Van Edwards began a presentation about Old Barrington Village with a description of the earliest days of the town, starting with the Wannamoisett Purchase of 1641 from Massasoit. Using an excellent series of maps, he went on to detail the many changes that took place over the next century that resulted in […]
Bristol Historical and Preservation Society President Dory Skemp and Executive Director Dr. Catherine Zipf met with Sowams Heritage Area Coordiantor Dr. David Weed to outline how the Society can join the effort to discover the 17th century in Bristol and seven other communities. The town is home to at least four present-day locations with direct ties […]
Birch Swamp Road resident and Providence College faculty member Dr. Keith Morton (left) and Barrington physicain Charles McCoy, MD, (right) invited Sowams Heritage Area Team Members Greg Spiess (center), Helen Hersh Tjader and Dave Weed to walk to Margaret’s Cave and hike through the nearby property owned by Dr. McCoy that was the likely site of the Massasoit’s […]
Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator Dave Weed met with the board of the Warren Preservation Society to request that they serve as the fiscal agent for a Rhode Island Council for the Humanities mini-grant that will be submitted at the end of April. If approved, the grant will fund an initial launch of the project […]
Author and ethnographic consultant Julie A. Fisher led students at Roger Williams University in an exercise in deciphering the 17th century writing of Roger Williams before giving a presentation on her book, Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantics and Narragansetts. RWU History Professor Dr. Charlotte Carrington-Farmer also invited Roger Williams Memorial Park Ranger John McNiff to […]