National Parks Conservation Association staff member visits Sowams

Northeast Outreach and Engagement Manager Timothy Leonard of the National Parks Conservation Association‘s Northeast Regional Office in New York City had the opportunity to stop by several of the Sowams Heritage Area sites in Swansea, Barrington, Warren and Bristol on his way to Cape Cod on July 8, 2022. Click here for a one minute video of his comments about the Sowams Heritage Area Project.

One of the first stops on his tour was the monument marking the location of the first Baptist meeting house in Sowams, now in Barrington, where early colonists gathered in 1663. Later in the tour, Leonard stopped by Massasoit Park in Warren, located close to the Spring attributed to the Pokanoket Massasoit Ousamequin.

Further north in Warren, he and Heritage Area Coordinator Dave Weed stopped by Margaret’s Rock where Roger Williams was said to have been sheltered by the Massasoit in the winter of 1636 on his way to founding Providence. Later in the tour, the two stopped at the burial site of Ousamequin in Burr’s Hill Park in Warren.

Leonard photographs the historic marker at Burr’s Hill that describes the Royal Pokanoket Burial ground that dates back to the 1500s. The tour ended at the Seat of Metacom at Mount Hope in Bristol where King Philip held ceremonies prior to his death nearby in August of 1676.