Christiana Bannister founded the Home for Aged Colored Women in 1890. Initially, the home was established to care for retired black female domestic workers. Later the name was changed to Banister House to honor its founder. In 1974 a new multi-level…

The Woonasquatucket River (woon-AHS-kwa-tuk-it) has been at the center of Rhode Island’s uniquely layered history of invention, innovation and multiculturalism. The Narragansett and Wampanoag tribes who first settled the region called the river…

A visionary and independent thinker, Roger Williams (c. 1603 – 1683) was warned by the Puritan authorities in Massachusetts Bay Colony to refrain from spreading his “new and dangerous opinions.” Williams’s “opinions” did not sit well with many of…

At the crest of Smith Hill, once pastureland for a sleepy colonial town, sits a marble giant, the Rhode Island State House. Designed by the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, responsible for the design of the Boston Public Library…

It was March 28, 1676, and Zoeth Howland was riding through the deep woods of Tiverton. According to the story that has been told for more than 300 years, Howland never made it to his destination. Later that day, town residents discovered his…

Eleanor Dove’s recipe for Raccoon Pot Pie was so beloved, so well-known, that it is now preserved in the Congressional Book of Records, according to her great-granddaughter. Eleanor and her husband Ferris Dove, both members of the Narragansett…

In the village of Usquepaugh, on the banks of the Queen’s River, Kenyon’s Grist Mill has ground whole berries of grain and whole kernels of corn into meal or flour continuously since 1696.Kenyon’s still uses the 1886 mill built by John Tarbox and…

In the summers, Providence residents waded into Mashapaug Pond to get clean – or, more precisely, for spiritual cleansing. "The choir would sing and the Word was preached before the candidate entered the water to have his sins washed away," recalled…