N.S. Heritage Association seeks help with approaching sesquicentennial

NORTH SMITHFIELD — The days of 2020 have begun to slip by and that has Richard Keene, president of the North Smithfield Heritage Association (NSHA), looking for more help with the town’s celebration of its 150th Anniversary in 2021.

To date, it has been members of the Heritage Association who have been laying the groundwork for a year of events marking the town’s Sesquicentennial but Keene is now looking for a wider group of town residents to get involved and takeover the planning of individual events or commemorations during 2021.

That was the message Keene put out in a note to the Heritage Association’s stakeholders recently while indicating local residents will get the chance to offer their support and sign-on to specific projects at a meeting of the NSHA’s new Sesquicentennial Steering Committee on Thursday, January 30th at Heritage Hall, 101 Greene Street in Slatersville, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Keene is asking the town’s various civic groups and organizations to send representatives to the meeting with ideas on things they would like to see included the Sesquicentennial’s calendar of events and functions.

In some cases, those may be things that typically occur during the course of the year but in 2021 could be expanded or enhanced with an eye toward commemorating the creation of North Smithfield as a separate Northern Rhode Island community in 1871.

“We’re getting a good response,” Keene said of his appeal for help on Monday.

“One of the history teachers from the middle School, Valerie Carnevale, has volunteered to talk with other history teachers at the middle school and high school to see if their students can do the Sesquicentennial time capsule,” Keene said.

With the 150th anniversary now less than a year away, a lot of planning will have be done on what can be gathered as mementos of the town today and also how and where the collected items would be preserved for the residents celebrating the next observed anniversary of the town.

The planning is important because sometimes the good intentions of those marking local milestones can be forgotten over the course of the years.

Keene offered that he has heard the town may have buried a time capsule for its 100th Anniversary in 1971 but where that capsule was located is now just a mystery.

“No one seems to remember where it might have been buried,” he said.

That could be a question to be answered at the upcoming Steering Committee meeting if there is someone in the town with more information the past commemoration.

There were other things done back in 1971 to celebrate the town’s Centennial, Keene noted, that are still talked about in local circles and could serve as jumping off points for new organizers.

One was the Centennial Parade that made its way from the Slatersville Plaza on Victory Highway down Great Road to Union Village and its conclusion at South Main Street for a total parade route of about 2 and half miles, he noted.

The parade featured several bands and a number of floats put in by groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and local businesses like Wright’s Dairy Farm, Keene noted.

A 2-and-a-half mile route might be a little longer than what might be attempted today, but Keene said he would like to see a parade that features both local and out-of-town marching bands to make the parade a big one.

That is, if there are people in town interested in working on such an event, he noted.

“My point is that is should be a significant parade and no one has stepped forward yet to organize it,” he said.

The Heritage Association’s members have been working on several aspects of the Sesquicentennial, such as researching an update of the Centennial book on local history published back in 1971, and also incorporating a list of the organization’s annual events in the 150th Anniversary calendar of events.

The list includes a Gala at the Village Haven in March, a Heritage Fair in May and participation with the town in its Spooky Night in October, according to Keene.