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NORTH SMITHFIELD – The sites connected to the town’s earliest history will be on view this Saturday when the North Smithfield Heritage Association hosts a walking tour of Native American highlights of The Blunders neighborhood, and nearby colonial-era cemeteries and farms.
Richard Keene, association president, said the walking tour will begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday after participants meet initially in the middle school parking lot.
“Some of the oldest historical events in town took place in that area and yet it has been largely forgotten,” Keene said of the sites the tour will be visiting.
Two battles of the King Philip War of 1675 and 1676, a war between New England Native Americans led by King Philip, or Metacom, and Colonial forces from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, are believed to have occurred in the Blunders area, or nearby, and one, the second battle site, was identified through an archaeological survey in recent years.
The neighborhood also includes locations holding stone mounds that have drawn speculation over the years that they are evidence of Native American use of the area over thousands of years.
The planned tour will include a walk from Blunders Way off Greenville Road, Route 5, to a 10-foot tall stone-built retaining wall that is believed to be part of a roadway running through area in the 1700s, and also to a wooded section containing some of the stone mounds.
Keene said the tour will conclude with a visit to the Richard Mowry Historic Cemetery off Greenville Road near the entrance to Material Sand & Stone.
The historic Mowry farmhouse still stands nearby the cemetery today, Keene noted.
While the purpose of the stone mounds has been debated for many years, some suggesting their were the result of early farming practices and others that they are linked to Native burials or rituals, Keene said they are something to see no matter what they represent.
From his own perspective, Keene said he doesn’t believe the town’s early property owners would have left stone mounds on viable agricultural land.
“I think the early farmers knew they were burial mounds and left them alone,” Keene said.
The Heritage Association has hosted past presentations on the town’s Native American history and most recently had Raymond Two Hawks Watson, Pomham Sachem of the Mashapaug Nahaganset Tribe, give a talk on the history of the King Philip’s War and the Native sites in North Smithfield.
One of the important Native American sites in the Nipsachuck Hill area identified by archaeologists was a village that had been located in the area of Cedar Forrest Road and may have existed there for 3,500 years, Keene noted.
The North Smithfield Heritage Association puts on events like Saturday’s tour help to inform residents of things they might not have known about their town, according to Keene.
“Our mission is to promote and to preserve our local history,” Keene said.
People joining the Heritage Association for the tour should wear the proper clothing for a walk in the woods such as long pants and a hat, and also bring along insect repellent and water, Keene noted.