In Summer 2019, I took a short road trip to the northeast part of the country. I visited several places, my goal was to get to a bunch of the states in the Northeast that I hadn’t been to since I had started my quest, and to visit a National Park Service property in each of those states. I landed in New York City and went north into New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, before coming back and adding Rhode Island by visiting the Roger Williams National Memorial. This was my last NPS property visit on this trip.

I had no clue who Roger Williams was before coming here, and I only visited here because of my desire to visit a National Park Service property in every state, this one was a convenient stop along my route. I stopped at the very small visitor center and watched the video on Roger Williams. As I have stated before, the videos at every NPS property I have visited are expertly done and are worth the 20 minutes or so it takes to watch. Most of the time, no one else is watching, and the ranger will start the video when you ask.

Roger Williams was a pioneer in the 1600s, and after getting educated in England as a preacher, he came to the Colonies because he was getting frustrated with how the Church of England and the politics of England were entwined. He created Providence as a place where people could be free to practice any religion they wanted - or none at all. He worked with England to get the rights to set up Rhode Island as a Colony and was successful. His settlement obviously thrived, and after creating the template for the freedom of religion, other colonies followed suit. 100 years later, it was also added to the Constitution.

Good Job Roger!

#RhodeIsland