2025 event list
Opening Day
Saturday May 3rd 2025 11am-4pm
This years theme will follow the publication of Professor Charlotte Carrington-Farmer’s long anticipated Roger Williams and His World. Her book will be featured at a talk and a book signing during our opening weekend event.
Also: 17th century reenactors, maypole dancing, mead making demonstrations (at 1:30 and 2:45), South County Spinners, vendors, children’s games and crafts, yard sale featuring reproduction colonial cookware, earthenware, and drinking vessels, tours of the castle, and more!
**An all day seminar is in the works for September which will also feature Charlotte’s new book and other speakers. The day will be based on Roger Williams and the early New England colonies. The seminar will include talks and cultural performances by indigenous scholors, and artists. Keep your eye out for more information about the seminar!
Roger Williams, a 17th-century English immigrant to New England, was famously banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 for his “new and dangerous opinions” on religious freedom, the separation of church and state, and Indigenous land rights. Following his banishment, Williams settled the town of Providence with the permission of the Narragansett Sachems, creating a colony that was arguably the freest in the western world. This collection draws together a wide range of primary sources by and about Williams in order to make this history accessible to a broad audience.
Reviews
“Roger Williams and His World is a book we have needed for a long time. With clarity and humanity, Charlotte Carrington-Farmer brings us back into that world, explaining how many peoples inhabited it and how ground-breaking their ideas could be. At the same time, as she explains, they often fell short of their highest standards. For Roger Williams, his family, and his many neighbors, life was full of contention as well as hope—still the motto of Rhode Island. Thanks to this book, we have a far richer sense of that struggle, and its legacy for all of us.” — Ted Widmer, City University of New York, author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington
“In Roger Williams and His World, Carrington-Farmer exposes the complexities of Roger Williams—both the man himself and the cataclysmic world and time in which he lived.” — Lorén Spears, enrolled Narragansett, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum
tea and history
May 10th Mother’s Day Tea
Breakfast Talk
Saturday May 24th 9:30am
Join retired National Park Ranger John McNiff, who, as Roger Williams, will discuss his years at Cocumscossoc and his neighborly friendship with the Narragansett, as well as Richard Smith.
Doors open for coffee and refreshments at 930am and the presentation begins at 10am. $5 suggested donation.
conversations at the castle
Thursday June 5th 6pm
Seth Rockman discusses his book “Plantation Goods”
Tastings of Madeira with light colonial fare
June 6th at 6:00pm
Similar to our popular adults only Raise a Glass event we had last year, we are brining back an event that will have a nice combo of history and drinks.
*check back for more details
conversations at the castle
Tuesday June 10th 6pm
Gregory Duhamel discusses his book “The Sloop Ranger”
Board of Trustees Meeting June 12th 6pm
Tea and history
Saturday June 14th Flag Day Tea
Conversations at the castle
Tuesday June 24th 6pm
Michael Simpson Topic: TBA
Breakfast talk
Saturday September 13th 9:30am
Akeia de Baros Gomes, Director at Lyman-Hazard House Museum
Tea and history
Sunday September 14th
Special event: Multi-media show Reception
Smith’s Castle as Seen and Imagined
Opening and Reception
Saturday September 20th 9:30am-11:00am
(on display through October)
**more details on this event to come!!
Special Event: Seminar
Roger Williams and His World
Saturday September 27th 9:30am-3:00pm
The day will be based on Roger Williams and the early New England colonies. The seminar will include talks and cultural performances by indigenous scholors, and artists. Featuring Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, Adrian Weimer, …more speakers TBA
Breakfast Talk
Saturday October 11th 9:30am
Marilyn Harris Topic: TBA
tea and history
Sunday October 12th
Conversations at the castle
Thursday October 16th 6pm
Dr. Thomas F. Army Jr. Topic: TBA
Breakfast talk
Saturday October 25th 9:30am
Speaker & Topic: TBA
breakfast talk
Saturday November 8th 9:30am
Robert A. Geake “Citizens for the First Time: How New England Communities Contributed to the Cause of Liberty”
Christmas at the castle
December 5th and 6th (Saturday and Sunday)
*Details TBA