Gaspee Days CommitteeHistory Files
Gaspee Days Maritime History Symposia
First Annual Rhode Island Marine Historical Symposium

Friday, June 3, 1966
        Registration: $4, includes lunch at the Bank Cafe

Held in the 1791 John Warner Arnold House of the Warwick Historical Society, the First Annual Rhode Island Marine Historical Symposium is the first attempt to consider the marine history of Rhode Island as a concentrated effort. The theme is "Narragansett Bay - Past, Present, and Future."  The Symposium is the result of a suggestion by Jackson Jenks, of the Newport Naval and Underseas Museum, and welcomed by Mayor Horace E. Hobbs of Warwick as a permanent adjunct to our city's cultural life. Mr. Jenks is engaged with the assistance of the United States Navy, the Coast Guard, the Warwick Fire and Police Departments, and his own Museum, in an underwater search for remains of the British customs schooner, Gaspee, off Gaspee Point in Warwick.

The speakers at the Symposium, whose talks will be published, are:

  • Franklin Coyle (Ph. D. candidate, Brown University)
       "The American Revolution in Narragansett Bay"
  • Mrs. Mary Donnelly (A. M., Gorton Junior High School)
       "Trade in Narragansett Bay: Pre-Revolution to 1810"
  • William King Covell
       "Steamboating on Narragansett Bay"
  • Professor Clarence Miller (University of Rhode Island)
       "Effect of Glaciers on Narragansett Bay"
  • Dr. Niels Rorholm (University of Rhode Island)
       "Potential of Narragansett Bay"
Second Annual Rhode Island Marine Historical Symposium

Saturday, May 27, 1967
Morning Session:  Pawtuxet Baptist Church, 2157 Broad Street, Pawtuxet, Rhode Island
Luncheon and Afternoon Session: Bank Cafe, Post Road, Pawtuxet, Rhode Island

Participants and Topics:
  • William. A. Baker, NA., Curator, Francia Russsell Hart Nautical Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
        "Historic Ships as Floating Museums"
  • Evelyn M. Walsh, Ph.D., Professor of History,. Rhode Island College,
        "Activities of the Customs House at Newport, RI, 1763-1773"
  • Samuel W. Bryant. The Graduate School, Brown University; Author, The Sea and the States; A History of the American People,
        "Silas Downer-Undiscovered Rhode Island Hero"
  • Jeannette Black, Assistant, in charge of the Map collection, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.
        "Some Early Maps of Rhode Island"
  • Thomas T. Benson. Executive Director, Old Port Association Inc., Newport, Rhode Island.
        "The Anatomy of a New England Coastal Community
    "
Richard E. Sullivan,Chairman
Warwick, Rhode Island
50th Anniversary Gaspee Days Maritime History Symposium
Friday, May 29th and Saturday, May 30th, 2015
Wyndham Garden Hotel, Providence RI

Participants and Topics:
Friday, May 29th:
•    6 pm: Welcomes and Introductions - Cocktail reception on the deck overlooking India Point and Providence Waterfront
•    7 pm: D. K. Abbass – Director, RI Marine Archaeology Project
"What's the Gaspee and What's Not, What's Passé and What's Hot, and Why the Public Should Care"
Saturday, May 30th
•    9 am: Marti Klein – California State University, Fullerton, Faculty, Department of Liberal Studies
"Temporary Mobility, Travel Narratives, and the ‘Pull’ of the Sea"
•    10 am: Christopher P. Magra – Assoc. Prof. of Early American History, Dept. of History, Univ. of Tennessee
“Seeing their trade distressed: Press Gangs, Profits, and Revolution"
•    11 am: Peter and David Emerick – Glovers Field Musick, Uxbridge, Mass.
“Lumps of Pudding, Pieces of Pie: Martial music of the 1770’s with a seafaring heritage"
•    1:30 pm: Joel Sokolsky, Prof of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, and David Manning, author of Global Arms Series
"The Newport Connection: A Study of the International Officers Program at the United States Naval War College"
•    2:30 pm: John Laurence Busch – Independent Historian
"Was It Something in the Water?: Connecticut’s Trailblazing Steamer Sons"
•    3:30 pm: Richard Bailey, Captain, and Jessica Wurzbacher, Executive Director,
Oliver Hazard Perry - Rhode Island
"SSV Oliver Hazard Perry - Where the past meets the future"
•    4:30 pm: John Concannon – Webmaster and historian, Gaspee Days Committee
"The Conspiracy to Destroy the Gaspee"
Symposium Chair & Moderator: Steven Park, PhD, Maritime Studies and History, and Director of Academic Services, University of Connecticut-Avery Point. Steven.Park@UConn.edu
Symposium Co-Chair: John Concannon, DO, FAAP, Web Historian, Gaspee Days Committee. JConcannon@gaspee.org 

 

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Rev. 6/2016   MarineSymposium.htm