The Providence City Archives houses more than 24,000 cubic feet of archival material throughout the city, and only 75 percent of it has been accounted for thus far, so the possibility of finding something unique in our collection of the accumulated textual history of Providence’s 390-year-old past is likely. Case in point with our latest discovery: Henry Bowen’s Day Book.

From December 1774 to March 1776, Captain James Wallace of the British Navy patrolled Narragansett Bay.  He had two objectives:  first, to minimize smuggling that evaded imperial custom duties; and second, to procure supplies for the sailors on his ships and the British army troops controlling Boston.  In both goals, he largely succeeded—yet his intimidating pr...

In the Barneyville Historic District of Swansea, Massachusetts, near Old Providence Road and the Palmer River, there is a granite monument erected in 1912 with a bronze plaque that reads as follows:

NEAR THIS SPOT STOOD THE JOHN MYLES GARRISON HOUSE THE PLACE OF MEETING OF THE TROOPS OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY AND PLYMOUTH COLONIES . . . WHO MARCHED TO THE RELIEF OF SWAN...