Roger Williams

 

 Today we went to Providence, Rhode Island which is less than an hour north of Fort Adams State Park. We stopped at Roger Williams National Park. We learned that Roger Williams was a rebellious fellow who believed the immigrants from England should not take land away from the Native Americans. He also believed in separation of church and state. In Massachusetts, at that time, a man could not vote unless he owned land and belonged to a church. People in Massachusetts jailed Roger Williams for his outspoken beliefs. He fled in the cold of February and lived in the woods with the help of his native friends. Eventually he went to England and tried to get a charter to start a new state of Rhode Island. He was allowed to settle in Rhode Island and start the town of Providence. Roger's outlandish idea about the separation of church and state caught on and were latter written into the first amendment of our constitution. The children completed a workbook and were sworn in as junior rangers again. After visiting the national park and walking around Providence for an hour and watching the children jump in leaf piles for a half hour we moved on to Roger Williams Park. Inside this huge park we toured the museum of natural history. I took the photo of the black bear from the second story landing. The museum  had an abundance of stuffed bears and birds. Upstairs we went to the 1 o'clock show at the planetarium. We sat in a round dark room and looked up at the stars while the constellations were explained. The planetarium show was interesting but after being outside in the cold much of the morning, the comfortable seat, the relaxing atmosphere and the darkness, I felt myself moving beyond relaxing towards sleep. If the show had been longer than thirty minutes I might have taken a nap.