Warwick, RI news and local guide

Warwick was settled in 1642 by Samuel Gorton, who bought the Shawomet Purchase, including today's Coventry and West Warwick, from the Narragansett sachem Miantonomi for 144 fathoms of wampum. The sachems Sacononoco and Pumham protested that Miantonomi had sold the land without their consent and placed their lands under Massachusetts rule, and in 1643 the Massachusetts Bay Colony sent militia to arrest Gorton and his followers, all but three of whom surrendered after a tense standoff. Gorton sailed to England and, with the help of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, obtained a charter, and the settlers renamed their colony from Shawomet to Warwick. Continued harassment from Massachusetts led the other Narragansett Bay settlements, Providence, Portsmouth and Newport, to unite with Warwick under a royal charter as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

More about Warwick

The town was devastated during King Philip's War in 1675 and 1676. In 1772 it was the scene of the Gaspee Affair, when local patriots boarded the Gaspee, a revenue cutter enforcing British trade laws in Narragansett Bay. The ship's commander, Lieutenant Dudingston, was shot and seriously wounded, an act described as the first blood spilled in the Revolution, and the ship was stripped of its guns and burned. During the war Warwick militiamen fought at Montreal, Quebec, Trenton, Saratoga and Monmouth and were present at the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Warwick is now Rhode Island's third-largest city, about 12 miles south of Providence. Sources Wikipedia: Warwick, Rhode Island