Boat lovers know the importance of preparing for the summer boating season. How about preparing a historic longboat for parade season? The students from the Warwick Area Career and Tech Center Marine Trades satellite program housed at Warwick Veterans Memorial High School were presented with the opportunity to prepare a historic longboat not for the high seas, but for two prominent RI parades. The students led by instructor Chris Bianco saw it as a challenge.
The Genevieve was built in 1875 to celebrate the US Centennial. It is an authentic
re-creation of a Revolutionary era boat of the style that General George Washington used to cross the Delaware River in 1776. This boat appeared in the 1876 New York City parade honoring the 100th year of the United States. It has been passed down through the past 134 years among several Revolutionary era re-enactment groups and is now operated by The Rhode Island
Re-enactors, Incorporated, with Lt. Col. John Currier of the Pawtuxet Rangers militia being the curator, and who named the boat after his daughter.
The boat will be an integral part in celebrating the burning of the HMS Gaspee in 1772 during the upcoming Gaspee Days parade on June 13th, as well as the Bristol 4th of July parade. “We’ve always celebrated the men from Providence that rowed down to Warwick’s Namquid Point (now Gaspee Point) to destroy the Gaspee,” said Currier. “What many people don’t realize is that at least one, and possibly two, boatloads of men that attacked and burned that ship actually left from the docks of Bristol and Warren. This gives us a great opportunity to recognize those Rhode Island patriots from both sides of Narragansett Bay that surely risked a hangman’s noose should their identities ever have been discovered by the British.”
The Marine Trades Program is a fully-certified boat restoration center that allows Warwick area students the opportunity to receive expert training in all aspects of the boat-building, restoration, and maintenance that has, and will be, such an integral part of Rhode Island’s economy.
Further info:
John Currier: rinavy@juno.com
Christopher Bianco: biancoc@warwickschools.org
The Gaspee Days Committee
is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates many community events in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the Gaspee Days Parade each June. These events are all designed to commemorate the burning of the British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, by Rhode Island patriots in 1772 as America's
'First Blow for Freedom'®
