Smiths Castle

The place called Cocumscussoc lies on land long used by the Narragansett people, one of the powerful nations of the region. In the 1630s Roger Williams, recently banished from Massachusetts and the founder of the new settlement at Providence, set up a trading post here to do business with them, exchanging European goods for furs and other trade.

Williams had an unusually close relationship with the Narragansett, learned their language, and wrote a book about it, and his dealings at Cocumscussoc were part of the network of trade and diplomacy that connected the young colony to its Native neighbors. He later sold his interest in the post to Richard Smith, whose family gave the place its name.

The Smith family built a substantial house and ran the surrounding land as a plantation, making Cocumscussoc one of the important early English holdings on the west side of Narragansett Bay.

In 1675 and 1676 the region was torn apart by King Philip's War, a devastating conflict between the New England colonies and an alliance of Native nations led by the Wampanoag leader Metacom, whom the English called King Philip. It was, in proportion to the population, one of the deadliest wars in American history.

Cocumscussoc played a direct part. In December 1675 a colonial army mustered at Smith's house before marching south to attack the Narragansett at the Great Swamp, in what became one of the bloodiest events of the war, a massacre of Narragansett men, women, and children in their fortified winter camp. Wounded colonial soldiers were carried back to the house afterward, and those who died were buried on the grounds, where a mass grave is still marked today.

The original house was burned during the war, and the building that stands now was raised in 1678 on the same site, so the present Smiths Castle rose directly out of that violent chapter of the region's history.

In the eighteenth century, the west side of Narragansett Bay developed a plantation economy unusual for New England, with large landholdings raising livestock, dairy, and crops for export, including to the sugar islands of the Caribbean. These Narragansett plantations relied heavily on enslaved labor.

Cocumscussoc was among them. Enslaved people of African descent, and at times enslaved and indentured Native people, lived and worked on the plantation, and the wealth of the estate depended on their labor. This is a part of Rhode Island history long overlooked, in a state whose merchants were also deeply involved in the transatlantic slave trade.

The museum today makes a point of telling this story, researching and naming the enslaved people connected to the site and presenting the plantation not as a romantic colonial estate but as a place whose comfort rested on bondage. It is one of the reasons the site matters: it confronts a history that much of New England has been slow to acknowledge.

The 1678 house is preserved as a museum, furnished and interpreted to reflect its long life across the colonial and early American periods. Guided tours walk visitors through the rooms and the many chapters of the site's history, from the trading post through the plantation era.

The grounds are open to walk, with gardens, old trees, and views over the tidal inlet of the bay, along with the marked grave of the colonial soldiers who died after the Great Swamp fight. Interpretive signage helps place what you are seeing in its historical setting.

Because it sits just north of the well-preserved colonial village of Wickford, a visit to Smiths Castle pairs naturally with a walk through that historic waterfront district, making for a full afternoon of early Rhode Island history.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.