Gaspee Days Parade 2025: Historic Scenes, No Kings

CRANSTON, RI —  Saturday’s No Kings rallies in Rhode Island coincided with Warwick’s OG No Kings protest, Gaspee Days, with Gaspee Days 5K and the 59th Gaspee Days parade, drawing spectators to the drizzly two-mile stretch of Narragansett Parkway.

While this year marked the 59th parade to march past Pawtuxet Park since 1965 when the Gaspee Days Committee began annual celebrations of the historic “First blow for freedom,” marking the start of the Revolutionary War with the burning of British revenue schooner HMS Gaspee, It’s the 60th year. The parade and all Gaspee Days events were cancelled in 2020  during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the risk of spreading COVID-19 in large groups, prior to widespread vaccination against the disease. The parade returned in 2021, after vaccinations had begun among high-risk communities in December 2020.

This year’s event featured sights, music, musket and cannon firings, and throngs of parade watchers camped out on the side of the road with friends and family. It also featured Grand Marshal Rev. Robert L. Marciano.

Historic marching units, costumed in period attire, a staple of the decades-old parade, included the Kentish Guards, chartered by the Colony of Rhode Island on Oct. 29, 1774,  the 5th oldest military organization in continuous service in the United States. Also marching as usual were the Pawtuxet Rangers, chartered in 1774 to protect the seaport of Pawtuxet, and throughout the Revolutionary War.