Gaspee Days Parade 2024 Photos: Spectacles, Music, Booms

WARWICK, RI — The 58th Gaspee Days parade proceeded under clear weather in the mid 70s, with spectacles, music and booms from musket and cannon fire for spectators among the procession, with a lot of smiles and fun among the crowd lining each side of Narragansett Parkway between Warwick and Cranston.

While this year marked the 58th 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 59th 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 fire, and throngs of parade watchers camped out on the side of the road with friends and family. It also featured Grand Marshal Dean Scanlon, owner of Revolution American Bistro in Cranston.

Here’s a look at the parade’s spectators and sights from the parade itself, starting with the crowd: