In an interview this morning with WPRO’s Gene Valicenti, Rhode Island Chief Marketing officer Betsy Wall admitted that she didn’t know what Gaspee Day is.
For those unfamiliar, Gaspee Day marks the anniversary of the burning of the HMS Gaspee on June 9, 1772. The Gaspee was a British customs schooner that was involved in the enforcement of customs collection and inspection of cargo. When the boat ran aground on June 9, the Sons of Liberty, an organization of American colonists whose purpose was to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government, boarded the British vessel, and burned it to the waterline.
The city of Warwick commemorates the incident every year with the Gaspee Days festival, one of the state’s biggest summer events, which Valicenti pointed out wasn’t mentioned on the site’s new website.
Listen to Valicenti’s full conversation with Wall below:
