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Living history speaker Ken Hamilton to examine Warwick’s Native American roots

| 30 Jul 2012 | 06:04
    Ken Hamilton, an expert on the Algonquian-speaking cultures of the northeast, is a 17th and 18th century Native ìWoodlandî interpreter. On Tuesday, Aug. 7, at the A.W. Buckbee Center, he will speak on Native American life that would have existed in the nearby and one-time Lenni-Lenape settlement ìMistuckyî at the southern end of the current Village of Warwick, as well as places like the Pochuck, Black Rock and Longhouse creeks, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Black Dirt.
    Ken Hamilton, an expert on the Algonquian-speaking cultures of the northeast, is a 17th and 18th century Native ìWoodlandî interpreter. On Tuesday, Aug. 7, at the A.W. Buckbee Center, he will speak on Native American life that would have existed in the nearby and one-time Lenni-Lenape settlement ìMistuckyî at the southern end of the current Village of Warwick, as well as places like the Pochuck, Black Rock and Longhouse creeks, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Black Dirt.

WARWICK — The Warwick Historical Society will host living history speaker Ken Hamilton on Tuesday, Aug. 7, at the A.W. Buckbee Center in Warwick.

Hamilton, an expert on the Algonquian-speaking cultures of the northeast, is a 17th and 18th century Native “Woodland” interpreter who will speak on Native American life and the material culture that would have existed in the nearby and one-time Lenni-Lenape settlement “Mistucky” at the southern end of the current Village of Warwick, as well as places like the Pochuck, Black Rock, and Longhouse creeks, Sugar Loaf Mountain, and the Black Dirt. By the 1780s, the last vestiges of Native American settlement consisted of five surviving inhabited wigwams near the town line on the current Colonial Avenue.

The talk will include a slide show and authentic trade objects from the period as well as historically accurate artifacts of Hamilton’s own making including axes, tomahawks, pipes and brooches.

Consultant to museums and films

Hamilton has provided the material culture for museum presentations like the Wapanoag Village at Plimoth Plantation and the William Johnson House in upstate New York, among others. His work has also included consultation and costume for such productions as Michael Mann’s “The Last of the Mohicans.”

Hamilton will be in Warwick to present an historical camp set-up, including a wigwam he will sleep in, and programming for the Warwick Historical Society’s Summer History Camp for Kids, which is scheduled for Aug. 6 through 10.

Hamilton is a professional interpreter who has developed programs for he presents at schools in Maine, New York and other states as well as sites like Fort Ticonderoga.

‘A treat to meet him’ A resident of Corinth, Me., Hamilton is an historical reproduction artist applying his skills in blacksmithing, stone carving, silversmithing, among others to create authentic colonial era material culture.

“At one outdoor history program for middle school students I organized in Maine in recent years,” said Historical Society director Dr. Robert Schmick, “Hamilton, dressed in authentic period Wabanaki costume, and having set up his camp of trade objects, birch bark canoe and the like next to a pond with beaver gnawed tree stumps, cast a spell over the whole group and transported us all back to the northeastern frontier of the 18th century. It’s a treat to meet him.”

Essential information Ken Hamilton’s program will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 7, at the A.W. Buckbee Center.

The historical society’s A.W. Buckbee Center is situated in the old Albert Wisner Library at 2 Colonial Ave. in Warwick.

Refreshments served. Suggested admission:$10.

Proceeds to benefit the 501c3 nonprofit.