Warren Comfort Station

Burr’s Hill Park in Warren, Rhode Island, sits atop one of two Royal Burial Grounds for the Pokanoket Tribe, who occupied the area for 10,000 years. The Massasoit Osamequin, who met the Pilgrims in Plymouth and entered into a peace treaty in 1621 that lasted for half a century, was originally buried there in 1661. When a railroad was constructed next to the site in 1853, many graves were looted for sand and gravel. In 1913, librarian and amateur archaeologist Charles Carr exhumed the remaining 42 graves to protect them, donating artifacts to Brown University and the Heye Museum in New York City. Burial items were collected after 1990 by the Mashpee Tribe, and reburied at Burr’s Hill in a sealed vault in 2017. Today, a comfort station sits near Town Beach, accessible to swimmers and families. What they’re standing on: a repatriation story that took 104 years to complete.